News You Can Use
 
The On
e Statistic Climate Catastrophists Don’t Want You to Know
 
According to the Cato Institute’s Pat Michaels
, in the decade from 2004 to 2013, worldwide climate-related deaths (including droughts, floods, extreme temperatures, wildfires, and storms) plummeted to a level 88.6 percent below that of the peak decade, from 1930 to 1939.
Inside the Beltway
 
Myron Ebell
 
Reid Rushes Senate Vote on Keystone Pipeline To Try To Save Landrieu
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D
-Nev.) strategy to keep Democratic incumbents from being voted out of office by keeping floor votes to a minimum failed miserably on 4th November. Voters sent Democratic incumbents packing in Arkansas, Colorado, Alaska, and North Carolina. As a result of those defeats plus Democratic losses in open seat races in West Virginia, Montana, Iowa, and South Dakota, Republicans will take control of the Senate when the 114th Congress is sworn in on 3rd January Now, to try to save Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) from defeat in a 6th December runoff with Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Reid wants to have a vote on a bill to approve construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline
from Alberta’s oil sands, across the Canada
-U.S. border and down to Cushing, Okla., where it would hook up with the southern leg of the pipeline that has already been constructed and is operating
(because pipelines that don’t cross an international border don’t require presidential approval).
 The Senate is currently scheduled to vote on the bill on Tuesday, 18th November. However, with Reid in control of the Senate schedule, that could change several times. It can be seen from past votes that all 45 Republican Senators and 12 Democratic Senators will vote yes on Keystone. That is three votes short of the 60 needed to surmount procedural hurdles and pass the bill. So Senator Landrieu, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has been lobbying several Democratic colleagues furiously to come up with three more votes. As of Friday afternoon, Senators Thomas Carper (D-Del.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) have announced that they will switch.
It really doesn’t matter whether Landrieu finds the sixtieth vote or not.
 She is almost certain to lose to Cassidy in the runoff because she got 42% of the vote on election day, while Cassidy got 41% and Rob Maness, the other Republican in the race, got 14%. Nor is it clear what passing Keystone out of the Democratic-controlled Senate will do to help Landrieu. The White House is still signaling that President Obama may veto the bill.
And if it doesn’t reach the president’s desk this month, it sure
ly will early next year when Republicans control the Senate.
That’s why the Republican leadership in the House did not stand in the way.
 On Friday, 14th November, the House voted 252 to 161 in favor of H. R. 5682, which approves the Keystone Pipeline. Thirty-one
 
Democrats votes Yes. This is the ninth time the House has passed a Keystone bill. Oh, and by the way, the sponsor of H. R. 5682 is Rep. Bill Cassidy. If the Senate goes along next Tuesday, expect anti-Keystone activists led by billionaire Democratic donor
Tom Steyer and Bill McKibben’s 350.org to form a human chain around the White House, as they did on
4th March. Currently, 350.org is planning a rally on the Mall in Washington on 17th February 2015,
which is Presidents’ Day.
 
Across the States
 
William Yeatman
 
Southern Co. CEO: EPA’s “
Clean Power
”
 Plan Would Cause Rolling Blackouts
In an interview two days ago with Bloomberg, Thomas Fanning, the CEO of Southern Company, which
provides electricity service to a four state region in the southeast, said that “I don’t think we have the
ability to mainta
in a reliable system” and also comply with EPA’s “
Clean Power
”
 Plan.
Fanning’s statement is only the latest warning about the threat to electric reliability posed by EPA’s rule.
In recent testimony before the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Commissioner Philip Moeller voiced his concern about the possibility of cascading blackouts within the 15 state region served by the Midcontinent Independent Service Operator. And in October comments to the EPA, the Southwest Power Pool, a regional transmission organization that serves an 8 state region, warned that the rule, if left unchanged, would cause rolling blackouts within its footprint. Thus, grid operators from 27 States have issued warnings that the
EPA’s
Clean Power Plan could turn out the lights.
Around the World
 
Myron Ebell
 
Obama, Xi Agree on Meaningless Climate Deal
U. S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a commitment by both countries to limit greenhouse gas emissions by 2025-30, at the end of the APEC summit meeting in China on Wednesday. President Obama pledged that the United States would reduce it emissions by 26-28%
below 2005 levels by 2025, while President Xi pledged that China’s emissions would peak by “around
2030, with the intention to try to peak early, and to increase the share of non-fossil fuel share of all
energy to around 20% by 2030.”
 That quote is from the White House fact sheet on the agreement.
The Obama Administration’s long
-stated goal has been to reduce emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. That works out to an annual cut of 1.2% from 2005 onward. The new goal would require a much
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