Planetary Ruin

News You Can Use
Hedge Fund Wins Big Bet against Solar
In a quarterly newsletter, the hedge fund Greenlight Capital, Inc. announced that it has closed its short position in First Solar, “one of the most profitable shorts in the history” of its funds. Stock prices for First Solar, which received a $1.4 billion stimulus loan from the same program that propped up Solyndra, plummeted primarily because Germany rolled back solar power subsidies.

Inside the Beltway
Myron Ebell

Obama Punts on Keystone (again)
President Barack Obama on Wednesday, 18th January, announced that he would not approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries in the Gulf States.  A provision in the payroll tax cut extension legislation required the President to make a decision before 21st February based on the national interest.  The President’s statement used the deadline to blame Congress for his decision:

“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people.”

The New York Times was almost alone among major papers in supporting the President’s decision.  The Washington Post noted that the President’s own Council on Jobs and Competitiveness had reported the day before that the United States needed to be building more energy infrastructure, including pipelines.  Post columnist Robert Samuelson wrote that Obama’s decision was an “act of national insanity.”

The reactions from a number of private sector labor union leaders were also highly negative.  On the other hand, environmental pressure groups were ecstatic.  The leader of the opposition to Keystone, Bill McKibben, said that the President had made “the brave call” and had proved wrong the criticism that he was too conciliatory.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was one of many House and Senate Republicans who vowed that “this is not the end of the fight.” It is quite possible that the House will include a provision in the second payroll tax cut extension bill that must be enacted before the end of February that would take the decision out of the President’s hands and direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency to permit the 1700-mile pipeline.

That is what I urged the House to do in a CEI press release.  My comment in the press release on the President’s decision was as follows: “President Barack Obama’s decision to block construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline should make clear to all Americans that when he says over and over again that ‘we can’t wait’ to create jobs and economic growth, it is merely hypocritical political posturing.  Contrary to his phony rhetoric, President Obama’s real goals are to reduce energy supplies, raise energy prices for American consumers, and destroy jobs.” Another CEI reaction came from my colleague William Yeatman in this televised debate.

Across the States
William Yeatman

Oregon’s Solyndras
Taxpayers in Oregon are on the hook for almost $20 million in bad loans issued by the state Energy Department’s green bank, according to an investigation by the Oregonian. The Small Scale Energy Loan Program started in 1980, primarily to finance relatively minor conservation projects. However, over the last few years, the program shifted to speculative green energy projects, including $18 million to a Clatskanie ethanol plant that quickly went bankrupt and $12.1 million to a Linn County solar company crippled by plunging global prices. Program officers made the program even riskier by allowing borrowers to use other state subsidies for green energy as collateral.

Around the World
Brian McGraw

E.U. Ignores U.S. Complaints on Airline Climate Tax
This week the European Union responded to a letter sent by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the end of 2011 regarding E.U.’s new policy of forcing international airlines to participate in a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gas emissions. In the letter, Secretary of State Clinton urged the E.U. to exclude international airlines from the program, or else.

Not backing down, the E.U.’s response was effectively: “Or else what?” They did offer to remove the measures if the U.S. came up with a similar domestic cap-and-trade scheme for airline emissions or figured out a path towards global carbon trading for the airline industry. Both of these, obviously, would be non-starters in the current political climate even if they found support in the Obama Administration.

The late 2011 decision by the European Court of Justice cannot be appealed, so increased international pressure or retaliatory measures are the next options. International pressure is currently being applied by the U.S., China, India, and Russia. The United States is currently considering retaliatory measures, with the likely outcome being a similar surcharge placed on E.U. airlines that arrive or depart from U.S. airports.

In 2011, the House of Representatives passed a bill forbidding U.S. airlines from participating in the E.U.’s program. Despite support from the Obama Administration, it is unclear if the legislation  will pass the Senate in 2012.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.GlobalWarming.org.

In the News

On Grid Solar: An Industry in Plight
David Bergeron, Master Resource, 6 January 2012

A Honda Civic Lesson
Eric Peters, American Spectator, 6 January 2012

Federal Judge Blocks Enforcement of California Low Carbon Fuel Standard
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 5 January 2012

Ethanol Subsidies Are Gone, But Not Forgotten
Daniel Kish, U.S. News and World Report, 5 January 2012

Send in the Clown
Henry Payne, The Michigan View, 5 January 2012

The Climate Change Message Is Not Being Heard; Here’s How to Change Tack
Sunny Hundal, Guardian, 5 January 2012

Range Fuels: Another Failed Loan Guarantee
Dan Chapman, Atlanta Journal Constitution, 4 January 2012

Could Climate Change Create Deadly, Mutant Sharks Which Kill Us All?
James Delingpole, Telegraph, 3 January 2012

Antarctic Temperature Trends
World Climate Report, 3 January 2012

On Energy Policy, Reasons To Cheer
George Will, Washington Post, 1 January 2012

News You Can Use

Bad News for Electric Cars

Jackie Moreau

Last week, we reported that electric vehicles receive subsidies of up to $250,000 per car. Recent news suggests this money is poorly spent.

• General Motors is calling back about 8,000 Chevy Volts sold in the U.S in the past 2 years after three Volt batteries caught fire, occurring between 7 days and 3 weeks after crash tests were done by federal regulators.   Government subsidies for the Volt: $3 billion

• Fisker Automotive is recalling 239 Karma hybrid cars to fix a malfunction in the vehicle’s high-voltage battery, whose battery provider (A123) is contracted to build GM’s future all-electric Chevrolet Spark minicar. Fisker received a $500 million loan guarantee from the same Department of Energy office responsible for the Solyndra debacle.

• A Nissan Leaf was reported to have needed 4 stops to recharge over the course of a 180-mile drive due to its unanticipated rapid drop in charge.  Government loan for the Leaf: 1.4 billion.

Inside the Beltway

Ethanol Lobby’s Absurd Spin

Myron Ebell

Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, published an op-ed in the Hill this week in which he claims that the ethanol industry is so public spirited that they have voluntarily given up their tax subsidy of 45 cents per gallon.

Dinneen writes: “Without any opposition from the biofuels sector, the tax credit for ethanol blenders (the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit – VEETC) expired on January 1.  In fact, American ethanol may well be the first industry in history that willingly gave up a tax incentive.”

That sounds admirable, but Dinneen fails to mention that the ethanol industry and corn growers still benefit from a colossal federal mandate enacted in 2007 by the Democratic-controlled Congress and signed by Republican President George W. Bush.  In 2012, the mandate will require Americans to buy roughly 12 billion gallons of corn ethanol blended into gasoline.

The ethanol mandate raises transportation fuel prices, and as an added bonus it also raises food prices.  How patriotic!

Unsurprisingly, Republican voters in Iowa, the top corn-producing State, chose two corn-friendly candidates in their presidential caucuses this week.  Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum finished in a dead heat.  According to the Des Moines Register, the Iowa Corn Growers Association gave Romney a B grade and Santorum an A minus in their rating of the candidates.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich got the top grade from the Iowa Corn Growers, but finished fourth.  The two lowest-rated candidates, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), finished fifth and sixth in the caucuses.  Perry’s energy plan can be found here.  Perry proposes to eliminate energy subsidies and mandates and let the free market work.

The Register article describes Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-Tex.) position on tax subsidies incorrectly: “…Paul, a libertarian who opposes government subsidies of any kind, finished third….”  In fact, Paul supports a wide variety of tax subsidies on the grounds that they allow private individuals and companies to keep money that would otherwise go to the federal government.  The fact that tax subsidies are designed to benefit some well-connected people at the expense of others, who are not so politically influential, does not bother Paul.  For example, Paul is a co-sponsor of the NAT GAS Act (H. R. 1835), which would give billionaire T. Boone Pickens billions of more dollars in tax subsidies.

Across the States

Texas Wins Stay of Cross State Air Pollution Rule

William Yeatman

The federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals this week granted Texas’s request for a stay of EPA’s implementation of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). In September, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed suit against EPA over the rule, alleging that EPA violated federal administrative procedure law by failing to allow Texas to evaluate and comment on the regulation. In the proposed CSAPR, Texas was found to be in compliance with the regulation’s particulate matter emissions limits. Without notice, in the final rule, EPA imposed the harshest particulate matter emissions limits for Texas. The technology required by EPA’s final CSAPR requires three years to install, but EPA gave the State only 6 months to do so. Recently, the non-partisan operator of Texas’s power grid warned that the CSAPR could lead to blackouts. The regulation was slated to go into effect January 1, but the D.C. District Court delayed its implementation until it could determine the merits of Texas’s case.

Around the World

Climate Trade War Brewing

Brian McGraw

The arrival of the new year marks the beginning of forced participation in the European Union’s cap-and-trade scheme for international airlines that arrive or depart from E.U. airports. A lawsuit brought by U.S. and Canadian-based airlines was dismissed late last month by an E.U. court. As a result, United-Continental, Delta and U.S. Airways have added a surcharge for passengers headed towards countries in the European Union.

China and India have signaled that they are considering retaliatory measures and are unlikely to comply with the program. Somewhat surprisingly, the Obama Administration has angered environmentalists by going to bat for the airlines on this issue, perhaps to support unionized workers in the airline or related industries. The latest announcement from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that the U.S. would take “appropriate action” if the E.U. doesn’t back down, and requested information from European airlines on revenues and carbon allowances, perhaps signaling that a retaliatory tax is in the works.

As the Wall Street Journal wrote: “The EU admits the scheme will raise ticket prices and dampen consumer demand, which may be the point: to make carbon-spewing international travel accessible to fewer people.”

In the News

If Al Gore Can Outgrow the Ethanol Fad, Why Can’t Conservatives?
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 7 April 2011

Greens Oppose Biomass in Pacific Northwest
Joel Millman, Wall Street Journal, 7 April 2011

Biofuels Raise Hunger Fears
Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times, 7 April 2011

Obama’s Energy Funny
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 6 April 2011

The Longer the Delay, the More You Pay
Sen. John Barrasso, Politico, 6 April 2011

Government vs. Resourceship
John Bratland, MasterResource.org, 6 April 2011

China Sees Evil of Plastic Bags
Jonah Goldberg, USA Today, 6 April 2011

Obama-Backed Tesla Sues Its Critics
Henry Payne, Planet Gore, 6 April 2011

Should We Feed Hungry People, Even If It’s Bad for the Environment?
Alex Berezow, Forbes, 6 April 2011

UN IPCC: Analyst or Advocate?
Lee Lane, RealClearScience.com, 5 April 2011

GE’s Immelt: Jobs Czar from Hell
Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 April 2011

New Energy Economy Drubbed in Debate
Vincent Carroll, Denver Post, 2 April 2011

Renewable Energy Standards Are Unconstitutional
Paul Chesser, Washington Times, 1 April 2011

News You Can Use

Sea Level Rise: Not Alarming

According to World Climate Report, the rate of sea level rise during the most recent 10-yr period is 2.32 mm/yr (or about 9 inches per century). This is not much above the 20th century average rate of 1.8mm/yr (7 inches per century), and well below what the IPCC projects (~15 inches).

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

House Passes EPA Pre-Emption Bill, 255-172

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed H. R. 910th, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, by a vote of 255 to 172.  Nineteen Democrats voted Yes.  No Republicans voted No.  This is a remarkable turnaround from the last Congress, when on 26th June 2009 the House voted 219 to 212 to pass the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.

The Energy Tax Prevention Act, sponsored by Rep. Fred. Upton (R-Mich.), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and thereby put a potentially huge indirect tax on American consumers and businesses.   Coal, oil, and natural gas produce carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, when burned.  Those three fuels provide over 80% of the energy used in America.  Thus regulating carbon dioxide emissions essentially puts the EPA in charge of running the U. S. economy.

Five Republicans who voted for the Waxman-Markey bill in 2009 voted for H. R. 910 yesterday.  They are: Mary Bono Mack of California, Chris Smith, Leonard Lance, and Frank Lobiondo of New Jersey, and Dave Reichert of Washington.

The nineteen Democrats who voted for the Upton bill are: Terri Sewell of Alabama, Mike Ross of Arkansas, Jim Costa of California, John Barrow and Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Jerry Costello of Illinois, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Leonard Boswell of Iowa, Ben Chandler of Kentucky, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Tim Holden, Mark Critz, and Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jim Matheson of Utah, and Nick Joe Rahall of West Virginia.

A Congressional district map of the vote published by the New York Times shows that support for EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions is largely confined to the Northeast and the West Coast.  This is not surprising.  California, New York, and the New England States already have high electric rates, partly because of state energy-rationing policies, and have driven most energy-intensive manufacturing industries out of their States already.

I wasn’t able to watch all the debate Wednesday on the House floor on C-Span—one reason was that the Senate was debating the McConnell amendment at the same time—but what I saw confirmed that nearly all the arguments being raised by Democrats against blocking Clean Air Act greenhouse gas regulations are irrelevant, silly, dishonest, or ill-informed.  Take for example, Rep. Jay Inslee’s typically buffoonish speech: “We should oppose this dirty air act because it would suggest that we are a nation in a deep and dangerous sleep, dozing in the face of disastrous pollution, slumbering while our children are riddled with asthma.” Ah, yes, childhood asthma—the last refuge of the global warming alarmists.  As recent research has shown, one of the reasons that asthma rates are going up in the U. S. seems to be that modern urban and suburban middle class homes don’t expose young children to enough dirt and germs.  Inslee and all the others who peddle the asthma scare, such as the truly scurrilous American Lung Association, might also consider that asthma attacks are much more frequent in cold than in hot weather.

Senate Defeats McConnell Amendment, 50-50

The Senate on Wednesday defeated an attempt by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to add the Energy Tax Prevention Act (introduced in the Senate by Senator James M. Inhofe as S. 482) to another bill, S. 493.  Senator McConnell’s amendment was defeated on a 50-50 vote.  It would have required 60 votes to attach it to S. 493.

Four Democrats joined 46 Republicans in voting for the amendment–Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.  Senator Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican to vote No.  Collins’s vote is puzzling in that last year she voted for the resolution of disapproval brought under the Congressional Review Act that would have cancelled the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare.  The Endangerment Finding is the basis of using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Like the House debate, the opponents of the Energy Tax Prevention Act in the Senate were a sad lot.  Particularly embarrassing was Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee: she thought it was a telling argument that the Clean Air Act had passed the Senate in 1970 by a vote of 73 to 0 and the House by 375 to 1 and had been signed into law by President Richard Nixon.  (Rep. Glenn Cunningham of Nebraska was the one No vote, by the way.)  Boxer’s point actually favors the opponents of using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.  The fact that the Clean Air Act enjoyed such overwhelming support in 1970 is because it was aimed at reducing air pollution and had nothing to do with global warming policies designed to ration energy.

The strong House vote of 255 to 172 in favor of the Energy Tax Prevention Act should build new momentum to pass it in the Senate later this year.  Of course, the White House has already issued a veto threat, which shows that President Obama is not interested in creating new jobs and restoring prosperity to America.  Congress has now rejected cap-and-tax resoundingly, but the President still hopes to achieve through backdoor regulation his goals of skyrocketing electric rates and gasoline prices at the $10 a gallon European level.

Across the States

Colorado

On Monday, the American Tradition Institute filed a lawsuit against Colorado in federal district court, alleging that the State’s green energy production quota, known as a Renewable Electricity Standard, is an unlawful violation of the Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. To read more about the case, click here.

Around the World

Brian McGraw

Compounding Error

Representatives from the European Union and Governor Jerry Brown of California met recently to discuss the possibility of integrating the planned California cap-and-trade system with a similar scheme launched by the European Union in 2005. According to EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, “Each country might want some special ways of doing it, but of course it’s also practical that whatever we do in each different region can be linked, so that in the end we sort of have this vision of having a global price on carbon.” Unfortunately for Hedegaard, the California plan hit a roadblock last month when environmentalists successfully sued to delay it until the California Air Resources Board considers more environmentally-stringent alternatives to a cap-and-trade scheme.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.GlobalWarming.org

In the News

Congress Should Tell the EPA It’s Not Congress
National Review editorial, 3 February 2011

With Energy Czar Gone, Michigan Wins
Henry Payne, Detroit News, 3 February 2011

80% “Clean” Energy by 2035: What Does This Mean?
Ken Kok, MasterResource.org, 3 February 2011

T. Boone Pickens Unwittingly Exposes Absurdity of “Energy Independence”
John Tamny, RealClearMarkets.com, 3 February 2011

How Climate Sanity Has Been Gored
Larry Bell, Forbes, 3 February 2011

Warmer Summers May Actually Slow Down Greenland Glacier Flow
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 2 February 2011

Egyptian Riots Fueled by Ethanol
Hans Bader, Washington Examiner, 2 February 2011

Environmental Regulation and Death
Paul Chesser, Washington Times, 1 February 2011

On Mountaintop Mining, EPA Is Guilty of Environmental Hyperbole
William Yeatman, OpenMarket.org, 1 February 2011

Is the University of Virginia Biased against Professors that Challenge Global Warming?
Amanda Carey, Daily Caller, 1 February 2011

Uncle Sam in the Driver’s Seat
George Will, Washington Post, 31 January 2011

Newt Gingrich: Professor Cornpone
Wall Street Journal editorial, 31 January 2011

China’s Emissions Now 40% Greater Than United States’s
Fiona Harvey, Guardian, 31 January 2011

News You Can Use

Another Alarmist Myth Debunked

Global warming alarmists long have claimed that one of the most deleterious public health impacts of climate change will be the growth of malaria. But a study published this week in the International Journal of Global Warming concluded that rising temperatures will lead to lower humidity and rainfall which will shorten the lifespan of mosquitoes carrying malaria.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Barrasso Bill Introduced

As reported last week in the Digest, Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) on Monday introduced a bill to pre-empt all regulation of greenhouse gas regulations using any existing legal authority.  S. 228 had seven original co-sponsors: Senators James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), John Thune (R-SD), Pat Roberts (R-Ks.), David Vitter (R-La.), Jerry Moran (R-Ks.), and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).  Since then, several more Senators have co-sponsored the bill.  They include: John Cornyn (R-Tex.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), James Risch (R-Id.), and Jim DeMint (R-SC).  The text of the bill may be found here, and Freedom Action’s press release here.

House Energy and Commerce Committee To Take up Alternative EPA Reform Legislation

On Wednesday, Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), Chairman of Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power, released a discussion draft of a bill to pre-empt regulation of greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act.  Their bill is deliberately of narrower scope than Senator Barrasso’s bill so as to avoid committee jurisdictional problems in the House.  The text of the draft bill is posted here, and Senator Inhofe’s press release may be found here.

Chairman Upton plans to hold a full committee hearing on the draft bill on 9th February beginning at 10 AM.  It should be available for viewing over the internet on the Committee’s web site.  It could also be broadcast on one of the C-Span channels.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), the former Chairman and now the Ranking Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, immediately blasted Upton.  According to Energy and Environment Daily, Waxman said, “The Republicans have a lot of power, but they can’t amend the laws of nature.  Gutting the Clean Air Act is only going to make our problems worse. This proposal threatens public health and energy security, and it undermines our economic recovery by creating regulatory uncertainty.”  The Waxman-Markey bill passed the House by a 219-212 vote on 26th June 2009.  I expect the margin will be much larger in favor of the Upton-Whitfield bill to block EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Across the States

Louisiana Judge Admonishes Interior Department for Moratorium Hijinks

A federal judge in Louisiana this week found the Department of the Interior in contempt for its actions in the wake of the BP oil spill. About a month after the BP Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf, the Interior Department issued a moratorium on all drilling. However, a federal court put an injunction on the moratorium, in part because the Obama administration had based its decision on a report that was found to have been improperly doctored by the White House. Immediately after that ruling, the Obama administration issued a second moratorium that was virtually identical to the first. The court found that this second moratorium violated the preliminary injunction, and therefore found the Department of the Interior in contempt. As a result of the ruling, the government will have to pay the plaintiff’s legal fees, but it won’t impact the second moratorium, which was lifted on October 22, 2010. Despite the end of the de jure moratorium, the Obama administration has kept in place a de facto moratorium through bureaucratic foot-dragging.

Around the World

It Could Happen Here

This week Accenture and Barclays Capital released a joint report estimating it would cost the European Union $3.9 trillion to meet its 2020 climate goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20% below 1990 levels.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.GlobalWarming.org

In the News

The Congressional Research Service’s Dirty Little Big Green Secret
Ron Arnold, Washington Examiner, 17 December 2010

Duke Energy’s Bad Bet
Chris Horner, Planet Gore, 15 December 2010

Wikileaks Climate Cables Show Obama’s Desperation
John Rossomando, Daily Caller, 15 December 2010

Budget Hawks Oppose Nuclear Loan Guarantees
Jesse Emspak, International Business Times, 15 December 2010

7 Year Moratorium Is a Bad Idea
Phil Ciciora, Illinois News Bureau, 14 December 2010

Energy Policy: 5 Worst Governors
William Yeatman, GlobalWarming.org, 14 December 2010

Ethanol Idiocy Will Not Die
Rich Lowry, National Review, 14 December 2010

Deutsche Bank’s “Corporate Irresponsibility,” Part 1
David Henderson, Financial Post, 13 December 2010

Deutsche Bank’s “Corporate Irresponsibility,” Part 2
Terence Corcoran, Financial Post, 13 December 2010

News you Can Use

Offshore Wind = Ultra Expensive Energy

In a Master Resource post on the economics of offshore wind energy, Lisa Linowes notes that Massachusetts regulators recently approved a contract to buy offshore wind energy for 18.7 cents a kilowatt, “a price that’s three times the cost of in-region natural gas and at least double the cost of other renewable options.”

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Congress Passes and President Signs Tax Bill with Goodies for Renewables

The Senate and House overwhelmingly passed and President Barack Obama signed the bill to extend the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 for two years.  There were a lot of other provisions in the bill, including one-year extensions of the 45 cents per gallon taxpayer subsidy and 54 cents tariff for ethanol and the section 1603 up-front taxpayer cash grants of 30% for renewable energy projects.  So we will keep throwing money away on dead-end renewables for at least another year.

Rockefeller Plays Games with Two-Year EPA Delay Bill

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) suddenly started talking again this week about offering an amendment to delay implementation of Clean Air Act regulation of greenhouse gas emissions for two years.  Then he quickly blamed Republicans for thwarting his efforts by blocking consideration of the Omnibus Appropriations bill.  Having failed to pass any of the twelve appropriations bills for the various federal departments and programs this year, the Omnibus Appropriations bill is the Democratic majority’s last-ditch attempt to lock in colossal spending levels before the Republicans take over the House in January.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) promised Rockefeller a vote on his amendment last June during the debate on Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) Resolution of Disapproval under the Congressional Review Act.  Reid peeled enough Democrats away with that promise to defeat the resolution that would have blocked EPA from regulating greenhouse emissions permanently.  But of course, a promise from Senator Reid is not what is sometimes understood by that term.  Everyone knew at the time that Reid was not promising anything.

Senator Rockefeller vowed that, “I will be back fighting hard for my two-year bill as my first order of business in the new Congress.”  That may be true, but events have passed beyond the Senator from West Virginia.  House Republicans will be looking to move a permanent suspension of EPA greenhouse gas regulations.

Across the States

California

By a 9 to 1 vote, the California Air Resources Board this week approved a state-wide cap-and-trade scheme. The adopted regulation is more than 3,000 pages long, but most of the details have yet to be worked out as the CARB rushed to meet a December 31 deadline set by the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, legislation that authorizes the CARB to reduce the State’s greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020. In order to protect California businesses from out-of-state competition, the CARB will allocate emissions credits (a.k.a. energy-rationing coupons) for free. The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme is the only precedent for free allocation of carbon credits, and it resulted in windfall profits for politically-connected industries and higher electricity prices for consumers.

Kansas

In October 2007, Kansas Health and Environmental Secretary Roderick Bremby denied permits for two proposed 700 MW coal-fired power plants in western Kansas. In 2008 and 2009, the State Legislature passed four bills to allow Sunflower to build the plants, but then-Governor Kathleen Sebelius (currently the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) vetoed them all. After she left office to join the Obama administration, her successor Mark Parkinson immediately brokered a deal to allow for a scaled-down version of the project. This week, John Mitchell, the state’s acting secretary of health and environment, issued an air-quality permit for an 895 megawatt plant. The permit was issued only weeks before the start of new EPA regulations for greenhouse gases. Environmentalists have promised to litigate.

Around the World

Cancun Wrap-up

Last week’s Cooler Heads Digest was published before the conclusion of the 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico; nonetheless, we predicted that the negotiators ultimately would “produce an agreement to meet again.” We were right. The “Cancun Agreement” achieved a near-consensus (Bolivia was the only country to object) by deferring all decisions to future negotiations. The parties agreed to meet in Durbin, South Africa for COP-17 in December 2011.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.GlobalWarming.org

In the News

EPA Climate Doc Held up over Costs
Robin Bravender, Politico, 8 October 2010

Gross Overestimate Fueled California’s Landmark Diesel Law
Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 October 2010

The Green behind Big Green
Chris Horner, Planet Gore, 7 October 2010

Green Investment Fund Is a Vested Interest in the Battle over Prop 23
Ann McElhinney, Big Government, 7 October 2010

Sen. Baucus, I Salute You. OK, I Salute You If…
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 7 October 2010

Sen. Bingaman’s Insidious National Renewable Electricity Standard
Glenn Schleede, MasterResource.org, 6 October 2010

Splattergate Filmaker Giddy before Release
Paul Chesser, AmSpecBlog, 6 October 2010

Environmental Endgame
Matt Purple, American Spectator, 5 October 2010

Washington’s New War on the West
Ben Lieberman, OpenMarket.org, 4 October 2010

Schwarzenegger Wrong To Demonize Tesaro, Valero
Greg Goff & Bill Kleese, San Jose Mercury News, 1 October 2010

News You Can Use

It Could Happen Here

Britain’s top energy regulator this week said that it would cost the average household more than $1200 a year to meet the country’s green energy goals, according to the Daily Mail.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

President Peron

In the issue of the Digest published immediately after the election of Barack Obama in November 2008, I wrote that it wasn’t clear to me from the campaign whether he wanted to be Tony Blair or Juan Peron. It’s been clear for some time that Peron is Obama’s model. He has pursued policies on a broad front designed to cause constant economic crises and thereby make people much more willing to depend on government and to take orders from government.

One of these policies is of course cap-and-trade. Since the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997, I have felt that the energy-rationing policies required to achieve the Kyoto targets for reducing emissions were the greatest threat to our prosperity and freedom. But that has not been the case for some time. President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress are pursuing a number of policies that are just as threatening as energy rationing and have enacted a couple of them.

Cap-and-trade is now dead for the foreseeable future, but this does not mean that the Obama Administration has given up on policies that will constrict our energy supplies and raise energy prices, which will make us poorer and drive energy-intensive industries out of the country. They are working mightily to reduce domestic oil production and to block new coal mines and new coal-fired power plants.

The alternative to using the energy sector to foster perpetual economic stagnation would be to use the energy sector to underpin a new era of prosperity.  All we need to do to undertake this radical change of direction is to take President Obama’s advice and follow China’s good example: clear away the regulatory obstacles to energy production, open federal lands and offshore areas to oil exploration, and start building coal-fired power plants.

Across the States

Kentucky, West Virginia

The Louisville Courier-Journal reported this week that the EPA has objected to 11 Clean Water Act permits issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection to surface coal mines in Floyd, Bell, Pike, Knott and Harlan counties. As the Cooler Heads Digest has reported in past issues, the EPA is going after coal production in Appalachia by claiming that Clean Water Act permits issued by state regulators are unacceptable because they insufficiently protect the mayfly, an insect, from saline effluent discharged from surface mines. The mayfly is not an endangered species.

Regarding the same topic, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin (D), the Democratic Party candidate for Senator, this week instructed his Department of Environmental Quality to sue the EPA for allegedly violating the Administrative Procedures Act when it issued guidance documents last April detailing how state regulators in Appalachia can better protect the mayfly from surface coal mines.

Around the World

China Rejects Emissions Controls, Again

At preparatory negotiations in Tianjin, China, for the upcoming 16^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the lead Chinese negotiator stated that his country will reject binding greenhouse gas emissions reductions. China, the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases, is building two coal fired power plants every three weeks.

Obama, Take Note: Even the EU Rejects Drilling Moratorium

The European Union, which is often thought to be more sclerotic than the United States and which claims to be committed to stopping global warming, this week voted not to place a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling. They are apparently not yet ready to kick their addiction to oil.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.globalwarming.org.

In the News

Green Jobs No Longer Golden in Stimulus
Patrice Hill, Washington Times, 9 September 2010

Eeyore Environmentalism
Steven Hayward, Planet Gore, 8 September, 2010

Kiss Your Ash Goodbye
Ben Lieberman, GlobalWarming.org, 8 September 2010

Sword of Damocles
Wall Street Journal editorial, 8 September 2010

Salmon Runs, Global Warming As Clear As Mud
Jon Ferry, The Province, 8 September 2010

The Accidental Cap-and-Trade
Chris Horner, BigGovernment.com, 7 September 2010

Scarlet Letters for the Auto Industry
Vincent Carroll, Denver Post, 5 September 2010

News You Can Use

It Could Happen Here

As part of a last-minute lunge to make good on a pledge to reduce energy use per unit of economic output by 20 per cent over the five years ending this December, the Chinese government has ordered energy rationing, resulting in rolling blackouts across the country. More than 2,000 energy intensive industries have been ordered to close.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Obama’s New Stimulus Proposal

President Obama this week unveiled new proposals to stimulate the economy.  Included is at least one useful proposal-the immediate expensing of new capital investments.  CEI has long supported replacing multi-year depreciation with immediate expensing as good economic and environmental policy.  Increasing the turnover of manufacturing equipment will make industry more competitive while decreasing energy use and pollution.  That’s because new equipment is almost always more energy efficient and pollutes less than old equipment.  Unfortunately, the President isn’t proposing a permanent change in the tax code, but just a one-year gimmick to pump up the economy in the short term.

The proposed changes to increase taxes on the oil and gas industry are permanent, however.  This means that the one temporary benefit in the President’s package is far outweighed by the long-term damage to our economy.  These tax increases will put American oil producers at a competitive disadvantage with their foreign competitors.  One of the consequences will be less domestic oil production and more imports.  That means fewer high-paying American jobs and higher trade deficits.

This appears part of a broader plan by President Obama to force domestic petroleum production down.  Other elements include the six-month moratorium on offshore leases in the Gulf, cancelling planned oil and gas leases federal lands in the West, and opposing new production on Alaska’s North Slope and offshore in the Arctic Ocean.  Less energy and more expensive energy is extremely bad news for the American economy.

The President’s proposals to spend more taxpayer dollars on transportation infrastructure are a mixed bag.  One of the bigger chunks is to go to high-speed rail projects.  These are mostly colossally expensive boondoggles.  On the other hand, the President has dropped the green energy and green jobs nonsense entirely, as an excellent story by Patrice Hill in the Washington Times noted.

[This is a slightly-edited version of a piece published on Politico's Energy Arena.]

White House Rebuffs Green PR Stunt

The White House has refused to accept one of the solar panels that President Jimmy Carter had installed on the White House roof in the late 1970s.  Bill McKibben, the extremist environmental writer and founder of 350.org, took one of Carter’s solar panels, which have been stored at Unity College in Vermont, and drove it to Washington this week in a bio-diesel powered truck.  The publicity stunt attracted a great deal of media attention on the way.  But the White House is apparently not ready to admit that President Obama is returning America to the Carter era of economic malaise and energy shortages, despite the obvious similarities in their policies.  President Ronald Reagan had the solar panels removed from the White House.  Not coincidentally, Reagan solved the Nixon-Ford-Carter energy crisis by ending price controls on domestic oil production and de-regulating the industry.

Greens Pushing Fuel Efficiency Fantasy

A large coalition of environmental pressure groups sent a letter to President Obama on Thursday that urges the President to set new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (or CAFÉ) standards of at least 60 miles per gallon by the 2025 model year (which starts in 2024).  The Administration earlier this year increased CAFÉ standards substantially for cars and light trucks to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.  There is little evidence that consumers will buy very many of the cars that meet the 35.5 mpg average.  There is a great deal of evidence that the 35.5 mpg average is wishful thinking by the Washington political establishment and the auto industry.  Sixty miles per gallon by 2025 is sheer fantasy.  It’s not clear to me why the environmental pressure didn’t think big and demand 100 mpg by 2025.

Across the States

Fiorina Finally Supports Prop 23

Last week, the Cooler Heads Digest faulted California Senate candidate Carly Fiorina (R) for refusing to take a position on Proposition 23, the California ballot initiative to suspend AB 32, the State’s global warming law, until unemployment decreases to 5.5 %. As AB 32 is designed to raise the price of energy, which would harm the economy, Proposition 23 should be a political winner. On Friday, Fiorina announced that she supports Proposition 23 because AB 32 is a “job killer.”

Nichols Backs off California Cap-and-Trade

At a Silicon Valley panel yesterday, California Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols said that California would not proceed with cap-and-trade-the most significant climate policy under AB 32-if other States do not contribute. In 2007, California formed a regional cap-and-trade, the Western Climate Initiative, with Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington. They were soon joined by Montana and Utah. Since then, only New Mexico and California have decided to participate, and in New Mexico both candidates for governor are backing away from the WCI. As such, it appears that California will soon be the only State left, which is why Nichols is backing off a cap-and-trade. This is a stunning reversal.

Four States Planning Lawsuit if Prop 23 Fails

California Watch reports this week that the Attorneys General of Alabama, Nebraska, Texas and North Dakota are preparing to sue California if Proposition 23 fails this November, on the grounds that it violates the Constitution’s Interstate Commerce clause.

Two More States Challenge EPA Regulation of Greenhouse Gases

Three weeks ago, the Chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Texas Attorney General sent a letter last week telling the EPA why Texas will not change its laws in order to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and explaining why what the EPA was doing was illegal. If you didn’t read it, we have posted it on GlobalWarming.org here. Today Greenwire (subscription required) reported that two more States have sent letters to the EPA protesting the pending regulations. Democratic Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal told the EPA that his State doesn’t have the time to change its laws, while Ben Grumbles, director of Arizona’s Department of Environmental Quality, suggested that it would be a waste of resources to follow the EPA’s directives because they are likely to be thrown out by the courts.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.globalwarming.org.

In the News

The Real Cost of Being Green
William Yeatman & Amy Oliver Cooke, Denver Post, 3 September 2010

Godzilla in the Mirror
George Will, Indianapolis Star, 3 September 2010

A True Green Believer
Richard Morrison, American Spectator, 2 September 2010

Drill, Baby, Drill Is Back
Ben Lieberman, MasterResource.org, 2 September 2010

Green Cheese
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 1 September 2010

“Cool It,” Rival to “An Inconvenient Truth,” Gets a U.S. Distributer
Dave Itzkoff, New York Times, 1 September 2010

“Clunkers” Classic Government Folly
Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, 1 September 2010

Obama Urges Court To Vacate AGW Decision
Marlo Lewis, Pajamas Media, 30 August 2010

The Greening of Godzilla
Walter Russell Mead, American Interest, 28 August 2010

USGS Perpetrates a Climate Science Fraud
William Yeatman, Big Journalism, 28 August 2010

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Reid Outlines Lame Duck Strategy

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) this week said that he would still try to pass an anti-energy bill after the November 2 election in a lame duck session. He has given up on cap-and-trade, but is working to gain support for a 15% renewable electricity standard (or RES) for utilities.  Ben Geman of The Hill reports that in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday Reid said that two Republican Senators have expressed interest in an RES.  One is thought to be Sam Brownback (R-Ks.), who is retiring.

Anything is possible in a lame duck session, but my guess is that the atmosphere after the election is going to be so ugly that it will be hard to do anything in the Senate or the House.  That’s because a lot of Democrats in Democratic States and districts are in danger of being swept out of office.  They will be bitter and perhaps eager to exact some further damage on their way out the door, but on the other hand Republicans are almost certain to be united in wanting to block anything until the 112th Congress, which may have a lot more Republicans than the 111th does.

The Congress returns on 12th September.  They are scheduled to be in session for four weeks before recessing for the campaign.

Across the States

Fiorina, Whitman Disappoint on AB 32

Carly Fiorina, the Republican candidate for Senator in California, participated in a debate with incumbent Barbara Boxer (D) this week. Politico reported that Fiorina’s “major stumble” came on her waffling response to a question about Proposition 23, the California ballot initiative to suspend A.B. 32, the State’s global warming law, until unemployment decreases to 5.5 %. Fiorina said that she had not yet taken a position on the proposition. What is it with California’s high-profile GOP candidates this election cycle? Like Fiorina, Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman refuses to declare whether she supports Proposition 23. With unemployment in the state above 12 %, polls indicate that the economy is the priority for California voters. AB 32 is designed to raise the price of energy, which would harm the economy. Supporting Proposition 23 should be a political winner.

Climategate Update

A Conflict of Interest in the Cuccinelli Case

Chris Horner, from Planet Gore

On Monday, Judge Paul Peatross ruled that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli cannot access the University of Virginia’s records in his inquiry into Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann’s claims made to obtain research funding.

I attended the hearing a week ago Friday. Beforehand, Peatross cited his wife’s 1982 degree in environmental science from UVA and asked counsel whether they believed it disqualified him from hearing the University’s motion. That fact, apparently, was relevant. But the fact that the judge’s wife previously worked in the Department of Environmental Sciences - the very department that stood to suffer had he ruled in favor of the attorney general - was somehow not worth disclosing to counsel. I learned of this only after the hearing from Ms. Peatross’s former coworkers, who were astonished that her husband would decide such a matter given his seeming lack of objectivity.

This series of events gives the appearance of the judge’s failure to disclose. Indeed, it seems to rise to the level of a basis for the judge to recuse himself.

IPCC Rapped

The Inter-Academy Council (IAC) this week released its report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IAC study was prompted by conspicuous errors contained in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, which won the Nobel Peace Prize. According to the Telegraph, the report is “extremely damaging.” In particular, the IAC report concludes that IPCC’s mistakes-including the unfounded claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035-were caused by shoddy standards and weak leadership.

Here’s a roundup of commentary:

Wall Street Journal editorial, Climate of Uncertainty, 2 September 2010

Dr. Roy Spencer, Dump the IPCC, 1 September 2010

Telegraph editorial, Flawed Science, 30 august 2010

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.globalwarming.org.

In the News

Media Mogul James Cameron Chickens out of Climate Debate
Washington Times editorial, 26 August 2010

AP Fact Check: Green Stimulus Benefits Overestimated
Frederic Frommer, Daily Caller, 26 August 2010

Obama’s Green Initiatives Lobbied for by Same People Who Profit from Them
Amanda Carey, Daily Caller, 26 August 2010

The Gulf Spill in Perspective
Paul Schwennesen. MasterResource.org, 25 August 2010

Americans Want More Offshore Drilling
Ben Lieberman, New York Post, 24 August 2010

The National Security Risks of Biofuels
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 24 August 2010

Newly Discovered Microbe Feasting on Gulf Oil Plume
Gerald Karey, Platts, 24 August 2010

AP Spins for Obama’s Electric Car Program
Greg Pollowitz, Planet Gore, 24 August 2010

Wind Power Won’t Cool Down the Planet
Robert Bryce, Wall Street Journal, 23 August 2010

News You Can Use

Sockeye Salmon Return

After a few years of historically low salmon runs in British Columbia’s Fraser River, environmentalist pressure groups such as Greenpeace and Sierra Club were quick to blame global warming. Clearly, they jumped the gun, because this week the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced that the Fraser River will have the largest sockeye salmon run since 1913 at more than 25 million fish.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Enviros to Obama: “We feel stabbed in the back”

The Department of Justice this week filed a brief arguing that the Supreme Court should overturn the decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to allow a public nuisance lawsuit against major emitters of greenhouse gases to go to trial. The Department of Justice brief points out that the common law remedy against public nuisances has been superseded by the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions by the Clean Air Act.  The Second Circuit’s decision was based on the lack of EPA regulation.

Environmental pressure groups were flabbergasted and outraged.  Gabriel Nelson in Greenwire quoted Matt Pawa, one of the attorneys for the environmental plaintiffs: “We feel stabbed in the back.  This was really a dastardly move by an administration that said it was a friend of the environment. With friends like this, who needs enemies?”

Besides being right that positive law has superseded common law in respect to regulating greenhouse gas emissions, I expect the White House was making a political calculation.  If nuisance suits against electric utilities, energy companies, and major manufacturers were allowed to proliferate, there could an overwhelming backlash.  By relying solely on EPA regulations, the Obama Administration can control the process and keep the opposition down to a manageable level.

Coal State Democrats Running against Obama

The congressional election campaign continues to trend sharply against the supporters of cap-and-trade legislation and other energy-rationing policies.  Patrick Reis had a long story in Greenwire this week on House Democrats from Appalachian coal-mining districts running for their electoral lives against the anti-coal policies of the Obama Administration and the House Democratic majority.  Freshman Democrats Zack Space (D-Ohio) and Tom Perriello (D-Va.) voted for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.  Both are now likely to lose.

Republicans Running Against Energy Rationing

Stories continue to appear about Republican candidates being global warming “deniers.”  All six Republican Senate candidates in New Hampshire are skeptical of alarmist claims and oppose the energy-rationing agenda.  In New Mexico, Susana Martinez, the Republican nominee for Governor, is a skeptic.  The funny thing is that her Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish has been backing away from New Mexico’s participation in the Western Climate Initiative.  The three Republican nominees for New Mexico’s House seats are global warming skeptics who oppose cap-and-trade.  Former Rep. Steve Pearce is likely to defeat freshman Rep. Harry Teague (D-NM) in the second district.  That’s largely because Teague voted for Waxman-Markey.  Oil and gas production is by far the largest industry in southern New Mexico.  Pearce was one of the House’s ablest opponents of global warming alarmism and cap-and-trade when he was in the House (he left in 2008 to run for the Senate and lost to Tom Udall).

Probable Upset in Alaska

The big election news of the week was Joe Miller’s probable victory in Alaska’s primary over Senator Lisa Murkowski.  The result won’t be known for sure until all the absentee ballots are counted, but Miller was ahead by 47,027 votes to 45,359 with all precincts reporting.  Murkowski is the ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.  Murkowski has been all over the board on global warming and energy.  She did a great job promoting the Murkowski Resolution to block EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act.  Her resolution failed in June by 47 to 53 vote, but only after the Democratic leadership peeled away several Democrats by promising them a vote on an amendment to delay EPA regulations for two years.  On the other hand, Murkowski has shopped draft legislation to put a tax on carbon dioxide emissions.

There has already been speculation that Murkowski will try to run in the general election as the Libertarian Party nominee.  This would be ironic: Murkowski is probably the most liberal Republican Senator west of Maine.  Miller, on the other hand, is a hardcore conservative and civil libertarian as well as an articulate global warming skeptic.

Around the World

Ray Evans, Lavoisier Group

Australia

Australia’s  federal election of August 21 has given us a hung parliament in which neither the governing Labor Party, nor the opposition Liberal-National Coalition, has the 76 seats required to form a majority in the House of Representatives. It will take nearly a fortnight to determine the final composition of the House.

Kevin Rudd led the Labor Party to a huge victory in November 2007. A feature of his campaign was “climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time”. By May 2010 his polling was dreadful and in a by-election on June 19 for the formerly safe State Labor seat of Penrith in outer Sydney, the swing against Labor was 26%. This so alarmed the Labor Party chiefs in Sydney that within five days Kevin Rudd had been deposed, and Julia Gillard, his Lady Macbeth in political crime, had been installed on the throne.

At first it seemed that this had been a master stroke. Gillard’s polling looked fantastic, so she called an early election for August 21. However, her misdeeds from the past and her complicity in regicide pulled the polls down, and for a week prior to the federal election it was clear that it would be a close result.

Tony Abbott, the leader of the Coalition elected on 1 Dec 2009, led a vigorous campaign, but failed to drive home to the electorate the facts regarding the forthcoming electricity crisis which will drive electricity prices through the roof and lead to shortages of supply.

The Greens have done well, increasing their Senate representation from 5 to 9. Australia is moving into uncharted and possibly dangerous waters.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.globalwarming.org.