“EU Carbon Trading Rocked By Mass Killings”, “Armed Troops Burn Down Homes, Kill Children To Evict Ugandans In Name Of Global Warming”

These two headlines from today’s Global Warming Policy Foundation update ought to finally shake some sense into any of the many US companies pushing for our involvement in the Kyoto debacle. That’s a demand invented by Enron (greenies, I was in the room, don’t bother), and I particularly recall DuPont’s rep whining like a child to the US representative about their being denied the right to cash in, at a State Department briefing at one global confab I attended in 2002.

This is particularly true on the heels of the experience of Coca Cola and Unocal with the 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act, under which they were sued to pay for the actions of a government in whose country they operated.

Specifically, news reports indicate that:

“Armed troops acting on behalf of a British carbon trading company backed by the World Bank burned houses to the ground and killed children to evict Ugandans from their homes in the name of seizing land to protect against ‘global warming,’ a shocking illustration of how the climate change con is a barbarian form of neo-colonialism.

The evictions were ordered by New Forests Company, an outfit that seizes land in Africa to grow trees then sells the ‘carbon credits’ on to transnational corporations. The company is backed by the World Bank and HSBC. Its Board of Directors includes HSBC Managing Director Sajjad Sabur, as well as other former Goldman Sachs investment bankers…

Villagers told of how armed ‘security forces’ stormed their village and torched houses, burning an eight-year-child to death as they threatened to murder anyone who resisted while beating others.

‘We were in church,’ recalled Jean-Marie Tushabe, 26, a father of two. ‘I heard bullets being shot into the air.’

‘Cars were coming with police,’ Mr. Tushabe said, sitting among the ruins of his old home. ‘They headed straight to the houses. They took our plates, cups, mattresses, bed, pillows. Then we saw them getting a matchbox out of their pockets.’

‘But in this case, the government and the company said the settlers were illegal and evicted for a good cause: to protect the environment and help fight global warming,’ reports the New York Times.”

To beat some too-typical greens to their punch, no, this is not what happens when one introduces “market mechanisms” into environmental schemes.

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Last week, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and a number of other Congressmen with states who rely heavily on energy production for economic stability, sent a letter to EPA head Lisa Jackson expressing some concerns over her agency’s impartiality. At the heart of their complaints, a series of backdoor regulations the EPA has put into place in recent months: regulations that are not only harming American energy industries, but which are actively destroying jobs in a already troubled economy.

Now, the EPA doesn’t seem to mind that it wields extensive power that it’s using to change the very fabric of the American financial system, but residents of states whose economies are dependent on energy job growth – and the leaders of these industries – are starting to see a problem.

Before, it might have just been industries that environmentalists considered “problematic,” but a recent EPA rule is about to put a wrench in the operations of nearly every carbon-dioxide-expelling creature or industry on the planet. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone, part of the Clean Air Act, currently demands that ozone emissions be limited to 75 parts per billion. That standard was put into place only two years ago, and companies are only now beginning to come into compliance. Instead of allowing industries to meet this standard, though, the EPA immediately moved the goalposts: they are now considering standards that would limit ozone emissions to only 70 or, more stringent yet, 60 parts per billion.

Apart from economic and social context, these numbers seem meaningless. But consider this: if the EPA were to choose the lesser of the standards, 70 parts per billion, only 24% of the 675 US counties who monitor ozone would be in compliance. If the bar were lowered to 60 parts per billion, only 4% of counties would make the cut. All of the areas that didn’t meet the standard would become subject to strict EPA scrutiny, as well as billions in fees and fines. Some of the more egregious offenders might even lose federal highway funding, and find themselves under the never-ending watchful eye of Lisa Jackson’s already-intrusive environmental watchdogs.

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The Cost of Government Day Report, published annually by Americans for Tax Reform Foundation, measures the number of calendar days Americans must work to pay off spending and regulatory burdens at all levels of government. In 2011, Americans labored 224 days to pay Uncle Sam—until August 12. 77 days went solely towards paying off regulatory costs. These costs will only grow under the aggressive regulatory regime envisioned by the Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Coupled with the existing 77 day burden, proposed EPA regulations promise to increase the costs of electricity and household items for all Americans.

In a 2008 talk with the San Francisco Chronicle, then-Senator Obama boasted that his emission reduction plan would cause electricity prices to “necessarily skyrocket.” As President, Obama quickly pushed for higher energy prices through the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, better known as “Cap and Trade.” While the Act did not pass the Senate, the 2009 Cost of Government Day Report estimated that Cap and Trade would have increased the Cost of Government by three additional days.

The failure of Cap and Trade to net legislative success inspired the Obama Administration to pivot to the EPA to pursue its environmental agenda. Enabled by unaccountable bureaucrats, the EPA enacts much more harm than the politically-conscious Congress could ever achieve.

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This week, National Journal asked a rather interesting question this that implied it head has been fully tucked in the sand when it comes to recognizing the long term implications of Obama’s environmental policy.

As the EPA readies itself to enforce a handful of rules limiting carbon emissions – a backdoor Cap and Trade policy known as the “Tailoring Rule,” which severely and arbitrarily limits the amount of greenhouse gas emissions many industries are now allowed to produce – the National Journal sleepily wonders what the effect these rules will have on the affected industries.

There are a few responses that take a theoretical approach to the question, but National Journal and it’s guests don’t have to go far to look for a real answer, supported by research. According to a study published recently by the National Alliance of Forest Owners, the Tailoring Rules will have a definite – and immediately felt – negative impact on the economy.

A newly released economic impact study finds that the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Title V Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule” jeopardizes over 130 renewable energy projects, between 11,000 and 26,000 green jobs, and $18 billion in capital investment across the country. The risk of reduced capacity also could prevent as many as 30 states from meeting national renewable energy targets.

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A video is circulating online that imagines what modifications the infamous California Air Resources Board (CARB) would make to Santa and his traditional reindeer-drawn sleigh if they had the ability to regulate Christmas, with hilarious results:

CARB and the far-fetched ideas they frequently propose are a frequent target of scorn, but they really make it easy.  When it comes to unintentional humor, CARB is the gift that keeps on giving.

Included in CARB’s re-fit of Santa’s sleigh:

•     Changing the sleigh into a bobsled – much more aerodynamic.

•     Ditching the gifts in the back; they’re really cutting into the sleigh’s “miles per hoofbeat.”

•     Red might be Santa’s traditional color, but according to CARB darker colors attract too much heat.  Pale pink is just like red…almost.

•     To reduce horse- (or in this case reindeer-) power, at least four of the Dasher and Prancer crowd would find themselves unemployed come Christmas.

•     Rudolph is allowed to stay on the team, but only if he swaps his glowing red nose for an energy efficient light blub.

•     Santa should really skip the cookies and milk so he can shed a few pounds.

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A newly released economic impact study finds that the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Tailoring Rule” – a back-door Cap-and-Trade style regulation scheme that limits the greenhouse gases industries can emit – jeopardizes over 130 renewable energy projects, between 11,000 and 26,000 green jobs, and $18 billion in capital investment across the country.

Worse, that is just the Tailoring Rule’s effect on a single industry, biomass. Although biomass is generally considered a carbon neutral and renewable energy resource, the EPA included in it’s list of “most wanted” industries. The economies and renewable energy goals of nearly 30 states could be jeopardized.

The study is neatly summarized here on the National Alliance of Forest Owners’ website, along with comments from people central to the industry. The full study is posted below.

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Last week I was down in Cancun, Mexico reporting on the U.N. Climate Change Summit (officially called COP16/CMP6) with Americans for Prosperity and Andrew Breitbart. It was several days of sun, surf, and U.N. conmen. I am back in the saddle here at home, traveling from the warm white sands of Cancun back to the cold white snow of Chicago. Where’s all that global warming when you need it?

At least I have the modern conveniences of natural gas to keep my house warm and coal and nuclear-fired electric to power my electronic entertainment and work devices. Unfortunately, if the con in Cancun is successful we may no longer have such luxuries.

One of the last places I visited in Cancun was the Villa de Cambio Climatico — or in English the climate change village. The exhibit was sponsored by the Mexican federal government and was set up in order to indoctrinate Mexico’s school children in the ways of environmental hokum.

At the exhibit we found what was presented as the ideal eco-friendly house. Of course, it was suitably small as the enviro-Nazis most certainly don’t want anyone enjoying a bit of elbowroom in their homes though it did have space for a few modern niceties. It had a tiny computer area, an actual flush toilet, and a four-foot-tall refrigerator that looks like it might be able to store enough food for two or three days.

But it was the laundry-room that took the cake.

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Environmental groups have launched a new effort, the Safe Climate Campaign, to radically transform the American automobile and fight climate change. Nathan Wilcox, global warming director at Environment America, states: “Americans want cars that go farther on a gallon of gas. They want our country to use less oil. They want our politicians doing more to address the problem of global warming, not less.” But the proposals are so extreme that the mini-van so loved by Soccer Moms may become an endangered species.

To kick off the campaign, nineteen environmental organizations, including Greenpeace, the National Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, sent a letter on September 9 to President Obama calling for a Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard of 60 miles-per-gallon (mpg). The memo also advocates a global warming tailpipe pollution standard of 143 grams-per-mile, both to be implemented by model year 2025. The memo states: “Setting strong global warming pollution and fuel efficiency standards for new cars and trucks is a key opportunity to put America on the right path.”

If adopted, these proposals will require that the average vehicle sold meet the standards or manufacturers pay a per-vehicle fine. Consumers will be forced to buy small high-mileage cars, primarily electric and hybrid, and forgo large vehicles based on the internal combustion engine, such as today’s mini-vans. Such emissions standards could significantly raise the price of our cars. Europe recently enacted similar emissions standards that are projected to boost prices by more than $8,000 per vehicle.

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President Obama’s imminent proposal to allow businesses to expense capital equipment purchases through the end of next year is something my colleagues at CEI, particularly Marlo Lewis, have been advocating for some time. Not as “stimulus”, mind you (though it should have some stimulative effect, which is not to condone the refusal to maintain current tax rates — that is, insistence on raising tax rates — as of January 1). But as a greenhouse gas emission reduction scheme.

The logic is simple and the Dutch actually showed (again, accidentally) how this works to reduce emissions: business do not replace capital equipment as early or often as they might like because the tax code disincentivizes it, with depreciation schedules instead of treating it like other business expenses. They therefore postpone purchasing newer, more efficient (and typically more energy efficient) equipment.

Change that, and they will pull through new technology into use.

In a way that is moving investments forward, a la cash for clunkers. But in other ways it is just smart and the right thing to do.

Here’s the downside: yes, you get emission reductions and not by harming economic growth, but actually encouraging it. However, the political class do not get to reward their constituencies with cap-n-trade wealth transfers from you and me to them, don’t increase the cost of energy, and obtain no new control over our lives.

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Sens. John Kerry and Lindsey Graham had a piece Sunday in the New York Times, stumbling through a pro-cap-and-trade routine. Initial thoughts on this homage to the bipartisanship fetish:

The “we even have different accents” bit tips their hand that the argument is as substantive as those Gore-group ads with Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson on a couch together. Not a bad parallel actually, though I can’t help but recall this far more entertaining version of the labored intro.

When one feels compelled to give six reasons why we ought to embrace their idea, you know they aren’t persuaded themselves with the “global warming” argument, and see little persuasive opportunity in it.

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