Back to Basics

Within days, Majority Leader Harry Reid intends to bring sweeping energy and climate legislation to the Senate floor. He won’t call it cap-and-trade or cap-tax-and-trade, and certainly not a carbon tax.

“Those words are not in my vocabulary,” he says. “We’re going to work on pollution.”

Senator Reid’s twenty-pound bill will be laden with lofty language about “clean energy,” energy conservation, “green jobs,” reducing “dangerous” power plant emissions, ending our “addiction” to oil, creating a renewable economy, and saving the planet from “imminent climate disaster.”

Environmental euphemisms aside, however, the legislation is really about imposing national “low carbon fuel standards” (LCFS) and forcing dramatic reductions in the use of oil, natural gas and especially coal. It would expand on existing laws, regulations and decrees, like the Environmental Protection Agency’s ruling that carbon dioxide somehow “endangers human health and welfare,” EPA’s June 30 invalidation of flexible air quality permits for Texas refineries, Interior Secretary Salazar’s offshore drilling moratorium, multiple state and federal renewable energy standards and mandates, and various state and regional “greenhouse gas initiatives” that restrict emissions from power plants and industrial facilities.

The EPA, Energy Information Administration, White House and Mr. Reid insist that America can easily limit hydrocarbon use and switch to “eco-friendly” wind, solar and biofuel energy – at low cost and minimal harm to families, businesses and jobs. However, their self-serving, other-planet claims are flatly contradicted by a host of studies by reputable analysts with a solid history of integrity and accuracy.

The most recent is a June 17 report by Charles River Associates, examining the “Economic and Energy Impacts Resulting from a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard.” Prepared for the Consumer Energy Alliance, the study looked only at transportation fuels. (Including coal for electricity generation and other uses would dramatically increase its cost estimates.) Nevertheless, the study found that national standards implemented in 2015 would:

* Increase average gasoline and diesel prices by up to 80% in five years, and 170% within ten years – sending regular gasoline prices soaring to nearly $5 per gallon by 2020 and $7.50 per gallon by 2025 (assuming other international price pressures remain unchanged);

* Spur sharp cost increases for petrochemicals in plastics, pharmaceuticals and other vital products;

* Reduce employment and consumer demand significantly, by increasing the cost of transporting people, equipment, supplies, raw materials, food and finished products – for work, school, healthcare, business, manufacturing, vacation and other purposes;

* Cut business investment by $200-320 billion annually, compared to the no-LCFS baseline;

* Slash gross domestic product by $410-750 billion annually by 2025;

* Cost 2.3 million to 4.5 million American jobs, including up to 1.5 million in manufacturing and 3.0 million in the service sector; and

* Force household purchasing power downward by $1,400 to $2,400 for a family of four by 2025 – impacting minority, elderly and other low and fixed income families worst of all.

None of this should be surprising.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is carrying out one of the biggest power grabs in American history. The agency has positioned itself to regulate fuel economy, set climate policy for the nation and amend the Clean Air Act—powers never delegated to it by Congress. It has done this by declaring greenhouse gas emissions a danger to public health and welfare, in a proceeding known as the ‘endangerment finding.’”

So wrote George Allen and Marlo Lewis in a recent Forbes commentary. Allen is a former U.S. Senator and Governor from Virginia. Lewis is a senior fellow in environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The Senate is scheduled to vote June 10 on the Murkowski Resolution, S.J. Res. 26. If passed it will stop the out-of-control Environmental Protection Agency’s global warming rampage. The resolution has 41 sponsors, but needs 51 votes to pass. There will be no filibusters and no second chance to reverse the worst attack on the U.S. economy and the freedom of Americans to utilize energy for business and personal use.

“If allowed to stand,” wrote Allen and Lewis, “the EPA’s endangerment finding will trigger a regulatory cascade through multiple provisions of the Act. America could be burdened with a regulatory regime more costly than any climate bill Congress has rejected or declined to pass, yet without the people’s representatives ever voting on it.”

Americans have witnessed the spending of billions in stimulus bills that have not reversed or slowed the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression.

They have witnessed the take-over of General Motors by the federal government.

They have watched this Democrat-controlled Congress ram through a healthcare “reform” bill that takes over one-sixth of the nation’s economy and a Cap-and-Trade Act, renamed a “climate” bill, is waiting for a vote.

When the Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970 no one ever imagined that it would exceed its mandate to ensure clean air and water to such an extent that it would pose a threat to the lives of Americans and to the economy.

It is in control of two people who are virulent environmentalists. Carol Browner, an Obama “czar” whose appointment was not subject to congressional oversight was an EPA administrator during the Clinton administration. She is an avowed socialist and close associate of former Vice President Al Gore. Lisa Jackson, the current administrator, worked with her before being selected to head the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

The same day Rasmussen Reports revealed that Barack Obama has the lowest approval rating of any previous President it was reported that Ms. Jackson had cancelled attendance at a political fundraiser in New York next week.

It must have occurred to someone in her office that, in the midst of the worst oil spill in U.S. history, that might not be a good idea. They scrubbed her participation saying “her priority has continued to be protecting human health and the environment.”

If that is an EPA priority it has pursued this goal in some strange ways.

The automobile industry and the labor unions have caused the problems they face today.  They have been on a free ride for years, taking advantage of the American consumers, and it finally backfired on them.  Mismanagement, gasoline prices, government regulations, labor costs and an apathetic attitude have all contributed to their failures.  The taxpayers should never have been held responsible for their actions.  This is unconstitutional, but no one in our federal government seems to be awake.  Is anybody home?

Gasoline prices are one of the problems.  Guess what, this is nothing new!  Back in the 1970’s gas prices started rising to a whopping 50 cents a gallon.  People were outraged.  Speculation was that if gas went over $1 a gallon people just wouldn’t be able to afford to drive any more.  My husband owned a foreign car at that time that got 45 mpg.  It was nothing special, just your basic automobile.  You can’t find cars today that can produce that kind of mileage.  We also purchased a new car – a 1975 Pontiac Trans Am equipped with the V8 400 engine.  One of the less efficient cars of the time, it only got 20 mpg.  Wow, a muscle car that actually beats many of the vehicles today in gas mileage standards.  So, back in the 70’s with the impending doom of higher gas prices, nothing was done to combat the issue.

In the 1980’s gas prices again became an issue.  American cars just weren’t providing the gas mileage consumers wanted so they turned to foreign imports.  Foreign cars were not something I had ever imagined owning, I always stuck with American products.  But in trying to find a car that would get better gas mileage the foreign cars provided something American cars could not.  We found a Datsun that could get 35-40 mpg, and as a second car found a Mazda that got 30 mpg.  Gas prices during this era would rise and fall even dipping below the $1/gallon mark.  It was still a concern of the American public, but nothing was being done by the automobile industry to address the issue.

Back in the 1990’s my daughter joined the electric car club in high school.  These high school students created alternative fuel vehicles and had yearly competitions between schools to see whose car was the best.  These students were able to design and build cars that ran off alternative fuels.  With limited resources they were able to succeed.  But their efforts didn’t impact the auto industry and gas prices continued to rise.

Occasionally you would hear of alternative fuel vehicles on the market.  Most were very restricted in marketing and often only available to government agencies or only on lease agreements.  They were never made readily available to the public.  One big problem with these alternative fuel vehicles is that they took the gasoline version and then converted it to an alternative fuel.  This made the car cost prohibited, because you not only were paying for the original car but all the additions to convert it.  Other manufacturing changes came along, like going from carbureted engines to fuel injection.  Emissions played a factor in the changes, and not always on the positive side of the mileage factor.  Yet no real alternatives had been produced.