The day after the House voted to pass Obamacare, the New York Times declared “a triumph.” A few days later, President Obama told Iowa liberals that Obamacare is a “victory” and said the left has prevailed “after a century of trying.” But how can a policy that buries the nation further into debt, strengthens the federal government, and undermines the very essence of our national character be labeled anything other than a dismal failure? It cannot. Obamacare fails the American people. And it won’t end with health care. The left …
As oil prices steadily rise, many oil and gas experts fear higher prices could stunt economic recovery, not just in the United States but around the globe. From the Financial Times: This week oil climbed to $87 a barrel, its highest level since October 2008 and prompted concerns that triple-digit crude was once again in the offing. This was after a period of eight months when oil traded between $70 and $80, a narrow band that pleased oil producers without hurting consumers too much. The latest surge seems to have …
California legislators passed a statewide cap and trade bill in 2006 that is set to begin in 2012, but a growing opposition is seeking to include a ballot measure that would postpone a carbon cap until the state’s economy recovers: “The ballot measure would bar the state from implementing the law until its jobless rate stabilized at or below 5.5% for a year, which supporters say would signal the return of a strong economy. The state’s jobless rate topped 5.5% in October 2007 and now stands at 12.5%. Supporters and …
Rajendra Pachauri , chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), responded to the errors exposed in the IPCC report saying that “Scientists are demonised because of one error in 3000 pages of evidence.” Truth be told, there were several errors uncovered in the report including questionable sources in the assessment of mountain ice reduction in the Andes, Alps and Africa as well as acknowledged overstating crop loss in Africa, Amazon rain forest depletion, sea level increases in the Netherlands. But Pachauri only acknowledges that the Himalayan glaciers will …
The Washington Post asks: “What does it mean for a nation to be energy independent? Is it realistic and if so how should that be achieved?” Energy Independence is a mixed bag — both good and bad energy policy ideas are promoted under its banner. The bad outweighs the good, and in any event energy independence shouldn’t supplant free markets as the overarching principle for sound energy policy. Among the few good ideas spurred by the desire to achieve energy independence is expanding domestic energy production. As it is, the …
Can the Obama administration’s desperate attempts to cover their true far left nature with centrist rhetoric and promises become any more transparent? Yesterday, the President announced “an expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration” in selected areas off the coasts of the United States. The President claims this announcement was made “in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs,” but nobody believes him. Just take a quick look at today’s newspaper reporting: The Los Angeles Times: “President Obama … unveiled a controversial offshore drilling plan Wednesday that was driven …
From the New York Times Green, Inc Blog: The banking giant HSBC removed two companies involved in carbon trading from its Climate Change Index on Monday because they had lost too much value. Analysts from HSBC said the cause was mainly that governments had failed to come up with a timetable for a global climate deal at the United Nations summit in Copenhagen in December. “Carbon trading was the major loser from Copenhagen,” HSBC analysts said in their March 2010 Quarterly Index Review. ‘Cap and trade needs hard targets and …
As the Obama administration makes it clear they want to pursue a carbon capping policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the French government announced that it would abandon plans to impose a similar carbon tax on domestic energy and transportation fuels. The reason for the French government’s change of tune is obvious. Sarkozy’s party knows that the carbon tax, which would have raised gasoline prices by 17 cents per gallon and domestic gas bills by 7 percent, would have significantly harmed the intra-continental and international competitiveness of French businesses and …
Last Friday, Van Jones debated Andy Morriss, Law Professor at the University of Illinois in The Economist on the topic of green jobs. Surprisingly, Morriss says, there’s one thing we can all agree on: Van Jones and I agree that ‘the private sector, not the government, can and must be the main driver in creating green jobs.’ We agree that government subsidies for coal, oil and nuclear power are a serious problem. With the exceptions of their sentiments on corn-based ethanol and the need for innovation, the agreement stops there. …
Having failed to convince the country that we should reorder one-sixth of our economy (health care) in one fell swoop, liberals in the Administration and Congress are now doubling down and moving on to the next big thing. This time it’s the transformation of everything, through climate legislation. One could almost stand agape, admiring the boldness of the overreach, were not so much prosperity at stake. The latest attempt to force the U.S. economy to turn away from readily available, affordable fuels and leaving it to the tender mercies of …
