On Hole Cards, Or, "Drill, Baby, Drill"? Why? Is Canada Out Of Sand?

by: fake consultant

Wed May 25, 2011 at 02:35:04 AM MST

Naturally, this has brought the Sarah Palins of the world back out in public, and once again the mantra of "Drill, Baby, Drill" can be heard all the way from the Florida coast to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

But what if those folks have it exactly backwards?

What if, in a world of depleting oil resources, the last thing you want to do is use yours up?

To put it another way: why isn't all our oil part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

On Redistribution, Or, "Afghanistan Peace Dividend Stimulus Lotto? OK!"

by: fake consultant

Thu May 12, 2011 at 06:22:59 AM MST

I mean, we're over here talking about how we're so broke that we have no choice but to cut a couple of billion from heat assistance for the poor, and a billion-and-a-half from the Social Security operations budget, and money from food stamps and childcare assistance and tornado forecasting in Alabama...but every single month, just as regular as clockwork, we seem to be able to find another $10 billion to spend in Afghanistan, even as we have an economy that could badly use another round of truly productive stimulus.

And I don't think y'all even realize just how much money $10 billion really is - but today we're gonna see if we can't fix that with a bit of a thought exercise.

Imagine if we set up a program that took that Afghanistan money and spent it right here at home for a year or two - and it was spent in the form of a lottery, where we stimulate the larger economy, help fix the mortgage crisis, and create a more energy-independent nation, all at the same time.

I got all we need except a catchy name; with that in mind let's move on to the description of how the Happy Super Fun Day Peace Lotto Stimulus Thingy works.  

Two Four Letter Words for Green Energy

by: saindenver

Sun Sep 19, 2010 at 19:19:37 PM MST

While American Republicans were turning climate change into a wedge issue, the Chinese Communists were turning it into a work issue.

"There is really no debate about climate change in China," said Peggy Liu, chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, a nonprofit group working to accelerate the greening of China. "China's leaders are mostly engineers and scientists, so they don't waste time questioning scientific data." The push for green in China, she added, "is a practical discussion on health and wealth. There is no need to emphasize future consequences when people already see, eat and breathe pollution every day."

And because runaway pollution in China means wasted lives, air, water, ecosystems and money - and wasted money means fewer jobs and more political instability - China's leaders would never go a year (like we will) without energy legislation mandating new ways to do more with less. It's a three-for-one shot for them. By becoming more energy efficient per unit of G.D.P., China saves money, takes the lead in the next great global industry and earns credit with the world for mitigating climate change.

Using low cost capital, supported by the state, Chinese corporations can take control of this emerging and disruptive technology.

"China is changing from the factory of the world to the clean-tech laboratory of the world," said Liu. "It has the unique ability to pit low-cost capital with large-scale experiments to find models that work." China has designated and invested in pilot cities for electric vehicles, smart grids, LED lighting, rural biomass and low-carbon communities. "They're able to quickly throw spaghetti on the wall to see what clean-tech models stick, and then have the political will to scale them quickly across the country," Liu added. "This allows China to create jobs and learn quickly."

Here is a case in which an innovative American company can not get the capital to operate in the president's own country...and he wants to keep the jobs here rather than offshoring them.

We (sort of) have those capabilities. At the World Economic Forum meeting here, I met Mike Biddle, founder of MBA Polymers, which has invented processes for separating plastic from piles of junked computers, appliances and cars and then recycling it into pellets to make new plastic using less than 10 percent of the energy required to make virgin plastic from crude oil. Biddle calls it "above-ground mining." In the last three years, his company has mined 100 million pounds of new plastic from old plastic.

Biddle's seed money was provided mostly by U.S. taxpayers through federal research grants, yet today only his tiny headquarters are in the U.S. His factories are in Austria, China and Britain. "I employ 25 people in California and 250 overseas," he says. His dream is to have a factory in America that would repay all those research grants, but that would require a smart U.S. energy bill. Why? ...

Biddle had enough money to hire one lobbyist to try to persuade the U.S. Congress to copy the recycling regulations of Europe, Japan and China in our energy bill, but, in the end, there was no bill. So we educated him, we paid for his tech breakthroughs - and now Chinese and European workers will harvest his fruit. Aren't we clever?

Read the whole thing and ask why the "free market" ideologues have taken control of this argument.

Then, remind Ken Buck and the other Republicans running here that our tax dollars are spent to develop effective technologies which Chinese, government-sponsored firms convert to useful technologies exported to the US.  Something is very wrong here, and it is partly due to Republican politicians' refusal to support green energy through tax and fiscal means which would seriously cut the deficit.  Or, maybe their solution is to eliminate all government support for education, research and innovation and just create more "innovative" financial instruments?

Beyond Washington: The Oil Industry Buys Influence

by: Heather TaylorMiesle NRDC Action Fund

Thu Aug 26, 2010 at 10:24:16 AM MST

The first eye-opener came from recently released lobbying numbers. The OpenSecrets blog reported that the oil and gas industry poured $174 million into the political system in 2009. That's eight times more than the green groups.

What did the oil and gas industry get for its money? A handful of Senators who blocked all attempts by the Senate to pass a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill that would have made fossil fuel industries start cleaning up their global warming pollution.

This week's second revelation made that difference abundantly clear. Jane Mayer wrote an investigative piece in the New Yorker about the brothers David and Charles Koch who run Koch Industries -- the biggest corporation you've never heard of -- and who have spent more than $100 million on anti-government causes.

Koch Industries owns oil refineries and 4,000 miles of pipeline, and was named one of the top 10 air polluters in the nation in a 2010 UMass-Amherst report. The Kochs' political donations are often aimed at promoting their libertarian views, but they also directly benefit their own profit margins. They have donated millions of dollars to nonprofit groups that fight environmental regulation and seed doubt about climate science. In fact, a Greenpeace report called them a "kingpin of climate science denial." And though green groups tend to paint ExxonMobil as the worst of the worst when it comes to lobbying against climate legislation, Koch outspent even ExxonMobil.

One of David Koch's pet projects is the group Americans for Prosperity, a group he founded and funds but positions as a grassroots movement. An ad for one of its training sessions for Tea Party activists says, "The voices of average Americans are being drowned out by lobbyists and special interests. But you can do something about it."

But when Americans for Prosperity hosts at least 80 events protesting climate legislation, is it really acting in the interest of average Americans or the interest of oil industry donors?

When it funds an attack ad against Representative Betsey Markey from Colorado because she supported climate legislation last summer that would have brought 30,000 jobs to her state, who is it benefiting?

And when the group pledges to spend an additional $45 million before the midterm elections, is that money really coming from grassroots activists, or from deep corporate pockets? These fat cats pretend to fraternize with the ordinary folks who dangle tea bags from their tri-cornered hats, but, in fact, they are just using activists to put a populist face on their industry agenda.

Manipulating other people's fears about the economy when you are a billionaire -- I would call that the depth of cynicism. But considering those billionaires are getting in the way of climate solutions, clean energy and green jobs in America; I have to instead call it dangerous.  

Congressional Candidates' Views on Clean Energy, Climate Change: CO-04

by: NRDC Action Fund

Mon Aug 23, 2010 at 17:33:54 PM MST

Today, we examine Colorado's 4th Congressional District, covering the High Plains of northeast Colorado, plus growing cities like Greeley, Fort Collins and Loveland.  Home to wheat and cattle farms, it's a traditionally rural and reliably Republican area -- John McCain carried the district in the last election.  Democrat Betsy Markey bucked tradition in 2008, when she defeated three-term incumbent Republican Marilyn Musgrave.  Markey is being challenged by Republican State Representative Cory Gardner, in what most describe as a tossup race.

As a freshman, Rep. Markey has been a solid environmental voter, receiving a 79% rating from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), meaning she voted pro-environment on four out of every five opportunities.  Markey voted for the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), writing in the Denver Post, "Colorado is blessed with vast energy resources, and as the renewable energy sector is already thriving and growing in northern and eastern Colorado, this bill brings unique benefits to our region. In fact, our corner of Colorado stands to see greater benefits from this legislation than most other areas of the country."  And Markey hasn't changed her tune on the campaign trail, writing on her website, "We have a unique opportunity at this time in our history to change the way we power our country and Colorado is poised to become a world leader in this effort....The future of renewable energy is vital to the future of our national security."

Pretty much everything in Cory Gardner's record in the Colorado legislature and in his campaigning suggest that he'd oppose clean energy measures and a healthy environment.  According to Colorado Conservation Voters' 2010 scorecard, Gardner voted against legislation promoting clean energy production in Colorado; even against assistance to homeowners for energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades; and against creating new jobs in clean energy.  On the campaign trail Gardner has spent his time attending a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser co-hosted by a BP lobbyist, collecting campaign cash from companies like Valero Energy, (one of the major forces behind the effort to repeal California's landmark clean energy and climate legislation), and lamenting that cap-and-trade legislation "will cost farmers and ranchers, industry in this country, more money than they can afford, and the result will be that they'll move overseas."  

The truth, according the Department of Agriculture, is that the benefit of climate legislation to farmers "easily trump" the costs.  The USDA analysis shows that ACES would create "annual net returns to farmers rang[ing] from $1 billion per year in 2015-20 to almost $15-20 billion in 2040-50."  Gardner is refusing to recognize the huge opportunities that clean energy could provide to the citizens of the 4th district.   In stark contrast, Rep. Markey gets it.  Voters should be aware of the clear differences between these candidates.

The NRDC Action Fund believes that it is important for the public in general, and the voters of specific Congressional districts, be aware of this information as they weigh their choices for November.

Show Up and Speak Up for Climate Change Legislation

by: Heather TaylorMiesle NRDC Action Fund

Tue Aug 10, 2010 at 12:26:34 PM MST

Legislative inaction must be more tiring than I realized.

Still, I don't view this month as a cooling off period. If anything, it's time to turn up the heat.

Over the next few weeks, Senators will be holding "town hall meetings" in their states. Last year, these meetings came to define the health care debate. This year, they could help us reshape America's energy policy.

If you are like me and you are still stunned that the Senate refused to pass a bill that would have created nearly 2 million new American jobs, put our nation at the forefront of the clean energy market and helped end our addiction to oil, then go to a town hall meeting and tell your lawmakers what you think.

Tell them that it is in America's best interest to embrace clean energy now.

And while you are at it, please tell them to block attempts by some Senators to weaken the Clean Air Act-the 40-year-old law that has saved hundreds of thousands of lives-in an effort to further delay reductions in global warming pollution.  

Some naysayers claim that voting on visionary legislation is a risky proposition when we are this close to an election. They are wrong, and history proves it.

As I wrote in a recent blog post, 13 of the most powerful environmental laws were passed during the fall of an election year or in the lame duck sessions following elections.  

We can pass comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation this fall, but only if we demand it of our lawmakers.

Use this August to make your voices heard. You can find your Senators' schedules by checking their Senate websites, as well as their candidate websites - Republican or Democratic.