Blog Archive for March, 2011
Upton honored by U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, who notably reversed his stance on regulating carbon emissions in his fight for chair of the House energy committee earlier this year, has received an award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Upton is the winner of the “Spirit of Enterprise” award for, among other things, “standing firmly against overreaching regulations and job-destroying mandates.”
The U.S. Chamber is one of the groups Upton reportedly met with, along with Sen. James Inhofe, to craft a strategy to to block EPA regulation of greenhouse gases.
The Chamber gives Upton a score of 93% for voting along with their issues. But despite Upton’s turnaround on climate rules, that score is consistent with Chamber ratings from previous years.
Obama energy speech elicits a collective ‘meh’
A roundup of reaction to Obama’s energy speech today. I’ll add more as I see them.
Bryan Walsh, Time Magazine:
…it’s a mark of how stagnant our energy policy has gotten that Obama was able to offer little more than he had a year ago. In fact, he could offer less. Last year there was at least a chance that the country could have both increased drilling, and a long-term carbon price. Now, for the most part, just the drilling remains, along with a suite of familiar policies … Obama pledged to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil by one-third in a decade, but offered little new in the way to get there.
Andrew Revkin, New York Times:
It’s a creditable speech, emphasizing the need for responsible extraction of natural gas and safe production of nuclear power. It includes a rebuke (a tad too mild, to my eye) to those in Congress who see the status quo as energy policy. But there are “same-old” lines on biofuels and no mention of the need for Americans, as a patriotic responsibility at the very least, to reconsider energy habits.
Ezra Klein, Washington Post:
The truth is that the Obama administration’s energy policy looks more like Sarah Palin’s applause lines than the cap-and-trade program it advocated during the election. That’s not because the White House wouldn’t prefer the plan it pushed in 2008 to the plan it’s pushing in 2011. Congress, not the administration, opposes to cap-and-trade. But we are where we are, and there’s no use dressing it up. You can put lipstick on “drill, baby, drill,” but it’s still “drill, baby, drill.”
David Roberts, Grist (technically a pre-reaction, more to come later):
I really do think that energy security is an area where Obama could make waves. A muscular climate-hawk stance on energy security could shake up some stale partisan debates and generate some new coalitions. But that’s not going to happen if Obama takes this half-ass approach.
Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones:
I have very little faith that the House and Senate can come to an agreement on even minor policy on this—even if Obama had said all the right things in the speech.
Deja vu all over again
Today, President Obama will announce a plan to reduce oil imports by a third. I think most people will agree that’s a laudable goal.
But at the risk of sounding cynical, it’s probably worth revisiting the Daily Show’s brilliant reminder from last summer that we’ve heard this one before:
Upton still pushing EPA myths
In a column today in the Kalamazoo Gazette, Rep. Fred Upton repeats several oft-debunked falsehoods about EPA greenhouse gas regulation.
In the column, he suggests that the agency is “attempting to grant itself new authority” to “impose a cap-and-trade agenda.”
In reality, the agency is only doing what it is required to do under the law. The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA had to make an endangerment analysis of greenhouse gases. The EPA concluded that global warming caused by greenhouse gases would be harmful, which meant the agency had to regulate the gases under the Clean Air Act.
Nor will the agency’s rules in any way resemble cap-and-trade. Grist’s David Roberts explained this much more eloquently a few months ago:
EPA could have done what most economists agree is the sensible thing and established a cap-and-trade program on its own. … Of course, that would have been politically explosive too.
… Instead EPA is taking a cautious approach, getting at greenhouse gases largely through performance standards that, by the agency’s own avowal, will mostly require upgrades in efficiency (which often as not will make money for participating facilities).
In short, given its legal mandate to address greenhouse gases, EPA is acting with about as much caution and restraint as it possibly can, short of doing what the Bush administration did, which was dissemble and delay.
Upton also repeatedly links EPA greenhouse gas rules to rising gasoline prices, a claim which was debunked by PolitiFact earlier this month:
There’s no proof that the law would actually stop gas prices from rising. The added regulations now being planned may hamper U.S. refiners, but the international free market could just as easily end up keeping refining costs low. And it’s hardly assured that any changes in refining costs — up or down — will influence gasoline prices, which are subject to a wide array of influences. We find their claim False.
Roberts also addressed this question, and made a salient prediction:
Upton said the other day that blocking regulations on electric power plants would lower the price of gasoline, which Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) rightly called “one of the most pathetically, economically invalid arguments ever made in human history.” Its pathetic invalidity will not stop Upton from saying it over and over again, and the press from dutifully passing it on.
(Emphasis mine.)
Photo by republicanconference via Creative Commons
‘The Simpsons’ and nuclear power
It’s probably a safe bet that jokes about nuclear meltdowns and radiation poisoning aren’t going to go over too well right now.
And so, according to Entertainment Weekly, networks in several European countries are pulling episodes of “The Simpson” that contain references to nuclear disaster.
Al Jean, the show’s producer, supports the move:
“We have 480 episodes, and if there are a few that they don’t want to air for awhile in light of the terrible thing going on, I completely understand that,” says Jean, citing the previous example of the 1997 episode “Homer Versus the City of New York” that was pulled after 9/11 because it included key scenes at the World Trade Center. “We would never make light of what’s happening in Japan.”
The show’s creators clearly acknowledge its influence on public perception of nuclear power. In this clip from the show’s 20th anniversary special, Morgan Spurlock (you remember – the guy who ate all those Big Macs) asks nuclear engineers what they think about the various cultural touchstones that have emerged from “The Simpsons” portrayals of their industry.
Clearly, these guys can’t get enough of Blinky the three-eyed fish.
In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Jean defended the show’s treatment of the topic.
“There is something that taps into people’s view of big business, and in particular, nuclear power, which is giving profit-minded people complete control over life and death. It is a scary thought, and I think that is a topic for satire.”
Americans blame climate change, not God, for storms
A new survey finds Americans are more likely to attribute increasing severity of natural disasters to climate change, rather than a wrathful God.
The Public Religion Research Institute surveyed 1,000 people in March. The poll found that:
PRRI says, not surprisingly, that white Evangelicals and Republicans are a departure from this pattern.
Climate scientists have long warned that increased heat and moisture in the atmosphere will lead to more severe weather. And recently, scientists have developed methodology that quantifies the role of global warming in isolated weather events.
The findings are particularly interesting given recent polls finding declining concern about climate change among Americans.
(h/t Denver Post, via Politico’s Morning Energy)
Photo by Peter Baer via Creative Commons
Colbert on the nuclear crisis
Ever notice how a major environmental disaster never seems to be “the right time” to talk about preventing environmental disasters?
Behold:
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word – Over-Reactor | ||||
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Keeping up with the Joneses
Cedar Crest, the Kansas governor's mansion, outside Topeka.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback wants a wind turbine at the governor’s mansion.
Brownback, a former U.S. Senator, is staunchly conservative, but has been supportive of tapping the state’s vast wind power reserves, and backed a federal renewable energy standard proposal while in Congress (however, he also notably campaigned against wind development in the scenic Flint Hills area of eastern Kansas — and yes, there are scenic areas in Kansas).
The idea to put up a wind turbine at the governor’s mansion called to mind the iconic oil rig in front of the Oklahoma state capitol – a counterpoint of sorts, energy future vs. the energy past and that sort of thing.
But it turns out that Oklahoma is also the first state in the U.S. to install a wind turbine at its governor’s mansion — a 10 kW project completed last May. A similar turbine went up on the capitol grounds a few weeks later.
Solar panels have been installed on state capitols in Wisconsin, Colorado and Oregon.
There’s nothing unusual about renewable energy projects at public buildings. But there’s a high level of symbolism to putting up a wind turbine at the governor’s mansion or the state capitol.
And the fact that the first states to make such a visible statement about wind power are also among the most conservative in the U.S. is further proof that the politics of renewable energy don’t break as cleanly along red/blue lines as some would have you believe.
Photo by Jimmy Emerson via Creative Commons
Mileage tax: Good or bad?
Should the freeway be free?
A recent story about a pilot study for a mileage tax in Iowa prompted a couple of negative reactions on our Facebook page.
Why a mileage tax? Because as cars get more efficient, revenue from fuel taxes isn’t keeping pace with the costs of road infrastructure. Drivers of hybrid and electric vehicles are essentially exempted from paying for their share of the roadway.
Many would say this is a feature, not a bug. There’s a persistent argument that a tax on miles driven, rather than on fuel consumed, would eliminate an incentive for people to buy more fuel-efficient cars.
I’m not so sure about that.
For starters, consider that buying a fuel-efficient car isn’t always a purely rational economic decision. Some researchers found that hybrid owners, for instance, are primarily motivated by the identity and image the cars project — just like the Jeep owner who never leaves the pavement but still wants people to think he’s adventurous.
And even if you eliminated the gasoline tax and replaced it with a mileage tax, there’s still a financial incentive to buy the more fuel-efficient car, because either way, you’re still spending less money on gas. State and federal gasoline taxes average about 50 cents per gallon — if those taxes went away today, gas would still be more than $3 a gallon, and local TV newscasters would still be hyperventilating about it.
The purely pragmatic will stick with the economy car because it’s cheaper to purchase, maintain and insure. And the person plunking down $40,000 for a Chevy Volt can probably afford to disregard a slight reduction in the price of gas.
To be sure, any proposed mileage tax would be politically unpopular, because it would involve installing a GPS or other tracking device in cars, which raises obvious privacy concerns. The goal of the Iowa study was to see if participants would eventually get over fears that “Big Brother” was watching their every move.
But should such technology become widespread, it opens up all sorts of possibilities for encouraging fuel conservation.
The whole point of the mileage tax is to ensure that all road users are paying for their share of road repairs and maintenance. So wouldn’t it only be fair to assess drivers of heavy, less efficient vehicles at a higher rate? After all, they do more damage to the roadway. Many states already charge higher registration fees based on weight.
You could also theoretically charge different rates for different roads at different times of day. Imagine the ability to impose real-time congestion pricing on every freeway in America — a concept that, in London, has resulted in reduced traffic and improved transit service. The data would also make it possible for insurance companies to reward drivers who avoid peak driving times with lower rates.
One could argue that the gasoline tax already does a lot of these things, and that’s pretty much my point. Raising the gas tax has been a political non-starter for years, so if a mileage tax becomes more palatable to the public (and I’m not suggesting it necessarily will be), and we end up with an equitable way to make people pay for the roads while still creating incentives to drive less, what’s not to love?
Photo by drain via Creative Commons
