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October 10, 2009
Exclusive: Oval Office Watch – Saturday, October 10
Reps. Tom Price and Mike Coffman: No Compromise on Afghanistan SEE HERE.
Cap and Trade Looms Large
Michael S. Coffman Ph. D., NewsWithViews.com
By a vote of 219-212 on June 26, the US House of Representatives passed the mind numbing 1200 page American Clean Energy Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454). Since it was first introduced on May 15, very little discussion was allowed. “We're taking decisive and historic action,” said the committee Chairman Henry Waxman, (D-CA). Waxman is responsible for piloting the bill through the House along with his co-sponsor, Ed Markey (D-MA). While Waxman may be right that the bill is decisive and historic, most economists claim it is a massive energy tax under the guise of protecting the environment. It will give us large reductions in our standard of living, huge job losses and a radical turn toward big government with a corresponding loss of individual freedom.
The Waxman-Markey bill is a cap and trade bill similar to what most European Nations imposed in 2005. The bill imposes a declining ceiling, or cap, on greenhouse gas emissions – primarily carbon dioxide (CO2) over the next 40 years. This reduction amounts to 3 percent below 2005 levels by 2012, 17 percent by 2020, 42 percent by 2030, and 83 percent by 2050. Each regulated industry is given a percentage of the allocated “allowances” defined for the cap that year. The remaining percentage will be auctioned off, with revenues going to the federal government. In other words, it is a hidden tax.
Cap and trade allows industries like the electric power sector to buy and sell carbon credits. Thus a company can continue to emit high levels of CO2 above the cap by buying credits from more efficient companies whose emissions are below the cap. That’s the theory anyway. It turns out the application is far worse. Carbon credits can be bought and sold on the stock market, where mega profits will be made by speculators, hedge funds – the same characters that brought us the global economic crisis.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the cost per family to only be $175 per year. EPA’s estimate is even lower than that. However, the Heritage Foundation analyzed the CBO/ EPA computations and found that they conveniently left out major economic costs. Although the Heritage Foundation stopped short of accusing these government agencies of cooking the books to minimize the economic costs, their own computations showed the cost to be a minimum of $1,288 per year for an average family of three and $1,900 for a family of four.
Worse, the Heritage projections do not include losses due to unintended consequences and lost opportunity costs. When these are included, the costs for a family-of-four escalate to an average of $2979 per year over the 2012-2035 timeframe. By 2035 the cost is $3609 per year. In the meantime the federal government will have raked in $6.5 trillion. Waxman-Markey dwarfs TARP and the Stimulus Plan. Of course, the poor get hit the hardest.
In practice, increased energy costs would be much higher in the East, Midwest and rustbelt where energy intensive, coal-fired power producers and fuel oil heating predominate. Not surprisingly, Congressional Democrats representing these regions are cool to the idea that their constituents would be hit the hardest. To get them on board, Waxman diluted the bill giving special allowances and exemptions to the utilities in these states to soften the blow. The bill also allows up to 1.5 billion tons of international emission reductions, or “offsets,” to companies that they can purchase instead of reducing their own emissions each year. An additional 1 billion tons of offsets are also available for purchase from US sources that capture and sequester CO2 in some manner.
The operative word here is “purchase.” These companies can purchase these offsets or credits, the cost of which is passed on to the consumer – with absolutely no reduction in carbon emissions. It is a scam of unbelievable proportions. Companies like Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management fund are purchasing companies like Camco International Ltd that sequester carbon. These parasites are positioning themselves to earn billions in profit from the scam at the expense of the consumer, with absolutely no benefit to society or the environment.
By June, there were four of these lobbyists for every Congressman proclaiming how the nation must have this legislation to stop global warming. Nowhere in their dazzling propaganda, however, does it mention that at the very best, such a draconian hit on our economy would lower earth’s temperature by less than 0.09oC by 2050. This gives new meaning to economic pain with no climate gain.
The exemptions and offsets so diluted the bill that environmentalists decried that there would be no net reduction in CO2 emissions until 2030. Therein lays the weakness of cap and trade. It is a system begging for corruption. Politicians can grant special dispensations to those they favor, and penalize those they don’t. Faceless bureaucrats arbitrarily define the emission caps for specific industries and businesses. Pass a few bucks under the table and you get special treatment.
This type of corruption is what has happened in the European Union. So many exemptions have been made to favored industries that it has turned the entire carbon emission reduction effort into a fiasco. Not only has there been no reduction in the EU’s carbon emissions in the four years the EU has imposed cap and trade, emission rates have actually accelerated at a faster rate than those of the US. Nations are even giving rebates to industries whose energy costs are skyrocketing in an attempt to keep them from fleeing to foreign soils. Meanwhile all these machinations cost huge sums of money. Who pays for it? The taxpayers and consumers.
Eventually (after the crop of politicians that passed it retire or die) the exemptions phase out and the full weight of a 40 percent reduction of carbon emissions hits the US economy like a tsunami. Not to worry though! Waxman, Markey and Obama are way ahead of the ball on this one. Like maestros, they have choreographed everything so that renewable energy provides the energy lost by capping fossil fuel emissions. President Obama has promised he will spend $15 to $20 billion a year to make it happen.
Renewable Energy
Cap and trade advocates claim wind and solar energy will make up the difference in the loss of fossil fuel energy. All that is required is that we increase wind and solar energy from less than two percent of our energy needs today to 15 to 20 percent by 2020. Assuming that this technological feat is doable, there are some problems with this. Big problems. The wind only blows about 25 percent of the time and the sun doesn’t shine at night. While battery technology has made tremendous advances in the past 15 years, there is no technology known today that can store enough energy to compensate while wind towers lay idle and solar panels are inactive.
So what is going to power your air conditioner when the wind stops blowing on a hot sultry summer day, and there is nary a breeze to bring relief? Or run your furnace when it is 20o below zero outside? The only way to guarantee the power we must have to sustain our economy and lifestyles is to back it up with fossil fuel generating plants – the same CO2 belching ones we have today. A percentage of those have to be in operation 24/7 to immediately take over supplying the needed energy when the wind suddenly dies or the sun goes behind a cloud. Sure, natural gas generating facilities can start producing energy from a dead start, but natural gas electrical generation is much more expensive to operate than coal. Even if gas was competitive, there isn’t enough natural gas to make up for the loss of coal energy generation. Congress made sure of that this March when it cavalierly tied up 9.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas permanently with the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. (See Summer, 2009 issue of Range)
Wind and solar energy have a host of other problems as well. The obvious one is that if we have to keep a significant percentage of the fossil fuel plants ramped up and ready to take over in seconds, then we are still emitting a lot of CO2. This non-productive cost is deadweight and has to be added to the cost of wind and solar. Wear and tear for wind turbines is very high and solar photocells get dirty, resulting in substantial maintenance costs. It is safe to say that these problems tend to defeat the entire purpose of renewable energy.
Another consideration is that wind and solar farms will not be placed where they could be easily con¬nected to the existing electrical grid. To connect them to the grid adds huge front end costs. Then there are significant environmental impacts. Birds die when they run into wind turbine blades, and solar farms takes up square miles of critical habitat for some critter or another. To think that environmentalists won’t fight construction efforts tooth and nail is naïve.
Then there is the NIMBY factor – Not In My Back Yard. Just ask the Kennedy clan and other elites on Cape Cod who demand that the wind farm off of the Cape be removed because it spoils their view. And, these are but a few of the problems.
The untold difficulty with renewable energy is that it is expensive. Comparing costs is made more difficult by less than truthful reporting of total costs by wind and solar interests. Although highly variable across the US, the Energy Information Administration reported last year that both wind and solar were subsidized at a rate of $24 per megawatt hour, while coal, natural gas and nuclear received only $0.44, $0.25, and $1.59 respectively. Worse, these subsidies do not include the costs of coal-fired power plants that have to stay in operation as a backup to wind and solar. Both wind and solar must be heavily subsidized to stay in business. Once again, guess who pays for these subsidies?
Undeterred by these concerns, President Obama claims that we should follow the example of Spain, which is now producing nearly 20 percent of their energy needs from renewables. During the campaign, Obama claimed that he would create 5 million new green, clean new jobs in our transition to renewable energy. So, let’s just see how these countries have fared by converting to renewable energy. Read article.
Liberals Notice: Obama Is Indecisive
Jennifer Rubin, Commentary Magazine.com
Dana Milbank is the latest liberal media pundit to whine about the president’s lack of spine. He gives a blow-by-blow of the increasingly frustrated White House press corps trying to extract an actual position, or a deadline to reach a position, on key issues. No luck. Milbank complains: “Why isn’t the president more decisive and forceful? On many of the most pressing issues — the public option in health reform, troop levels in Afghanistan, sanctions against Iran — the administration has hewed to hemming and hawing.” So it is left to the hapless Robert Gibbs to explain that, with the exception of the 2016 Olympic bid, there isn’t much action coming out of the White House:
Negotiating with Republicans on health care? “I’m not going to get ahead of the bill.” The Fed refusing to release the names of banks that received government funds? “I’m not going to get into discussing an active legal case.” Gasoline sanctions against Iran? “I’m not going to get into the pluses and minuses.” Predator missile strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan? “Not going to get into discussing that,” Gibbs said with a wave.
Neither could the press secretary commit to allowing the top general in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, to testify before Congress. Gibbs’s reason: He had not “seen the comments” requesting the general’s testimony.
You can pick your favorite explanation for the paralysis: Obama lacks executive management skills. He is weak. He is conflict-averse. He has too many cooks making policy. All may be correct–but the reason is irrelevant. Read article.
Rules For The Radical Right? An Interview With Saul Alinsky’s Biographer
Robert Quigley, Mediaite.com
Though he’s not exactly a household name, Saul Alinsky has come to have a defining influence on the politics of our time. The founder of modern community organizing and the author of the hugely influential Rules for Radicals, Alinsky has long been associated with the left — Hillary Clinton wrote her senior thesis at Wellesley on Alinsky, and Barack Obama’s first job out of college was as a community organizer for an Alinsky-influenced group in Chicago. Alinsky’s name used to be a dirty word among conservatives, but he’s lately experienced a renaissance among right-wing activists and bloggers, some of whom see his media-savvy, attention-grabbing tactics as their best shots at reclaiming power.
Mediaite recently interviewed Sanford D. Horwitt, the national chairman of the Saul Alinsky Centennial Committee and the author of the definitive biography of Alinsky, Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky: His Life and Legacy. Mr. Horwitt’s last book was Feingold: A New Democratic Party, published in 2007. We spoke about Alinsky’s influence on tea parties, town halls, and 9/12, Obama as our first community organizer-in-chief, and James O’Keefe’s war on leprechauns:
Mediaite: Where do you think [the right's] fascination with Alinsky comes from? Do you think there is an affinity between what they’re trying to do and Alinsky’s methods?
Horwitt: I think the fascination comes from the very strong link between Alinsky and Barack Obama. And I think that a good part of the political right is just astonished that Obama was able to win the Democratic nomination and then the presidency … I have been following the blogosphere closely for the better part of the last two years. There is a big portion of that conservative blogosphere that believes that Alinsky, to this day, is masterminding the Obama White House from the grave. So I think that’s part of it. I think it’s the unlikely Obama success that got a lot of the people on the right thinking and they think that the key to Obama’s success was his Alinsky community organizing background. And I think to some extent maybe a large extent that they’re right. Read article.
Obama’s Style
William Katz, Political Mavens.com
There’s a lot of chatter on the Internet about Obama’s governing style, especially the manner in which he’s approaching decisions on Afghanistan. Michael Gerson reports in the Washington Post, for example, that some military men are impressed by the president’s deliberate approach to military decisions. Others fret that the debate is too public, allowing an enemy to try to influence the outcome by sudden, violent actions.
We would be well to remember the advice that General of the Army Douglas MacArthur’s father, also a general, gave him - that councils of war breed defeatism. People sit around and talk, and talk, and talk, and, by the time they’ve finished, they’ve intellectualized the problem to death, figuring out everything that could go wrong, and becoming hesitant and discouraged.
Obama’s deliberate style doesn’t impress me at all. I find it ahistorical and dangerous. Great leaders understand that war is, by definition, a calculated risk. As the military says, all planning is obsolete on first contact with the enemy, for the enemy also has a brain, and will do everything to wreck our best-laid plans. Great leaders make the best decisions they can, find the best people they can, give those people the resources they need, and let them do their job, always knowing that there can be bad days as well as good.
Great leaders also have an objective, and are relentless in pursuing it. Lincoln went through general after general before finding Grant, but he never wavered in his goal.
And great leaders believe in the nobility of winning. ”In war,” MacArthur said, “there is no substitute for victory.” Obama, by contrast, has a visceral dislike for the word. Maybe he thinks it’s too macho or too American. Read article.
Top Liberal Agrees: Cost of Health Reform Could Wreck Economy
Michael Medved, Townhall.com
Startling revelations sometimes turn up in unexpected places. For instance, one of the nation's most thoughtful, influential liberals recently conceded in a New York Times book review that Democratic plans for health care reform could well wreck the U.S. economy but he insisted that the achievement would be worth the cost.
Robert Reich, who served as Bill Clinton's Labor Secretary and now teaches public policy at Berkeley, praised the new book The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office which described 60 years of efforts to expand the government role in medical care. Concerning authors David Blumental and James A. Morone, Reich baldly declared that their most provocative finding is that presidents who have been most successful in moving the country toward universal health coverage have disregarded or overruled their economic advisers.
Plans to expand coverage have consistently drawn cautions or condemnations from economic teams in every administration, from Harry Truman's down to George W. Bush's.
Neither Reich, nor the authors he cites, chose to challenge this bipartisan consensus from both Democratic and Republican economists over some six decades. Instead, The Heart of Power highlights the shameless effort by Lyndon Johnson to conceal the true costs of Medicare in order to secure its passage in 1965. In a taped conversation with Senator Ted Kennedy, the president attacked his own economic advisors because the fools had to go to projecting those costs down the road five or six years. Read article.
The Stakes? Well, Armageddon, for One.
Jon Meacham, Newsweek.com
On Nov. 2, 1945—All Souls' Day in the Catholic tradition—J. Robert Oppenheimer spoke to scientists at Los Alamos. "It is clear to me that wars have changed," he said. "It is clear to me that if these first bombs—the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki—that if these can destroy 10 square miles, then that is really quite something. It is clear to me that they are going to be very cheap if anyone wants to make them." Oppenheimer basically had it right: nuclear weapons are not particularly cheap, but the knowledge, once unleashed, could not be contained.
This was a persistent concern among the scientists who made the Manhattan Project come to life, including Albert Einstein, who wrote FDR in 1939 about "extremely powerful bombs of a new type." (The Pulitzer Prize–winning book American Prometheus, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, is essential reading about the beginnings of the bomb.) Those present at the creation feared what has come to pass: the steady proliferation of the means of Armageddon.
I am not being hyperbolic or grandiose. The drama now playing out with Iran is a chapter in a long story. That story—of the gradually rising number of members of the nuclear club—is arguably the single most important national-security question of our time. Nothing else really comes close. If you doubt this, think about how significant proliferation will appear the day after a nuclear conflict of any scale, involving either terrorists or nation-states. Read article.
Health insurance bills could be hardship for many
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, AP.org
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine: "We have no certainty as to whether or not these plans are going to be affordable."
A new online tool from the Kaiser Family Foundation illustrates the predicament.
The Health Reform Subsidy Calculator provides ballpark estimates of what households of varying incomes and ages would pay under the different Democratic health care bills. The legislation is still a work in progress and the calculator only a rough guide. Nonetheless, the results are revealing.
A family of four headed by a 45-year-old making $63,000 a year is in the middle of the middle class. But that family would pay $7,110 to buy its own health insurance under the plan from the committee chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.
The family would get a tax credit of $3,970 to help pay for a policy worth $11,080. But the balance due - $7,110 - is real money. Maybe it's less than the rent, but it's probably more than a car loan payment.
Kaiser's calculator doesn't take into account co-payments and deductibles that could add hundreds of dollars, even several thousand, to a family's total medical expenses. Read article.
Van Jones to California's Rescue?
Victor Davis Hanson, NRO.com
There is a new British entry in the now-familiar genre of essays on California's collapse, "Will California become America's first failed state?," by a Paul Harris. It covers well enough all the usual symptoms — unemployment, foreclosures, layoffs, the mega-state deficits, the crisis on the San Joaquin Valley's West Side — and along the way quotes Van Jones in a paean to solar power, while praising Michelle Obama's victory garden:
Take Anthony "Van" Jones, a man now in the vanguard of the movement to build a future green economy, creating millions of jobs, solving environmental problems and reducing climate change at a stroke. It is a beguiling vision and one that Jones conceived in the northern Californian city of Oakland. . . .
The article, in short, is an unintended prism of exactly what's wrong with California — the fear or inability to speak honestly about what is wrecking the state. In fact, the pathologies behind the symptoms are never mentioned. A 9-percent-plus state income tax and state/local sales tax, coupled with overregulation, are driving out thousands of Californians who cannot figure out why their taxes climb while their roads, schools, and city centers become more unsafe. It is not just that California's taxes are high (some states' are even higher), but the feeling that so little is given back to the population in return. A therapeutic public-school curriculum, driven by race, class, and gender special-interest groups, has not turned out a competitive workforce.
In fact, the pathologies behind the symptoms are never mentioned. A 9-percent-plus state income tax and state/local sales tax, coupled with overregulation, are driving out thousands of Californians who cannot figure out why their taxes climb while their roads, schools, and city centers become more unsafe. It is not just that California's taxes are high (some states' are even higher), but the feeling that so little is given back to the population in return. A therapeutic public-school curriculum, driven by race, class, and gender special-interest groups, has not turned out a competitive workforce. Read article.
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