20 June 2014
In the News
Matt Rogers, Washington Post, 20 June 2014
At VA, Solar Panels Are Priority #1 Washington Times editorial, 19 June 2014 Another Obama Policy Failure: Canada Approves New Oil Pipeline to Pacific Coast Ronald Bailey, Reason Hit & Run, 18 June 2014
Attack of the Energy Snobs Orange County Register editorial, 18 June 2014 Fighting Executive Fiat on Climate Paul Driessen, Master Resource, 17 June 2014
Obama Flunks Climate Science 101 at University of California, Irvine James Delingpole, Breitbart, 15 June 2014
On Key Clean Air Act Interpretation, NRDC Cynically Reverses Itself William Yeatman, GlobalWarming.org, 14 June 2014
News You Can Use
Greenpeace Gambles Away $5.2 Million in Donor Money
Inside the Beltway
Myron Ebell
House and Senate Committees Hold Hearin
gs on EPA’s
Power Plant Rule
House and Senate committees held
hearings this week on the EPA’s proposed rule to regulate
carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. On the House side, a subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee took testimony from Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator of air and radiation at the EPA. On the Senate side, a subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee heard from four former administrators of the
Environmental Protection Agency in Republican administrations wh
o support the EPA’s
greenhouse gas regulations. Republican members of the Energy and Commerce Committee tried several lines of attack with
McCabe. She gave no ground, but she also provided very few direct answers. McCabe insisted that the EPA was not waging war on coal. This incredible claim was echoed in a video interview that EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy gave to Politico. We shall see whether President Barack
Obama repeats their denials of waging war on coal when he addresses the annual dinner of the League of Conservation Voters next week. It was slightly embarrassing to listen to former EPA Administrators William Ruckelshaus,
Christine Todd Whitman, William K. Reilly, and Lee Thomas testify before the Senate. Congressional Democrats trot them out on a regular basis to try to embarrass
congressional Republicans: “You see, even Republicans who ran EPA support EPA.”
The four Republican former administrators are pathetically eager to please because getting to testify makes them feel relevant. By far the best testimony at the Senate hearing was given by Luther Strange, the attorney
general of Alabama. He laid out a compelling case for why
the EPA’s regulation of carbon
dioxide emissions under section 111d of the Clean Air Act is illegal. Murray Energy takes up
one of Attorney General Strange’s main lines of argument in a suit filed
on 18th June in the federal DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Murray Energy, a privately held company that has become one of the biggest coal producers in the U. S., argues that the Clean Air Act does not allow regulation of power plants under section 111d that are already being regulated under section 112. Legal challenges to proposed regulations are not usually heard by federal courts because the regulations are likely to be modified as a result of expert comments received. However, the Murray Energy filing argues that their appeal is ripe because whatever regulation is finally proposed will violate the law and that waiting until the rule is final will be highly damaging economically.
Landrieu Bill To Permit Keystone Pipeline Passes
Committee, But Won’t Get Floor Vote
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on 18th June marked up a bill to cut
President Barack Obama out of the decision-making process and permit construction of the
Keystone XL Pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to the U. S.
The vote was 12 to 10, with all ten Republicans plus Chairman Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) voting yes. Senator Landrieu, who is in a tough re-election race, vowed to push hard for a vote on the
Senate floor. Republicans pointed out that the fact that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is not going to allow a floor vote exposes how ineffective Landrieu is as chairman in promoting pro-energy policies in the face of her own p
arty leader’s obstructionism.
The photo accompanied a long, investigative story by Kathryn A. Wolfe and Bob King about the safety threats posed by rapidly increasing rail transport of oil. Curiously, the article considered the obvious alternative to rail
—
namely, building more pipelines
—
only in order to dismiss it:
“But environmentalists who warn about the dangers of crude
-by-rail say it would be wrong to turn the issue into an excuse to approve Keystone. For one thing, the Texas-bound pipeline would replace only part of the train traffic, which has spread its tendrils
across the U.S.”
True, but building Keystone would solve part of the problem, and building other pipelines would solve the rest.
Across the States
Energy Production on Federal Lands Down Again
Production of oil, gas and coal on federal lands and waters fell 7 percent last year , according to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Overall, domestic oil and gas production is at historical highs
—
this week, for example, North Dakota for the first time exceeded 1 million of barrels of oil produced per day
—
but production is taking place mainly on state and private lands, over which the federal government exerts less control.
Around the World
Green Energy Pause Started about Same Time as Global Warming Pause
BP this week released its annual world energy statistical review. Coal's share of world energy consumption topped 30 percent in 2013, the highest level since 1970. The report also shows that the global percentage of non-carbon energy has paused at around 13% since about 1995.
Cooler Heads Coalition
Ray Evans, RIP