THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 127, July 18, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IT'S REALLY ABOUTCONTROLLING OUR LIVES:
"Low Carbon Fuel Standards" Mean Higher Costs,
Few Environmental Benefits, & Less Liberty
By Paul K. Driessen
THE COMPLEX ENERGY & CLIMATE LEGISLATION THAT THE DEMOCRATS INTEND TO RAM THROUGH THE U.S. SENATE:
THE HUGE COSTS & NUMEROUS UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES THAT THIS BILL WOULD IMPOSE ON AMERICA -- HOW
THE BILL WOULD ADVERSELY EFFECT BLUE-COLLAR WORKERS, & POOR, MINORITY, & SENIOR CITIZENS -- A RECENT
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THIS "LOW CARBON FUELS" LEGISLATION, A STUDY THAT WAS IGNORED BY THE MAINSTREAM
MEDIA
FULL STORY:
Within days, U.S. Senate 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,” Senator Reid says. “We’re going to work on pollution.”
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, 2010, invalidation of flexible air quality permits for Texas
refineries, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s offshore oil 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, the Energy Information Administration, the White House, and Senator 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, 2010, 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;
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. As President Obama himself has said, the very purpose of energy and climate policies
like LCFS is to ensure that prices “necessarily skyrocket.” It is to force people to use less fuel, compel companies to
change power generation and use practices, drive coal companies and utilities out of business, and force the
development of new fuels and technologies that may or may not work.
All of these policies are based on the premise that we waste energy and are causing a planetary meltdown. Climate change
is real, and has been since the dawn of time. But there is no consensus and no evidence that carbon dioxide is the primary
factor in global warming and cooling, or that humans are causing a climate disaster. Assertions, assumptions and computer
models are not evidence, and cannot justify what Harry Reid is pushing.
Restricting, taxing, regulating and penalizing the hydrocarbon fuels that provide 85% of America’s energy would severely
hobble our free enterprise system and impact jobs, families, living standards and basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. Doubling the price of electricity in our industrial heartland – where coal provides 50-95% of all electrical
power – would kill millions of jobs, and send millions of families into fuel poverty.
Renewable energy is intermittent, unreliable, land and raw materials intensive, and unsustainable without government
mandates and constant infusions of “other people’s money” in the form of subsidies. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus might be
ecstatic that an F/A-18 fighter jet recently flew on biofuel av-gas. But brewing $65-per-gallon fuel from camelina is hardly
sustainable, even for the Defense Department.
As to the great utopian vision of “green jobs,” Spain’s subsidy-driven wind turbine industry cost the country 2.2 jobs for
every eco-job it created, according to studies by Dr. Gabriel Calzada. And, when the global recession hit, the subsidies
dried up, the turbine-making jobs disappeared, and hundreds of wind and solar companies were driven to the precipice of
bankruptcy.
Wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars require “rare earth” metals. America’s probable deposits are locked up in
wilderness areas, which leaves China as the world’s predominant producer. So, the bulk of the green manufacturing jobs
will be in China – while we will get the temporary jobs hauling, assembling, and installing components made in the Middle
Kingdom and shipped to the United States.
Thus, China, India, and Brazil will continue to surge forward on plentiful coal and metals, cheap labor, affordable electricity,
a can-do attitude, laxer environmental standards, and a rational refusal to accept legally binding carbon dioxide reductions.
Thus, even if the U.S.A. went cold turkey, and completely shut down all greenhouse-gas-spewing factories, homes and
cars, the developing country emissions would overwhelm our sacrifices within a few months, and atmospheric CO2 levels
would continue to rise.
And for what? Cars and power plants are already 90% cleaner than their 1970s era predecessors. Climate change is
moderate and primarily natural. Senator Reid’s formula is all pain, for no environmental gain.
Even bright high school students understand this. U.S. Senators certainly ought to. But Harry Reid is hoping 60 do not.
That’s the magic number he needs to regulate not just one-sixth of our economy (the healthcare sector), but 100% –
because nothing happens without abundant, reliable, affordable energy. And enacting any form of fuel rationing
legislation will put Congress and bureaucrats firmly in charge of our lives, liberties, hopes, dreams, and rights.
Either Senator Reid’s cadre doesn’t understand these basic facts – or they are so blinded by power, ambition, ideology,
and desire to control that they willfully ignore the facts.
Climate change truly is a huge moral issue. What the Political-Activist-Industrial Complex is doing in the name of
preventing climate change and creating a green economy is un-American and immoral. Applied to poor countries, to
restrict their access to abundant, reliable energy, it becomes lethal and inhumane. It can no longer be tolerated.
Be alert. Speak out. And beware of energy and climate dictators and charlatans, and any lame duck session that may
come after citizens vote to replace many of the control freaks on Capitol Hill.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and
author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity