CFACT research and commentary published in major newspapers.
The Santa Fe New Mexican’s headline for Hansen’s visit was: “A steep energy tax to curb global warming.” Perhaps Hansen was tipping his hand, confirming the rumor that Obama will approve the long-delayed, but much-needed Keystone pipeline if Congress will approve a carbon tax. Tit for tat.
Is it just me? Or do you detect some eco-sanctimonious hypocrisy in much of the “save the planet” anti-fossil crusading that is going around as well?
One of the most successful Sue and Settle strategies cited in a U.S. Chamber of Commerce study “… has been on an issue few in Washington or around the nation are paying attention to: regional haze requirements under the Clean Air Act.” The Chamber study’s author, William Yeatman, concluded that: “… no state is immune from having its rightful Regional Haze authority trampled by EPA at profound costs for virtually nonexistent benefits.”
Instead of more Solyndras and Chevy Volts, we would prefer the 800,000 barrels of oil a day and the estimated 343,000 new U.S. jobs by 2015 if Keystone XL is allowed to proceed.
Senator Mark Warner asked CFACT via the National Journal: “How will energy productivity jump start the economy?” Let us count the ways!
What redemptive solutions are urgently implored to combat this phantom “global warming,” or rather, “climate change”? We must give lots of money to the UN to redistribute; abandon fossil fuel use in favor of heavily subsidized but assuredly abundant, “free”, and “renewable” alternatives; and expand federal government growth, regulatory powers, and crony capitalist-enriched political campaign coffers.
National Journal: President Obama avoided global warming throughout the long presidential campaign, but it reemerged in his victory and inaugural speeches like a nasty surprise from a Trojan horse.
What should Washington due about warming? Harken to Hippocrates and “first, do no harm.” From CFACT’s considered perspective, Washington should find the courage to do nothing
Much of the scary climate stuff gleefully trumpeted by the global media comes from the UN’s IPCC, a highly politicized organization that does not actually carry out any original climate research. Instead, it simply issues assessments based upon supposedly independent surveys of published research. However, some of its most influential conclusions that are summarized in its reports have neither been based upon truly independent research, nor properly vetted through accepted peer- review processes.
EPA claims that fine particulate matter at levels above 12 micrograms per cubic meter kills people within hours and causes a quarter of all U.S. deaths, but during a recent episode in China when fine PM levels were 89 times higher than the EPA standard, the only deaths attributed to the episode were from traffic accidents due to poor visibility. EPA is using this fraud to shut down coal power plants, creating higher energy costs that really do cause premature deaths among America’s poor.
If coal is good for the Navajo Nation, the Crow Tribe, and other Native Americans, then it should be okay for the rest of us. Coal warms our homes and provides good jobs and does not need billion-dollar subsidies just to try to break even.
Renowned energy expert Robert Bryce: “Over the past six decades, the fracturing process has been used more than 1 million times on American oil and gas wells. If it were as dangerous as the anti-drilling/anti-hydraulic fracturing crowd claims, then hundreds, perhaps thousands, of water wells would have been contaminated by now.”
IPI Executive Director Michael Livermore demands that the EPA “make a finding” that transportation emissions might endanger public welfare, “propose a cap-and-trade system” for transportation fuels, find that aircraft fuels “endanger” public health, “propose a joint rulemaking with the Federal Aviation Administration” to include aircraft fuels in the cap-and-trade scheme, and finalize the regulations within 90 days!
National Journal: The U.S. has a $16 trillion national debt that is growing nearly exponentially. Precious federal dollars ought not be wasted to promote production of high-cost energy. Let the wind production tax credit expire with the old year.
CFACT in the Washington Times: EPA is ready to unleash its first wave of carbon-dioxide regulations. Congress wants to tax hydrocarbons and carbon-dioxide. The UN is trying to devise a new treaty to regulate energy at the international level. Even one of these actions would send shock waves through the economy. All three would be devastating.
The real danger is treaties, laws, regulations and taxes imposed in the name of preventing global-warming catastrophes that exist only in computer models, horror movies and environmentalist press releases. These political schemes will exacerbate and perpetuate poverty, disease, unemployment and economic stagnation.
Aside from the fact that someone (Al Gore, international bankers and their kin) will make a killing off any carbon trading schemes – and that the UN bureaucracy is seeking to pad its own employment rolls and pocketbooks – the sad reality is that none of the shenanigans at Doha (or at any previous or future UNFCCC dog and pony show) is likely to improve the well-being of the billions of humans in so-called developing countries one whit.
It appears evident that our nation’s abundant
supply of natural gas in combination with practical advantages afforded most
particularly for LNG long-haul trucking applications will continue to become
more and more attractive over time, expanding the infrastructure and driving
down vehicle production costs through economies of scale.
A suit filed in federal court charges the Environmental Protection Agency with conducting illegal and potentially lethal experiments on hundreds of financially needy people who were paid $12/hour without even informing them of risks. Based upon thousands of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, procedures undertaken since 2004 and continuing through the Obama administration exposed subjects at the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine to very high levels of toxic air pollutants.
When American voters reelected President Obama, they also returned his EPA, Interior and Energy Departments, and wide-ranging agenda for “fundamentally transforming” our nation. This will mean not only cementing Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, higher taxes, and rampant spending. It will also bring more disputes over energy and environmental regulations, the vanguard of Mr. Obama’s determined campaign to eliminate hydrocarbons that power our economy and embrace more “green” energy. The conflict will be fought primarily on six battlegrounds.
There’s a lot more at stake for America on November 6th than Sesame Street or free contraceptives for female grad students. Like, for example, whether or not anti-carbon regulatory obstructionism based upon flawed science and crony politics will continue to escalate energy costs, kill jobs, and sabotage success-proven free market competition.