Republican's last grasp for energy scares me

I've gotten my share of emails from Mato Ska over the years. They are often informative. However, this time he really caught me by surprise. The subject was Oppose H.R. 6887. So, I jumped over to Thomas and it isn't even posted there yet. But, here is what we do know. The description of the bill is bad enough. "To authorize the President or a designee of the President to waive any legal requirement under any provision of Federal law otherwise applicable to a covered energy project as the President or such designee determines necessary to ensure expeditious conduct of such project, and for other purposes." Now, that is really getting desperate. This is ridiculous. I know that Shadegg (AZ-03) needs some attention, as he may be in position to lose his seat but this is a law that only Sarah Palin could love.

Up Next: The 'NeoPombo' Democrats

This post is dedicated to my friend, Wes Rolley, webmaster of the "Pombo Watch" Web Site (see "MH Man Posts Pombo Watch on Website," Morgan-Hill Times, March 12, 2004).

I couldn't help thinking about Wes and the ordeal of being a Green activist in a polluted society, when I read these opening lines:

Published by the San Francisco Chronicle
Dems' Offshore Drilling Plan Comes With Catch
by Zachary Coile, Tuesday, September 9, 2008

(09-09) 04:00 PDT Washington - Just three years ago Richard Pombo, the cowboy boot-wearing Tracy Republican lawmaker, faced an outcry from Democrats for pushing a bill to lift the 27-year-old ban on drilling off the East and West coasts and let states choose whether to allow oil rigs off their shores.

In a sign of how much the energy debate has shifted in an era of nearly $4-a-gallon gasoline, virtually the same proposal that Pombo floated will be introduced on the House floor this month - by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Nancy Pelosi and the NeoPombo Democrats think they are being "clever" by giving the Republicans something they want now, namely, opening the door to offshore drilling, so they can get something back that the "liberals" supposedly want, repealing tax subsidies for oil companies and requiring electric utilities to get 15% of their energy from renewables by 2020.



Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, says he'll allow a vote on an energy plan that would allow drilling off the coast of four states - Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia - while also revoking tax breaks for oil companies and offering new incentives for wind and solar, biofuels, coal-to-liquid fuels and nuclear energy.

Notice the inclusion of "clean" coal and nuclear with the other "nice" stuff.

The whole thing is a parliamentary charade anyway because Congress is set to adjourn in less than a month and Our Dear Leader, President Bush, has vowed to veto any bill that raises taxes on the poor, little, trillionaire oil companies.

If, indeed, the GOP gets what it wants -- and end to the ban to offshore drilling -- is anyone here naive enough to bet that the Bush-Cheney-McCain-Palin clique would ever follow through on their half of the bargain? Anyway, by the time to the year 2020, this "compromise" will be long forgotten, we will, of course, be in another "crisis," and everybody will be saying we environmental "extremists" should quit being so "rigid" and let the NeoPombos negotiate a "compromise" with what will then be the "Nuke, Baby, Nuke!" crowd.

Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie

Sarah Palin was put forward as the Republican expert on Energy. She did show a lot of energy in her speech, quick to the attack, pausing only for effect on the zingers she shot. However, when it came to the subject of energy policy, she showed a remarkable lack of knowledge when putting forward the suggestion that America should work for Clean Coal.


Let me give a good example of what clean coal really means. It begins with the removal of a mountain top and the filling of valleys to expose the coal. This is not the old time strip mining, unless that practice were on steroids. There are more photos here.

Let me remind you that the Green Party affiliate, the Mountain Party of West Virginia, is a leader in the fight against such ravages to the environment. Still, that is only the beginning.

There was a major Federal program under the administration of George "W" Bush that was intended to develop a new technology for coal fired power plants. It was called the NextGen program. There is an industry council formed by leading coal producers that is leading the way in convincing everyone that this is a real possibility sometime out in the distant future. Now, they are talking about 2015.

Of course, they have not stopped to consider that the continued expansion of conventional coal fired plants... even the continued operation of existing plants... will quite possibly push the current global warming past a tipping point. That, my friends, is a risk that the Republicans... and the Democrats... want you to take.

What none of them tell you is that the US Dept. of Energy scrapped the FutureGen clean coal project in 2008.

The DOE last year signed an agreement with the FutureGen Alliance, a coalition of coal and oil companies, to spend about $950 million on a demonstration coal-fired power plant that injects carbon dioxide emissions underground. Last December, a site for the FutureGen project in Matoon, Ill., was announced by the Alliance.

It was deemed to be too expensive for the payback.

DOE is turning to Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) as a solution to the problem of the buildup of Greenhouse Gasses, the prime cause of global warming. While some things work, others are still very, very expensive and, we don't have the time if we are going to stop the warming of this planet.

When Sarah Palin puts on her Peabody Energy hat and talks about clean coal, you know that it may lead to votes but it is ultimately only a lot more hot air that we can't afford to have around.

Obama McCain Energy Smackdown

Sheril Kirshenbaum is both a scientist and a writer with political savvy. She is an active blogger at ScienceBlogs.com, writing both on the Intersection (with Chris Mooney) and on the energy blog, NextGen, an energy blog effort funded by Shell.


In today's posts (both places) Kirshembaum writes about the McCain / Obama Energy Policies. While Obama responded to a questionnaire, McCain has failed to do so. I am not surprised.

I think you all should read the pieces, but I will take the comments that I left at NextGen and paste them here.

I don't get it. McCain says that he wants to address global warming, sets a target that is not going to really do the job, and then comes out with a list of policies that guarantees the fact that we will never achieve the target.

And not one calls him on it?

The Republicans complain about liberal bias in the press and then the press lest him get away with this. Complain about liberal bias, arrest Amy Goodman, and you can get away with saying anything as long as you sound sincere.

I am waiting for a journalist with a real understanding of the science to drill down though the muck and make both of these candidates explain the inconsistencies in their public statements.

The key point that I am getting at is that you can make lowering gas prices and feeding America's energy addiction as your main emphasis, but you will do so at the price of making global warming worse. In the long run, that is one dumb decision.

We don't know how to control nuclear waste. We have no policies at all about controlling nuclear contamination of mining, transportation and storage of uranum before it is used. But, both of these candidates would give even more of our tax dollars to the nuclear industry and McCain does not want to "interfere with the market" by subsidizing renewable systems like solar or wind. This is not the action of anyone who should board a straight talk express.

The same goes for policies regarding coal. Lots of people involved in coal mining and they all vote. Nope, we will not stop burning coal as long as their is a politicians who would rather be elected than stop slow down global warming. I hate the idea of quoting John Stossel but "Give me a break."

What do the Danes and the Chinese have in common?

If all you are doing is following the Olympics, you might think it is only badminton or table tennis. However, the real answer is wind. In my previous post, I cited the NY Times editorial call for a sane energy policy. I also mentioned an OpEd by Thomas Friedman. It deserves a separate reference.

Friedman is always looking at the world as though you can tell the future by watching the way international commerce work. I don't want to debated that. However, in his OpEd Sunday, he compares the very practical Danish energy policy with that of the US. There are two very clear points of difference.

First, they view high gasoline prices as a good thing...

“I have observed that in all other countries, including in America, people are complaining about how prices of [gasoline] are going up,” Denmark’s prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told me. “The cure is not to reduce the price, but, on the contrary, to raise it even higher to break our addiction to oil. We are going to introduce a new tax reform in the direction of even higher taxation on energy and the revenue generated on that will be used to cut taxes on personal income — so we will improve incentives to work and improve incentives to save energy and develop renewable energy."

The second is that America, lacking political leadership, is asleep at the switch while other countries are making substantial progress in solving our real problems, not teasing votes from commuters with promised that won't be fulfilled. Here is how Friedman cites one interviewee.

Ditlev Engel, the president of Vestas — Denmark’s and the world’s biggest wind turbine company — told me that he simply can’t understand how the U.S. Congress could have just failed to extend the production tax credits for wind development in America.
>
> Why should you care?
>
> “We’ve had 35 new competitors coming out of China in the last 18 months,” said Engel, “and not one out of the U.S.”

Friedman does not mince word about politicianss.

Unlike America, Denmark, which was so badly hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it banned all Sunday driving for a while, responded to that crisis in such a sustained, focused and systematic way that today it is energy independent. (And it didn’t happen by Danish politicians making their people stupid by telling them the solution was simply more offshore drilling.)

I guess I am not the only one who thinks the Republican magic formula is stupid.

Even the NY Times gets it.

There were two recent items in the NY Times Editorial pages regarding US energy policy. One was an editorial, the other a column by Thomas Friedman. I have cited Friedman before, not always in a complementary manner. However, this time they both have the correct ideas. It is too bad that our presumptive presidential candidates don't read that paper. Maybe they are both like George W. Bush in that regard.

Of course, I always have more to say.

A toxic combination of $4 gasoline, voter anxiety and presidential ambition is making it impossible for this country to have the grown-up conversation it needs about energy.

That is the manner in which the NY Times starts it's editorial. That is also the point I made in my previous post on the stupidity of the McCain / Obama campaigns.

The Times editorial concludes:

Here is the underlying reality: A nation that uses one-quarter of the world’s oil while possessing less than 3 percent of its reserves cannot drill its way to happiness at the pump, much less self-sufficiency. The only plausible strategy is to cut consumption while embarking on a serious program of alternative fuels and energy sources. This is a point the honest candidate should be making at every turn.

If there is to be an alternative, it will have to come from the honest politicians of the Green Party. I am excited that Rosa Clemente was quoted in a yet to be uploaded press release from the GP today.

Green candidates and leaders called Barack Obama's and John McCain's positions on energy policy, gas prices, and global warming a capitulation to corporate lobbies, and urged adoption of the Green Party's plan to reduce fossil fuel consumption, generate new jobs in conservation and new energy sources, and curb the advance of climate change.

We need to have all GP Candidates hammering at the energy issue and the patronizing political playacting of the major party campaign.

Everyone who reads this should be writing their local papers, supporting the Green position and pointing out the lack of respect that Obama and McCain have for voters, playing us for losers and that is what we will all be if either are elected.

Campaign Stupidity

The Democratic Party has developed a terrible energy policy, and it is being pushed on the local level by Democratic Party office holders around the country. Just about the only thing that I have seen that is worse is the one being pushed by the Republicans, starting with Presidential Candidate John McCain.

It appears that neither policy was developed from an understanding of science, or of economics. Rather, using the best methods of Madison Avenue, they have taken focus group results and polls to determine what it takes to get elected. They must think that voters are stupid... and they may be right. Of course, I have more to say on the matter.

Bryan Caplan warned us about the Myth of the Rational Voter. It is subtitled Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies . According to Caplan, most voters do not truly understand the manner in which science, or economics works in the real world. As a result the policies that have the greatest immediate satisfaction will be chosen without regard for long term consequences.

When politicians use that in order to structure position and policies the result is frequently catastrophic. Basing energy policy on the need to lower gasoline prices is idiocy, but that is what both candidates appear to be doing.

For all practical purposes, the Earth on which we live is a closed material system. The rate at which we might pick up dust from the interstellar void is minuscule in relation to the rate at which civilization is using it. When the material in question is is carbon, linked with a few hydrogen and oxygen atoms, you are dealing with the very basis of life and had damned will better get it right if life as we know it is to survive.

I am just now reading The Carbon Age by Eric Roston. It is a very new book, I was the first to check it out from our public library, and is the first that I have seen to address the reasons why we need to be very, very careful. Roston subtitled this book with care: How Life's Core Element has Become Civilization's Greatest Threat.

Roston takes us through the reasons carbon has always been so essential to life and always has been. The entire history of the earth may be interpreted as a series of changes in the carbon cycle. Until recently, the important players were never mammals, but bacteria and algae, transforming the carbon cycle over billions of years to create the conditions under which life as we know it could prosper. We experiment with this mechanism at our own parallel. Unfortunately, we have been engaged in an uncontrolled experiment for the last two centuries.

The key to all energy is the sun, but Barack Obama is now telling us that we need to increase domestic production of petroleum in order to grow our economy. He gives a lot of talk about developing alternative energy source, but it never goes beyond talk. When it is necessary to put together a real plan, funded by our taxes, the results are predictably more oil, more coal and more global warming. It seem that the only change he is really trying to foster is Climate Change.

The Democrats would have us believe that we can lower gasoline prices by selling off a portion of America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The only strategy they have is to get elected. What is strategic about tapping the reserve now and replenishing it at a higher price later? What is strategic about depleting this reserve and the having a major hurricane take out substantial offshore capacity in the Gulf of Mexico or to lose the capacity of the Alaskan Pipeline? What would we do then, pray tell?

John Kerry tried this approach in 2004. The voters did not buy it then and they will see through it now. Still, that is about all that Pelosi and the House Democrats that think of, beginning with Mike Thompson (CA-1) and even including Jerry McNerney, (CA-14) who should know better. Thompson's July 14 press release states it clearly.

Allow for additional withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to increase domestic supply. The SPR is currently at 98% capacity, and reducing it slightly to 90% would immediately increase supply, reduce prices and still maintain a substantial amount of reserve;

The Republicans would do more. Their mantra seems to be drill here, drill now. Drill in Alaska and on the storm vulnerable outer continental shelf. Again, given that petroleum is a finite resource what is the rationality in using it up as fast as we can. That is showing real faith in our future abilities to develop alternatives when we need then since we won't be working on the soon.

Again, California has two stupid approaches to this evidenced by two Republican Congressmen. First, there in Wally Herger (CA-2) who was given a Lifetime Membership in the Obscure Caucus by Roll Call Magazine. That is for politicians who make themselves invisible in Washington. With Herger's understanding of Energy Policy that may be a good thing.

The other is Dana Rohrabacher. He became famous for his use of the term dinosaur flatulence in discussing global warming. His other take is one of distraction. With global warming being called a "security threat" by none other than the US Military, Rohrabacher is would have us invest our money in sci-fi efforts to save us all from a cosmic collision. Both are catastrophic event. The difference is that one is has a low probability if we don't act and the other is a certainty.

Green party presidential candidate Kent Mesplay had the right idea when he said that he wanted public officials who treat science with respect and who actually work to make us more secure rather than catering to their favorite businesses."

Even the US Department of Energy gets it right. I suggest reading a very recent public presentation by Dr. Patricia Dehmer, Deputy Director for Science Programs, Office of Science, DOE. It is in the form of a power point formatted program review for an advisory committee. Beginning at chart 10 is a short summary of all of the energy produced and used in the US, where it comes from and where it goes. Slide 18 outlines the requirements for improvements in Energy / Environment Solutions.

• Zero-Net-Emission Electricity Generation
• Fuel Switching (to renewables)
• CCS (carbon capture and sequestration)
• Electric Energy Storage
  
• Electricity Transmission and Distribution
• Fuel Switching (from oil)
• End-use Efficiency (incandescent bulb efficiency < 2%)
  
• Conservation

I would say that voters can understand this. I wonder about our potential future presidents. They give lip service to dealing with climate change while continuing the failed energy policies of Bush and Co. This is not change I can believe in.

Red, Blue and Green

Here are a couple of things that I find amazing. To begin with, the Democrats are allowing the Republicans to define the issues regarding energy. This is not just my opinion. Dave Roberts at Gristmill is starting to take this seriously. First, he commented that the Republican are bluffing on drilling. Then, he complained, like I have just done, that the Democrats are allowing the to get away with it. According to Roberts you should "never let your enemy choose the battlefield."

I could not agree more, and forwarded that to my Congressman, Democrat Jerry McNerney... known around here as McWind for his background working as a wind energy consultant. But that is just the beginning. I have more to say.


To begin with, the most well known oilman in the country is telling everyone that this is one problem that you can't drill your way out of. I am talking about T. Boone Pickens who is buying a lot of ad time and, in effect, telling us all that Republicans like Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46) are just trolling for votes with their talk of offshore drilling. At least, Pickens recognizes the scope of the problem and says that he has a plan.

At least, Pickens provides the best evidence that McCain and the rest of the Republicans have concluded that the public is a bunch of fools and easily bamboozled. They went out, took a poll and found out that people hate the high gas prices. So, they offer a 19th Century solution for a 21st Century problem. This issue by itself tells me McCain has no bleeping idea about what this country needs to do.

On the other hand, we have Obama shilling for renewable, especially corn based ethanol. This is as bad as McCain in that he seems to know there is a problem and chooses to use the problem to buy votes rather than to actually do what we need.

My bigger question is that of where is the Green Party. We need to be out telling people the true story every chance we get, but I don't see it. We have absolutely the best opportunity to hammer home that the demagogues in our major parties are all tuned in to sound bites and image projections. If there were ever a situation that makes the perfect argument for 3rd parties, this is it. Yet, as the one party that does not have to put on an act to have Green in our name, we are silent.

Cynthia, what are you going to do about this? We don't need to hear about 911 any more. There are bigger problems. It may not be the issue on which you are the most comfortable but it is one big issue on everyone's minds and both Republican and Democrats are treating us like they think we are fools.

Carol Wolmann, Barry Hermanson, Carol Brouillet, Peter Meyers, Tom Lash; are you attacking your opponents over their lame energy pollicies? Why not?

Mike Thompson (CA-1) takes the Democratic Party line on Energy. From his latest release:

• Allow for additional withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to increase domestic supply. The SPR is currently at 98% capacity, and reducing it slightly to 90% would immediately increase supply, reduce prices and still maintain a substantial amount of reserve;
• Work with Congress to take aim at speculators who are artificially increasing the cost of oil, and;
• Require oil companies to use existing oil and gas leases, which according to the Department of Interior covers nearly 70 million acres – roughly the size of Colorado – and are estimated to have billions of barrels of recoverable oil.

If you read Dave Roberts, you know that this is a dumb strategy but it is what their playbook says to do.

Jackie Spier (CA-12) has not been around long enough to have much to say, but at least she has an idea. Change the speed limit so that we burn less gas per mile. My experience driving 101 is that we don't enforce the speed limit now. How, pray tell, is this going do anything more than than allow her to tell her constituents that she is doing something.

Anna Eshoo is so oblivious to the problem that her Congressional Web Site talks about the Caliofornia Energy Crisis on 2000, 2001. Maybe, though, of the entire list of House Candidates with Green opponents, she is might do the least harm just because she is doing nothing.

Mike Honda (CA-15) is not even there yet. Here is his plan to make it easier to find and burn more oil. Again, he is solving the Republican's problem.

1. speeding the development of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) by requiring the Secretary of Interior to offer at least one lease sale annually in the NPR-A.
2. reinstating a ban on the foreign export of Alaskan oil.
3. incorporating the ‘Use It or Lose It’ legislation, which simply requires oil producers to drill on the leases they already have or relinquish them so that another company can produce the oil there.
4. calling on the President to use the powers of his office to facilitate the completion of oil pipelines into the NPR-A and to facilitate the construction of a Alaska natural gas pipeline to the continental United States to move the product to market.
   

Now, for Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46) who we know is hopeless. Again, he has a plan to burn more oil more quickly than anyone else.

...the American Energy Act. The bill – a product made possible by energy policies proposed by Members throughout the House Republican Conference – will increase the supply of American-made energy, improve conservation and efficiency, and promote new and expanding energy technologies to help lower the price at the pump and reduce America’s increasingly costly and dangerous dependence on foreign sources of energy.

Not a single one of these Congress Critters, all with Green Party opponents, makes a modicum of sense. Since our candidates are not making this a major issue, let's do it for them.

We need to have letters goign to the editor of every newspaper in each of these districts, especially the local community weeklies. We have a much greater chance of being printed that way.

T. Boone Pickens tells the truth. This is not a problem that you can drill your way out of. Neither his problem (money spent on foreign oil) nor the greater problem of global warming can wait for a solution. Time to give 'em all a little Hell.

And to all of you who are worried about that spoiler issue, here is the perfect example of why we need to have more than two parties. At least, Greens are going to tell you the truth.

Policies and positioning for presidential candidates

As we consider the choice of Green Party presidential candidates, it appears to me that two things are happening. Like all of the other parties, the decision seems to be coming down to the issue of electability and causes many Greens to look outside the party for a "name" to carry the Green Flag. The names most mentioned are Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney. Both have been designated to be placed on the ballot for the presidential nomination by the General Assembly of the Green Party of California.

Both feel that they have to deal with the inevitability of the "spoiler myth." Whether on a web site or on radio, it will always come up.

However, if we start by looking at the positions taken by various candidates on significant policy issue, like energy, we would come to the conclusion that others are more prepared than either of these name candidates. As in yesterday's post I called attention to Jared Ball for his recognition of the need to reach an urban population of color, I would call attention today to Kent Mesplay.

Mesplay is the only one of the candidates for the Green Party nomination that has bothered to think through and articulate an energy policy. There is an environmental aspect of being green that has all but disappeared from the progressive agenda. If you look at the issues that are being articulated by McKinney, for example, you won't find any mention of environmental justice, of energy, of climate change and its affects on agricultural policy.

I look at Hillary's set of issues. She also has a fully articulated science policy. Mesplay gives is some attention.

I want an improved political process that allows good candidates to run so that we have public officials who treat science with respect and who actually work to make us more secure rather than catering to their favorite businesses.

There is a list of issues on which all of the candidates take position that are generally considered "progressive." They include support for ending the war in Iraq, affordable health care for all and sound very much like Bill Richardson. In addition, they all talk of the need for electoral reform so that we may never have to deal the the spoiler issue again.

If you take away the question of name recognition and look at candidates based on whether or not they truly represent the values of this party, I would certainly recommend nominating Kent Mesplay and Jared Ball. However, national name recognition is likely to carry the day in the Green Party just as there is little doubt that Hillary's name will carry the day for the Democrats.