In a taped message shown yesterday to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Governors Global Climate Summit,” President-elect Barack Obama reiterated much of the same rhetoric from the campaign trail: a federal cap-and-trade system, cutting carbon emissions by 80% by 2020, $15 billion a year in new spending, and 5 million new green jobs. The globe-trotting delegates at the posh Beverly Hills conference swallowed every word. London-based Climate Group chief executive Steve Howard told attendees: “It looks as if we’re about to have a climate emissions Terminator in Washington.” Let’s leave aside …
For all of Barack Obama’s trouble telling the truth, he always feels free to speak his mind whenever he is in San Francisco. In April, Obama told a room full of wealthy San Franciscans what he thought of rural Americans, calling them bitter people who cling to guns and religion. Now, in a recently discovered audiotape from his meeting with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board, Obama admits he wants to bankrupt the coal industry, and that his energy policies will cause consumers’ electricity rates to “skyrocket.” Here are the …
Barack Obama’s energy adviser Jason Grumet told Bloomberg last week that an Obama administration would not “insert political judgments to interrupt the recommendations of the scientific efforts.” His promise was made in reference to the Environmental Protection Agency’s impending decision on whether or not to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Later in that same interview Grumet also said: “The EPA is obligated to move forward in the absence of congressional action. If there’s no action by Congress in those 18 months, I think any responsible president …
California’s Air Resources Board issued its final draft of an economy-wide plan that would slash the state’s emissions about 15% below today’s level by 2020. California voters and state legislators will not get to vote on the plan. Just like the EPA’s power grab at the federal level, unelected government officials already hold the fate of the entire economy in their hands. The Air Resource Board can turn its plan into law by its own vote this December. The environmental left is making fantastic claims to justify this unprecedented expansion …
According to the best sources on Capitol Hill, opposition to the financial rescue plan is wilting. This is good news for the American people. Action to address the credit crunch is urgently needed and both the addition of raising the FDIC insured funds cap to $250,000 and the SEC’s mark-to-market rule change make the total effort more effective. Unfortunately, the cost of getting enough votes to support the plan has been very high. The Senate bill contains “billions in earmarks” and Citizens Against Government Waste’s Tom Schatz told USA Today, …
Just this week 10 Northeastern states conducted the first cap-and-trade auction for greenhouse gasses in the United States. While the compliant press portrayed the event as an unmitigated victory for the pro-carbon capping movement, the important thing to remember is that while the 10 states involved (Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland New York, New Jersey, Delaware and New Hampshire) did raise $40 million in revenue, not a single ounce of carbon has been reduced yet. Back in the European Union, their carbon caps are just beginning to kick …
At the G8 Summit in Japan, there was much talk about global warming, and considerable self-congratulation over the agreement among member nations to reduce greenhouse gas emission by 50% by 2050. There were also predictable cries from environmentalists that this target was not sufficiently stringent or legally binding. But negotiations about future targets miss the point. Rather than setting new goals, member nations should be looking at whether current goals are being met, and if not, whether a different approach is warranted. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the multilateral treaty that …
They waited until well after the debate over Lieberman-Warner in the Senate was over, but the New York Times finally reported today that Europe’s carbon capping scheme is not working. James Kanter writes: This week, the European Environment Agency reported that emissions from factories and plants that trade pollution permits rose 0.4 percent in 2006 over the previous year, and 0.7 percent in 2007, the first two years of the system’s operations. … European Union officials acknowledge that establishing such a vast market has been more complicated than they expected. …
The Heritage Foundation is no big fan of central planning or government subsidies. So while we commend John McCain for recognizing that nuclear energy ought to have a role in U.S. energy policy, we do not believe the federal government should be setting arbitrary targets like 45 or 100 nuclear power plants in X number of years. Instead the government should focus on providing the adequate oversight and sound regulatory environment for the private nuclear market to flourish. That said, the numbers that McCain did throw out, are a good …
Eager to protect Democratic senators from coal-producing and heavy industrial states, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was expected to pull the Lieberman-Warner carbon-cap bill from the Senate floor today – and Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) says it’s not coming back. This is a major, but temporary, victory for conservatives. And it is worth reviewing why we won this battle, so we will be ready when the left tries to force similar policy on Americans in the future. We Exposed the Truth Lieberman-Warner, and the “cap and trade” policy it seeks …
