With the President and the unaccountable regulatory agencies joined by the Supreme Court in declaring Congress to be irrelevant in governing America, it is time for Congress to raise itself up from the dead and reestablish itself as the sole creator of new laws. Given that too many in Congress have gone along with this massive Presidential (and regulatory) power grab, this may require sweeping out a lot of dead wood from both chambers.
James Rust, taking a note from Peter Glover's article about Russian energy imperialism, suggests the U.S. should step up its own energy production and liberalize our oil and gas export laws to provide Europe with the means to thwart Russia's bold geopolitical strategy. Of course, the Europeans might do well to reverse their own anti-energy-production policies. The key is to remember that fossil fuels production is a manufacturing process that drives economic growth.
Marita Noon notes that the Obama Administration, responding to Big Green billionaires, has stepped up his emphasis on climate policy just as Secretary of State John Kerry is calling climate change a "weapon of mass destruction." While Obama is spending a billion taxpayer dollars, Green billionaire Tom Steyer is throwing another $100 million into the 2014 elections to support candidates who will vote the alarmist line. Yet Noon sees this new power play by Democrats as an opportunity for the opposition to cash in on resentment of higher energy prices and higher prices for consumer goods due to higher energy prices.
President Obama pledged that under his administration electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket -- presumably so that wind and solar could become more acceptable financially as alternatives. The problem, notes Professor Larry Bell, is that renewable energy does not work that well with the existing power grid system in the U.S. To accommodate increasing wind and solar, Germany will have to spend up to $96 billion in transmission and distribution system upgrades in the next decade. Imagine what the cost would be for the U.S., with is massively larger population and acreage.
With domestic oil and natural gas production soaring thanks to fracking, the nation is taking a harder look at subsidies and mandates for so-called "Green" energy. EPA for the first time proposed to reduce the amount of ethanol that has to be added to gasoline. An Arizona state agency just added a $5.00 monthly fee for solar customers to help pay for use and maintenance of the state's power grid. And 52 House members have signed a letter calling for the end of the wind production tax credit just as the sixth 20,000-pound turbine blade broke off in Illinois and sent shrapnel 1,500 feet away from the turbine hub -- two to three times the legal setbacks for homes and highways.
Is taxpayer money spent on Green energy hurting both the economy and environment? Well that’s the assertion of economists from the group PERC, who in a recent study found that for every $100 billion a government spends on so-called “clean energy,” that nation’s GDP is likely to decrease by nearly a half a percent.
After Denmark (Europe's star wind energy performer), Germany boasts (sic!) the highest power costs in Europe -- Danes and Germans alike pay about 300% more than Americans for electric power that is increasingly unreliable. The Australians, who had charted a similar course, threw out their Green government. But what will Americans do?
Greens carp about fracking, partly because it uses some water (up to 6.0 gal/MMBtu of energy produced). Yet they champion ethanol, which uses up to 29,000 gal/MMBtu, and biodiesel (up to 74,000 gal/MMBtu). Is this mere Green hypocrisy, or Greenback Greed? It is well past time to end the mandates and the subsidies for ethanol and biodiesel.
When Presidential candidate Barack Obama said in 2008 that under his energy plan, "electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket," he wasn't kidding! His new EPA carbon capture scheme is not designed to work but to force coal plants to shut down forever.
Australians threw out the government that forced the carbon tax upon them as soon as they got the chance. Who will learn from the Aussie example?
EPA’s primary role is to confirm what was already laid out by statute in terms of annual volumes of biofuels. That so called “renewable fuels schedule” established in 2005 and update in 2007 requires an ever increasing amount of biofuel to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply until the total hits 36 billion gallons in 2022. Those volumes, however, are completely unrealistic – a fact even EPA recognizes.
With nearly 300 power plants scheduled to be shut down in the next few years, and with environmentalists both opposing any form of electricity generation that is effective, efficient, and economical and to mining the raw materials needed to build the wind turbines, solar arrays and other "renewables" they claim to want—only one conclusion can be made: Environmentalists want you powerless.
The more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more it is absorbed by plants of every description – and the faster and better they grow, even under adverse conditions like limited water, extremely hot air temperatures, or infestations of insects, weeds and other pests. As trees, grasses, algae and crops grow more rapidly and become healthier and more robust, animals and humans enjoy better nutrition on a planet that is greener and greener.
Since 2009 American taxpayers have shelled out $14 billion in cash payments to solar, wind and other renewable energy project developers. This includes $9.2 billion to 748 small and large wind projects, and $2.7 billion to more than 44,000 solar projects, which will add just 48 terawatt- hours of electricity. Just as in Europe, without all that help, U.S. wind and solar wouldn’t have survived, and very likely won’t in the future. In December 2010 the Wall Street Journal reported American Wind Energy Association CEO Dennis Bode warning that without the extension of the Federal 1603 grant program investment credit, the wind industry would “flat line” or slope downward.
Oil depletion allowances, the first category, principally apply to small independent producers, with similar benefits available for all mineral extraction, timber industries, etc., allowing them to pass the depletion on to individual investors. Large integrated corporations haven’t been eligible for these since the mid-1970s. Expensing indirect drilling costs involves writing off expenses in the year incurred rather than capitalizing them and writing them off over several years. Closing this “loophole” would only change the timing of taking he expense, not the total amounts of the so-called “subsidy.” The third category, a tax credit for taxes paid to foreign nations, is available for all international companies. This provides an offset to foreign taxes, often paid as royalties, so that the companies aren’t taxed twice on the same income.