In the January 12th Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin reported on a company that is launching a project to measure atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. She writes:

Robert Marshall, president and chief executive of Earth Networks, said the information the new sensors gather would be particularly valuable in a regulated market in which greenhouse gas emitters can buy and sell carbon credits. While the federal government is unlikely to adopt such a nationwide trading system anytime soon, states such as California and New Mexico are pressing ahead with such policies, as are many nations overseas.

This might have been true before November 2010, … Continue Reading

The Los Angeles Times’ Margot Roosevelt covered the California Air Resources Board adoption of a cap and trade system on December 17th, writing:

Under the state’s cap-and-trade plan, emissions from the 600 biggest industrial facilities, including cement manufacturers, electrical plants and oil refineries, would be capped in 2012, with that limit gradually decreasing over eight years in an effort to encourage energy efficiency and renewable sources of power.

Companies would be granted “allowances” for each metric ton of greenhouse gas they emit, and they could trade unused allowances among themselves to cut costs.

But what Roosevelt never explains is what “costs” allowances … Continue Reading

Chelsea Conaboy of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote an article on October 4th discussing the success of the northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). RGGI is a regional cap and trade system that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector 10 percent by 2018 and includes 10 northeastern states. While Conaboy accurately points out that one purpose of a cap and trade system is a revenue raiser (RGGI brought in $729 million in new revenue for the states), the program is not the driver for reduced emissions. The slumping economy is. Carbon … Continue Reading

In The Washington Post August 29th, David A. Fahrenthold had a good report on the environmental movement and its inability to pass comprehensive climate change legislation - even with a left-leaning Congress, a Democratic President and a record oil spill. The article nicely demonstrates how the public does not have an appetite for cap and trade or any other bill that will increase the cost of energy. Fahrenthold misleads readers when he says it was industry and the oil groups that stopped cap and trade in its tracks. Writing about the environmentalists, he says, “A … Continue Reading

Jim Kirk argues in the August 13th New York Times that since Congress is not moving forward with cap and trade legislation, the Chicago Climate Exchange, the nation’s only buyer and seller of carbon credits, is suffering. Kirk says, “Although carbon trading is robust in Europe, Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the Chicago Climate Exchange, painted a gloomy outlook for a robust cap-and-trade market in the United States.”

While is true absent a cap and trade policy, the future of the Chicago Climate Change is gloomy, Kirk is simply wrong to say that carbon trading is robust in … Continue Reading

On August 2 in NPR, David Welna writes on the scaled-back energy bill in the Senate proposed by Senator Harry Reid (D-NV). Welna’s description of the bill is mostly accurate but his report has two fundamental flaws. First, when noting that Reid’s bill does not contain a system to price carbon dioxide, he wrongly asserts that businesses responded negatively towards proposals like cap and trade. He writes, “It’s been more than a year since the House narrowly passed its energy bill. That was a tough vote for a lot of Democrats because the bill included … Continue Reading

In his July 21st article, Carbon-control bill faces steep hill in Senate, Associated Press reporter Charles Babington makes it sound like nothing but good will come from a bill that prices carbon dioxide. Discussing last year’s Waxman-Markey bill Babington writes, “The House voted 219-212 last year for a “cap and trade” energy plan. It would create economic incentives to limit heat-trapping gases from power plants, vehicles and other sources.”

These economic incentives are nothing more than crony capitalist handouts given to large corporations. The incentives are subsidies, loan guarantees, tax credits, and regulations. In the free … Continue Reading

On July 12th Coral Davenport reported for Politico:
Congress may or may not pass a serious climate bill this year, but one thing is certain: It won’t be business as usual.

Congress may or may not pass a serious climate bill this year, but one thing is certain: It won’t be business as usual.

While Republicans and polluting industries will celebrate, most know their victory will be fleeting…
Over the past year, the Environmental Protection Agency rolled out four rules that, in the absence of climate change legislation, eventually would give the executive branch command-and-control power to limit carbon pollution from power plants, factories

… Continue Reading

Politico’s Darren Samuelsohn transcribed a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office on the Democrats latest cap and trade energy tax bill for Politico July 7th:

The CBO analysis of the American Power Act, championed by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) found that government revenues would grow by about $751 billion from 2011 to 2020 if the bill became law. By contrast, the legislation would create direct spending of $732 billion over the same 10-year period.

This is all true, but Samuelsohn ignores some elementary criticism of how the CBO is forced to score legislation by Congress. The … Continue Reading

The Associated Press’s Matthew Daly reported June 15th on the Environmental Protection Agency’s new analysis of the Senate cap and trade bill introduced by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT). The analysis says cap and trade would cost American households cost households an average of $79 to $146 per year. But the AP fails to report on the faulty assumptions that come with the EPA analysis.

To get there, the EPA includes generous assumptions, specifically on the use of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the use of offsets and the increase in nuclear power. With CCS, … Continue Reading

Darren Samuelsohn of Greenwire, published by Environment & Energy Publishing, reports on a study that says the newly introduced Kerry-Lieberman climate change legislation will be a jobs creator. Samuelsohn says the Peterson Institute for International Economics study finds that new energy investment will create 200,000 jobs per year. Actually, the study says:

Given that the United States is currently below full employment with most economists projecting a slow labor market recovery, this investment is more stimulative than inflationary in the first decade, resulting in an average annual increase in US employment of 203,000 jobs above business as

… Continue Reading

NPR’s Alan Greenblatt filed a story April 26th, How Cap And Trade Was ‘Trashed’, reporting on on the history and political divide of cap and trade in the United States. Part of the story includes the origins of cap and trade, in which he says, “The term cap and trade didn’t exist until the mid-1990s, but by that time the idea had already served as the centerpiece of a landmark environmental law. It had turned out to be the solution for acid rain.”

But cap and trade was not the solution for acid rain. Laurie Wiliams and … Continue Reading

Juliet Eilperin’s October 28th Washington post story Economics of Climate Change in Forefront reports:

In June, the Center for American Progress and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute predicted that a $150 billion annual public and private investment in clean energy would produce a net increase every year of 1.7 million jobs.

It’s true, CAP did release such a “study” in June of this year. But they also released a very similar study in September of 2008 showing that $100 billion in annual spending on clean energy would produce 2 million jobs. That is a … Continue Reading

Bruce Henderson has an article in the October 9th Charlotte Observer titled “Lobbying pays off for Duke” detailing the the massive sums being spent by Duke Energy lobbying for “carbon dioxide cap-and-trade”.

While mentioning the dramatic spike in Duke’s lobbying budget, which the Observer notes are underwritten by ratepayers, the paper cites the following claim without challenge:

‘That was a major achievement,’ said Duke spokesman Tom Williams. ‘I would say that was a major example of our (lobbying) presence paying off for our customers.’

But back in June, Henderson also reported for the Observer, that Duke is seeking 13.5% increase for … Continue Reading

Under the header Obama: Job figures sobering, but show recession is slowing CNN’s Chris Isidore and Paul Steinhauser posted an item July 2nd reporting: “Obama has said recovery will take time, predicting the unemployment rate will climb above 10 percent before reversing.” But CNN fails to tell its readers that that “prediction” was made by Obama just this June, which is a bit like predicting the winner of the World Series just before the last strike is called.

In January, when the President was pushing his “stimulus” plan, his Administration was predicting that—if Congress embraced his policies—unemployment would top … Continue Reading

Reporting for Time, Bryan Walsh writes under the header What the Energy Bill Really Means for CO2 Emissions:

But critics have vastly overstated the likely cost. In fact, they’re all but lying. During the House debate, Republican whip Eric Cantor, using numbers from an American Petroleum Institute study, said that the bill would eventually cost more than $3,000 per family per year … A more reliable study from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecast that the bill would cost the average U.S. household $175 in higher energy costs annually by 2020…

“All but lying” is a pretty strong statement that demands … Continue Reading

Felicity Barringer’s April 8 New York Times article “In Areas Fueled by Coal, Climate Bill Sends Chill” asserts:

Even residents who endorse wind and solar energy have grown accustomed to the benefits of state policies that favor coal by putting a premium on low-cost electricity. So the idea of federal climate legislation that could increase electricity bills by putting a price on emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide is unsettling.
…
Here in Missouri, economic incentives built into the state’s laws, history and habits encourage burning as much coal as possible.

But a thorough reading of the entire article fails to identify … Continue Reading