Free Republic

While a carbon tax is nothing new to those leading the charge for anthropogenic, or man-made, climate change, it is a new concept to many of us in the United States. The idea is simple. A carbon tax is a fee paid to emit greenhouse gases. Unless you are completely self- sustained on your property and in your travels, you will be impacted. Companies that generate electricity will feel the pinch of a carbon tax for burning natural gas or coal to generate power. Steel mills will be impacted for burning fossil fuels to keep their furnaces hot. Automobile manufacturers...

STRASBOURG (AFP) – The European Parliament on Wednesday approved the EU's climate change package, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, lifting the last hurdle to the ambitious plan. Six texts on the package, already agreed by the 27 European Union member states, were passed by a large majority of the MEPs present. "We have sealed the climate package," said European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering, after the vote. The so-called "20-20-20" climate package, which Europe hopes will serve as a model to other nations, will oblige EU nations to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent...

As reported in the August 2007 issue of Foundation Watch ("Al Gore’s Carbon Crusade: The Money and Connections Behind It," by Deborah Corey Barnes), with help from friends at Goldman Sachs, including Hank Paulson, the investment bank’s former CEO who is now the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Gore has created a web of organizations to promote the so-called climate crisis.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California's utilities, refineries and large factories must transform their operations to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of a new climate plan before state regulators. On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board was expected to adopt what would be the nation's most sweeping global warming plan, outlining for the first time how individuals and businesses would meet a landmark 2006 law that made the state a leader on global climate change. It would hold California's worst polluters accountable for the heat-trapping emissions they produce _ transforming how people travel, utilities generate power and businesses use electricity. At...

<p>NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Snow is falling in the New Orleans area.</p> <p>The National Weather Service says a mixture of sleet and snow is falling Thursday morning from Baton Rouge east across much of southeastern Louisiana.</p> <p>The winter weather closed some schools and created hazardous driving conditions.</p>

Abstract: President-elect Barack Obama said attacking global climate change is a "matter of urgency" that will create jobs as he got advice from Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the issue. Obama made clear he would adopt an aggressive approach to global warming when he takes over the White House on January 20. He and Vice President-elect Joe Biden met for nearly two hours with Gore at Obama's presidential transition office in Chicago. Obama hopes addressing climate change can create the kind of jobs that will help pull the U.S. economy out of a...

Until recently, the USA's foot-dragging was about the only thing stopping the Western World from jumping off a cliff over the increasingly preposterous global warming hoax. But with the last grownups scheduled to leave Washington next month, Europeans have been forced to drop the sanctimonious posturing and defend sanity. Chancellor Angela Merkel has been keen to promote herself as a tough actor on climate change, but with a new EU climate deal in the making, she's issued a new caveat: It must not jeopardize German jobs. Merkel used to exploit the hoax with the worst of them, even traveling to...

Barack Obama's great virtue is his ability to behave like a cynical politician without getting a reputation as a cynical politician. The latest example is his left-pleasing promise during the campaign for a windfall oil tax, now quietly removed from his transition Web site. Explained an aide, the tax was all along meant to apply only if oil prices are over $80 a barrel. "They are below that now and expected to stay below that." Mr. Obama here makes a choice in favor of good economic policy. But there's something else going on. He's a student of the late radical...

This past summer when the Senate debated the Lieberman-Warner cap and trade plan, conservatives (and libertarians) were alone in fighting to expose the lie that cap and trade is anything other than a massive energy tax that can only harm our economy. Now, more and more on the left are wising up and taking a more honest approach. Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Ralph Nader and Toby Heaps wrote: Even global warming icon James Hansen has joined the cap and trade truth bandwagon. In his letter to Obama, Hansen writes:

Two down, one to go. You might think now that Barack Obama has staffed his economic and security teams, the hard choices are over. But he has one more doozy of a decision to make. And the worry is that his picks for that final, crucial team -- those overseeing energy and environmental policy -- will undo any smart moves the president-elect has made so far. It isn't yet clear Team Obama understands that it doesn't have the luxury of making a mistake here. Energy is the engine of, and inextricably linked to, the American economy. Environmental policies and regulations...

Conservatives put on a spectacular display of scientific ignorance this month in the U.S. Senate. During the debate on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would regulate carbon dioxide by setting a cap on emissions and allowing emitters to trade carbon allowances, most Republican senators questioned the reality of human-caused climate change or ignored the climate threat entirely and repeated the talking point that the bill would raise gasoline and electricity prices. It was as if they had been locked in an isolation booth for the past decade. Let's go to the highlights. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.: "The vast majority...

The prospect that President-elect Barack Obama may keep the Bush tax cuts until 2011 has some clinging to hope he will postpone his liberal ideas for the economy’s sake. There’s little chance of that when it comes to global warming, however, an issue on which Obama puts his ideology first and the nation’s economic growth second. In a recent video statement to the Governors’ Global Climate Summit, Obama displayed unwavering support for strong federal action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Sounding like he was auditioning for a role in Al Gore’s next film, Obama said, “The science is beyond dispute...

Obama's World View on Energy and Climate - - In a video shown at a costly, two-day "global warming" jamboree at the Beverly Hills Hotel, hosted by Governor Schwarzenegger of California in November 2008, Barack Obama said: "Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season. Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken...

SACRAMENTO — SACRAMENTO – A draft blueprint to stem global warming counts on businesses and everyday Californians to accept a mix of tough regulations and new fees, perhaps as much as $1.5 billion a year collected on targeted products and water bills. The state Air Resources Board spent yesterday drawing praise and protest for its groundbreaking initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. Regulators now will refine the plan before they gather next month for a final vote on the blueprint, which would require a gradual rollback in emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020, an...

Three US governors join forces with Indonesia and Brazil to keep carbon locked up in endangered tropical forests Though it didn't seems to make an enormous splash in the press, the deal reached this week between three US states, Indonesia and Brazil seems like a fairly big deal in terms of rainforest protection. The agreement was brokered at the climate summit convened by California's ecosavvy governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Along with fellow governors from Illinois and Wisconsin, Schwarzenegger signed an agreement that could see carbon credits earned from forest protection in Indonesia or Brazil incorporated into US emissions trading schemes. Partly,...

NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street hit levels not seen since 2003, with the Dow Jones industrial average falling below the 8,000 mark, as the fate of Detroit's Big Three automakers and the economy disheartened investors. Stocks finished at their lows of the session after the automakers pleaded for relief during a second day of hearings in Washington. The heads of General Motors Ford and Chrysler are asking for a massive infusion of cash to prevent millions of layoffs and stave off bankruptcy.

The Heritage Foundation issued a harsh rebuttal to Barack Obama’s latest climate change comments, blasting the president-elect for recycling problematic climate change rhetoric from the campaign trail. The Washington think tank also criticized Obama’s plans to address global warming, calling the proposals “fear mongering” based on tainted data. The Heritage Foundation’s statement came in response to comments made at the Global Climate Summit, a meeting arranged by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Los Angeles earlier this week. More than 600 global climate-change experts convened at the summit to try to break gridlock on environmental issues ahead of next month’s United...

Nov 07, 2008 Global concern about the ailing economy has led the European Environment Committee to revise its energy package. The committee announced that it agreed the European Union should revise key clauses in its climate and energy package to adjust for the current financial crisis. The economic slowdown has hurt carbon credit demand and pricing. Over the past few weeks EU member states have requested permission to make some revisions to protect their economies. Bulgaria, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Poland have criticized the proposed shift to a pan-European carbon credit auctioning mechanism and...

US environmental groups see Barack Obama’s presidential victory as a chance to undo the Bush legacy on global warming, and one idea they are discussing is the possibility of a White House climate czar. Members of the environmental community in and around Washington say such a post could oversee various government agencies, including the Environmental protection agency and the interior department, to focus on tackling global warming and fostering clean energy to jump-start the flagging economy. For the first time, candidates and voters are really connecting the dots between energy, the environment and the economy, said Cathy Duvall, Sierra Club’s...

The Apollo Alliance, a coalition of environmentalists and labor unions, wants the federal government to spend $500 billion over 10 years to "build America's 21st century clean energy economy" and thereby "create more than five million high quality green-collar jobs." Barack Obama says he can accomplish the same goal for only $150 billion, which gives you a sense of how reliable these projections are.More fundamentally, both the Apollo Alliance and Obama, who has liberally borrowed from its ideas, mistakenly treat the manpower required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a measure of success, when it should be viewed as a...

McCain campaign’s last minute distortion of Obama’s coal record an act of desperation November 3, 2008 For immediate release: United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President Cecil E. Roberts issued the following statement today: “Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have once again demonstrated that they are willing to say anything and do anything to win this election. Their latest twisting of the truth is about coal and some comments Sen. Obama made last January about the future use of coal in America. “Here what the McCain campaign left out of Sen. Obama’s actual words:...

Americans (esp. Pennsylvanians) pay attention to this mans words: The catalyst for our Industrial Revolution began with coal mining in states like Pennsylvania. Even today coal plays an integral part in our means of energy production. The keystone states' economy is considerably dependent on the coal industry. If you do not think a President Barrack Obama would be a threat to your pockets and living, you are sadly mistaken. "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse...

West VIRGINA must be PO'ed : the server is BUSYYYYYY.

Change we can freeze to death by: Let me sort of describe my overall policy. What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there. I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that...

CHARLESTON - At least one state coal industry leader said he was shocked by comments Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made earlier this year concerning his plan to aggressively charge polluters for carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. "What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there," Obama said in a Jan. 17 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that was made public today first on the Web site newsbusters.org, which calls itself "the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media...

"Under my plan, the cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."

"Since coming to Washington, I've believed that the right approach begins with the proposal put forward by Senator Lieberman and Senator McCain," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said at Committee On Environment and Public Works hearing on January 30, 2007, "a proposal they've been pushing for years, and I thank them again for their leadership on this issue. The Lieberman-McCain Bill establishes limits for greenhouse gas emissions well into the 21st century. To remain below these limits, the bill encourages the market to determine how best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, rewarding cost effective approaches using a system of tradable allowances."...

It looks like the financial wizards at Goldman Sachs are betting that the U.S. government is going to impose a cap-and-trade system for global-warming emissions sooner rather than later, despite the financial crisis shaking up the corridors of power from Wall Street to Washington. Goldman is announcing today that it will partner with Salt Lake City-based carbon-offset project developer Blue Source LLC. The company, backed by big-time private equity investors First Reserve Corp. and Och Ziff Capital Management Group, sells carbon credits. Neither Goldman Sachs or Blue Source would comment on the size of the investment, other than to say...

It's not just income taxes that might trash the dreams of Joe the Plumber. Ready or not, Joe and the rest of us are also about to get mugged by the commissars of climate change. On this, I've got a bipartisan beef, since both John McCain and Barack Obama have bought into the panicked Al Gore storyline that the earth has a man-made "fever." Both candidates are promising to meet it with dramatic and costly new forms of government control. This comes even as Europe, after its fling with the Kyoto treaty, is backing off from grand pledges to cut...

The media needs to start asking hard questions. Here is where they need to start. If you look at page 180 of the 451-page monster bailout bill that easily passed the Senate yesterday (PDF here), you will see that it includes at Section 116 language about the tax treatment of "industrial source carbon dioxide." It also provides, at Section 117, for a "carbon audit of the tax code."

The U.S. is now a member of the cap-and-trade club, after a successful auction of greenhouse-gas emissions permits among a handful of Northeastern states last week. So what’s the verdict on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative? Demand was actually pretty strong—Six of the ten states in the scheme offered 12.5 million permits for power companies to pollute. Bidders actually wanted more than 50 million permits, a sign of serious interest among utilities in getting their hands on the permits. (And it was largely utilities that were bidding; organizers said power companies, rather than environmental groups or third-party traders, bought “most”...

"GE slashes earnings view for 2008, but shares gain" by Marketwatch shows that General Electric is off about 38% from its high of about 42 only a year ago. Furthermore, "GE currently makes about 45% of its earnings from the financial unit, called GE Capital." From where we sit, General Electric's problems are the direct result of a management belief, as exemplified by the company's membership in the Climate Action Partnership, that the company does not have to create genuine value to earn a profit. As described by Kimberly Strassel's "If the Cap Fits: Why our CEOs are warming to...

Did you know that a 10 state coalition is holding our nation's first ever carbon allowance auction at 9:00 AM EDT today? Or that the same states will be imposing a mandatory cap-and-trade program on their electric plants beginning next month? This may surprise those who assumed that June's tabling of the national Lieberman-Warner bill coupled with already runaway energy prices and growing overall economic anxiety signaled a reprieve from this stealth tax and power grab scheme -- at least for the remainder of the year. Nonetheless, the New York-based Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative launches today, striving to freeze CO2...

When 10 states in the U.S. Northeast launch the country's first cap and trade emissions market this week, their greatest service to the fight against global warming may be the mistakes they make. In the absence of guidance from the Bush administration on how to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the states from Maryland to Maine stepped forward to form the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The program will cap emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, at 233 fossil fuel-fired power plants starting in January. RGGI, to be launched on Thursday, will serve as a live model for Western...

What is the connection between the bankrupt Lehman Brothers and the likelihood that in four years' time our electricity bills will jump another 25 per cent (on top of the rises likely from soaring coal and gas prices)? The answer is that, before its collapse, Lehman was pitching to become the leader in the vast trade created by the new worldwide regulatory system to "fight climate change" by curbing emissions of carbon dioxide. The biggest money-spinners will be the schemes whereby industry will pay for permits to emit CO2 at so much a ton, either directly to governments or by...

With the Rrepublican National Convention in the books and with the pick of Sarah Palin, Senator McCain is riding high in the polls. If early last week you asked me to bet the ranch on which convention would attract more television viewers, I would be living in a cardboard box under Steven's bridge on road 94b. An average of 34.5 million Americans tuned in to watch the Republican Convention. That is the largest viewing audience in the history of political conventions. However, a word of warning to the maverick John McCain: Nice convention kid, don't get cocky. With the conservative...

For Barack Obama, climate change is change we can believe in. Speakers at the Democrats’ convention this week, by and large, have taken as dim a view of fossil fuels as the Iraq war. If you were quaffing your brew at each mention of "alternative energy" from the podium, you’d have a lot of recycling to do by now. The green theme climaxes tonight, with environmental hero Al Gore setting the stage for the candidate’s address. Since he launched his campaign, Obama has offered remarkably detailed proposals and demonstrated fluency in the language of energy and carbon. He promises a...

Speaking of Minnesota . . . Stephen Spruiell is sussing out the Twin Cities in advance of the Republican National Convention, and reports on the GOP's latest platform draft over on the homepage. Spruiell finds the platform plank on immigration, for example, is worded in such a way as to avoid driving a wedge between McCain and his conservative base: The passages on global warming provide another example. The draft acknowledges that human activity is contributing to warming and calls for “measured and reasonable” steps to curtail it. Policymakers should support solutions that are “technology-driven, market-based,” and not fall prey...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- The Republican platform may include a first-ever plank on global warming, an examination of a draft document indicated. "Increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the Earth," The Hill reported the draft document as saying. "While the scope and long term consequences of this warming effect are the subject of ongoing research, we believe the United States should take measured and reasonable steps today." Sen. John McCain, poised to become the party's presidential nominee next week during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., is a proponent of tackling global warming.

Senator Barack Obama really wants to tackle climate change, of course. That’s such a big issue, it’s running neck-and-neck with health care at the top of the Democratic economic agenda. And Senator Edward Kennedy barely mentioned climate change in his teary convention speech, unlike health care. (Our colleagues at the Health Blog tackle that issue here.) The usual problem is that expensive, broad-reaching programs like that tend to get bogged down on the Hill. But President Obama would act on the climate with or without the help of Congress, apparently. From today’s WSJ: The Obama camp also believes it has...

Airline Company Flight Plans by: Rachel Paulk, August 11, 2008 Facing an energy crisis at home and punitive new regulations abroad, some of the largest airline companies are banding together to face the problems these trends engender. The leaders of three top aviation fuel management companies—Flight Sciences International, Sabena Flight Academy, and BMB Fuel Consulting Services—held a press conference Thursday, August 07, 2008, to announce their merger and the subsequent creation of Flight Sciences Global Partners. Michael Miller, President of Miller Air Group in Orlando, Fl, stated that “The airline industry is facing the toughest challenge since 9/11, with fuel...

It's always amusing when Canadian politicians and pundits confidently predict what our American neighbours are about to do. The current conventional wisdom from those who don't get out of Ottawa much is that the United States is poised to roar out of years of climate change denial under President George Bush, the moment Barack Obama or John McCain replaces him. Indeed, our prognosticating eager-beavers inform us, the Americans are about to zoom light years ahead of us in the battle against global warming, and we'd better get on board if we don't want to choke on their coal dust, economically...

McCain and Obama came to Michigan this week touting two all-too-similar energy plans. By Henry Payne Detroit — The presidential fuel follies came careening into Michigan this week, advertising two knights battling over America’s energy future. Upon closer inspection, however, the fix appears to be in: Underneath the rhetorical weaponry, both knights are wearing the same green armor. Barack Obama arrived first at Michigan State to give a typically grandiose speech outlining his plan for a “complete transformation of our economy.” The Arrogant One has been trying to make up to Michigan since he presumed a year ago to tell...

The hole in Kyoto's 'cap' Why taxes and the cost of consumer goods go up and carbon emissions don't come downLast week we looked at the leaky foundation at the base of the Kyoto accord, known as carbon credits. Today, let's examine the holes in its roof -- its so-called "cap" or "hard cap" on carbon emissions, linked to man-made global warming. In reality, there is no "cap", either in the Kyoto accord or the "cap-and-trade" markets and carbon taxes it has spawned. In addition, while politicians like to pretend it's easy to create a cap-and-trade market or institute a...

Gas prices may have retreated from their recent peak, but they are still outrageously high.  More worrisome, current gas affordability levels (perhaps un-affordability level is more apt) may be just the beginning.  Gas prices may soon set new record highs, and it will not be due to China, India, or even OPEC.  Instead, as Walt Kelly once famously paraphrased, "We have met the enemy and he is us".  The greatest risk to affordable gas prices in the future is the global warming policies being discussed by policy makers.  To see the relationship between ever-higher gas prices and global warming policies...

Let's face it. The average individual American has little or no clout with Congress and can be safely ignored. But it's a different story with groups such as Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy. When they speak, Congress listens. Unlike the average American, they are well organized, loaded with cash and well positioned to be a disobedient congressman's worse nightmare. Their political and economic success has been a near disaster for our nation. For several decades, environmentalists have managed to get Congress to keep most of our oil resources off-limits to exploration and drilling. They've managed to...

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO – Social and environmental groups yesterday challenged a multistate proposal to trim greenhouse gas emissions because they fear it would harm low-income communities and be vulnerable to fraud. Protesters showed up outside a meeting of the Western Climate Initiative in San Diego, where leaders from several states and Canadian provinces discussed their pollution-reduction compact. California supports the blueprint, which aims to drop climate pollutants 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The most controversial aspect is a plan to create a cap-and-trade system for atmospheric pollutants. Once emission limits are set by the 11 participating governments, high-polluting...

Carbon credits' dirty secret Energy companies and speculators make windfall profits while consumers are hit hardAt the bottom of the house of sand on which the Kyoto accord and world carbon trading markets are built, there's a leaking foundation. Otherwise known as a carbon credit. A carbon credit is a permit or, alternatively, a unit of currency, allowing a country or corporation to emit one metric tonne of carbon dioxide, linked to man-made global warming. Carbon credits are the main mechanism by which Kyoto transfers wealth from developed nations like Canada to developing ones like China. They are also the...

The silver lining in the cloud of high energy prices is the growing public support for domestic development of natural resources. Opinion polls, including data from California, show Americans are increasingly inclined to support drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf and in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In an effort to increase the domestic supply of oil and also to pressure Congressional Democrats not to extend the offshore ban, which expires September 30, on July 14 President Bush eliminated the executive order preventing offshore drilling. Not surprisingly, Democratic congressional leaders and their special interest allies oppose adding new areas for...

Your daily routine -- switching on a light, cooking a meal, driving down the street -- would generate less greenhouse gases under a first-of-its-kind regional strategy to curb global warming unveiled Wednesday at the state Capitol in Salem. The strategy emerged from the Western Climate Initiative, an alliance of Western states -- including Oregon and Washington -- and Canadian provinces trying to jump ahead of any federal move to regulate greenhouse gases. Large utility companies and factory owners would feel the effects first, followed by fuel distributors, as they face limits on their greenhouse gas emissions. Individual Oregonians would not...