Climate Progress

Greenwire (subs. req’d) has also published a detailed list of who is advising McCain on energy and environment policies, which I am reprinting below the fold.

By contrast, McCain’s campaign relies on a small group of longtime friends and advisers. Campaign staff would not comment on why their advisory team isn’t as large as Obama’s, but sources say the staff’s size reflects how frequently the Arizona senator departs from the Republican Party line on environment and energy issues.

I know Woolsey, and he is certainly very solid on energy security issues. But he is the exception. Doug Holtz-Eakin is much more typical of the conservatives McCain is likely to find available to fill his administration. Like his boss, he doesn’t believe in clean technologies and he doesn’t believe in government efforts to promote them (see Campaign stunner: McCain “might take [new CAFE standards] off the books”).

“I’m not sure a McCain EPA would look any different than an Obama EPA,” quipped Brian Kennedy, a former House Republican leadership aide. “He might even bring Carol Browner back.”

That last quote would be laughable if it weren’t part of a targeted campaign of disinformation. Conservatives — including McCain himself — want the media and independents to believe McCain is liberal on the environment (see “Why McCain hates renewables but pretends he loves them” and “Memo to media: McCain doubletalks to woo conservatives and independents at the same time“). But his voting record makes clear he is a hard-core conservative, who happens to believe that global warming is almost as serious as scientists.

The GOP bench is exceedingly thin on genuine green Republicans — and none of them are conservatives. Anyway, here is his team: (more…)

Greenwire (subs. req’d) has published a detailed list of who is advising Obama on energy and environment policies, which I am reprinting below the fold.

Obama, an Illinois Democrat, has a notably deep bench of experts to help him answer key questions on energy prices, oil drilling and global warming

I know most of them well, and they are A-listers with deep experience in and out of government. During the Clinton administration, I had the pleasure to work with both Elgie Holstein and David Sandalow. If they are indicative of the kind of people Obama would appoint, then his administration would get off to a running start.

I would also point out that they left out Obama’s national cochair and energy surrogate, my former boss at the Department of Energy, Federico Pena, who is one of the finest public servants I know.

(more…)

I’d estimate it’s about 150 tons of carbon dioxide, some 10 times that of the average American. But someone should ask Senator McCain. After all, he says he wants to require all Americans to cut greenhouse gas emissions 60% to 70% by 2050.

As probably the whole country knows by now, John McCain does not know how many homes he owns. But the number seems to be between 7 and 12, depending on whether you count his Sedona ranch as one house or six.

Given how conservatives beat up Vice President Gore for the supposed energy excesses of his one Nashville home, I can’t wait until they start running TV ads attacking McCain’s climate hypocrisy. [Note to self: Don’t hold your breath.] After all, McCain fashions himself as a leader on global warming, just like Gore, but his combined homes have a considerably larger square footage than Gore’s — and thus presumably a much larger energy use. That said, the energy use of McCain’s homes is infinitely less relevant than their greenhouse gas emissions (see “GOP Attack on Gore Makes No Sense At All“).

So what is the carbon footprint of McCain’s countless homes? Here is a rough estimate. (more…)

Late last year, after his campaign tanked, no one was paying much attention to McCain. As a result, some of the amazing things that he believes didn’t get a lot of attention, such as this Cheney-esque stunner:

JOHN MCCAIN: “When you say wind solar and tide, most every expert that I know says that, if you maximize that in every possible way, the contribution that that would make given the present state of technology is very small, is very small. It’s not a large contribution. It’s wonderful, it’s great to have it, I encourage it everywhere. I hope everyone will, for Christmas, buy their family a solar panel. But, that would be exciting. But they, but, I’d be glad to send you the figures that there’s the amount of–even if we gave it the absolute maximum, uh, wind, solar and tide, uh, etc. The clean tech - the truly clean technologies don’t work.”
(Town Hall Meeting; Portsmouth, NH 12/04/07)

Yes, John McCain is the candidate from the 19th century. He has a Luddite mentality that not even the Bush energy Department believes (see “Wind Power — A core climate solution“).

This quote reveals what a narrow circle of experts McCain relies on. Just what we need, a President in a bubble. And one that he is completely unable to hear the truth, even when it is presented to him by a hard core conservative, like T. Boone Pickens, as we learned from these amazing remarks last month:

(more…)

Part 2 began an analysis of the bipartisan compromise proposed by the Gang-of-10 Senators, suggesting that deal isn’t so bad. The other evidence the deal isn’t so bad is that the House GOP is threatening to refuse to vote for it (see “Part 2.5“).

The good of the 5-year extension of the renewable tax credits certainly beats the “bad” of doubly de minimis drilling. But what about the rest of the deal?

MORE GOOD

Offsets
The $84 billion in investments in conservation and efficiency in the New Era bill will be fully offset with loophole closers and other revenues. Approximately $30 billion will come from new revenues from the oil and gas industry through such measures as modifying the Section 199 manufacturing deduction for oil and natural gas production and other appropriate measures to ensure that the federal government receives its fair share of revenue from Gulf of Mexico leases. Remaining offsets will be finalized in consultation with the Finance Committee after accounting for interaction effects with other pending legislation.

Pretty amazing, really. This bill is going to be paid for in part by “Repealing a tax break for oil companies that Democrats have long called for,” as CNN put it. This is probably a deal killer for those taking millions of dollars in contributions from Big Oil, like McCain.

And there is even more pretty good stuff, depending on exactly how the final bill is written:

(more…)

Part 1 argued argued that the Democrats would be smart to compromise on offshore drilling. Part 2 began an analysis of the bipartisan compromise proposed by the Gang-of-10 Senators, suggesting that deal isn’t so bad.

I am interrupting this series to point out that the House GOP is so nervous that the Dems might kill their pathetic political ploy by forcing a vote on a reasonable compromise that they are willing to delay indefinitely any deal that includes drilling, as CQ Politics just reported:

Republicans Say Any Drilling Bill Must Move Through Committee

House Republicans said Monday they would refuse to consider any energy bill that came straight to the floor from the Democratic leadership’s offices, rather than working its way through committee markups — a process that can take weeks or months.

(more…)

We have come to a point in the election season where the courage of the candidates and the intelligence of the voters are being severely tested. So far, the candidates are flunking.
The public’s grade is pending.

The test is about oil and national security. Over the past several months, consumers showed their smarts by recognizing that a gas-tax holiday was pandering and by responding to high gasoline prices with conservation. Conservation is one of the factors that have resulted in the drop in gasoline prices.

Now, it appears that public opinion has shifted in favor of drilling for more oil, even though the experts say it will have no short-term impact on prices or long-term impact energy security. (I say “appears to have shifted” because at least one expert — David Moore, the former head of Gallup — thinks public opinion is not so clear-cut. When asked a question that gives them a choice, Moore says, half or more of the respondents favor conservation over drilling.)

It’s disappointing, but no surprise, that the candidates’ positions have swung with the pro-drilling polls. (more…)

Major legislative compromises are unsatisfying by design. They invariably have good, bad, and ugly parts.

I have previously argued that the Democrats would be smart to compromise on offshore drilling (see “Since offshore oil is de minimis, why shouldn’t Obama and the Dems make a deal? Part 1“) The rest of this series will examine whether the so-called Gang-of-10 deal is in fact a smart compromise.

That question can be rephrased as, does the good beat out the bad and the ugly [as, of course, Clint did in the epic spaghetti western]?

I will focus here on the main good-and-bad pieces of the “New Energy Reform Act of 2008.” Part 3 will cover the smaller pieces, including the one I think is really, really ugly.

THE GOOD

The best part by far is:

Enhancing Conservation [sic]
To ease gas prices and protect our environment during the transition, the proposal includes a significant federal commitment to promoting conservation and efficiency [sic]. These include:
• Extending renewable energy, carbon mitigation and energy conservation and efficiency tax incentives, including the production tax credit, through 2012 to create greater certainty and spur greater investment.

[Note to Gang-of-10 Dems: Please stop buying into the GOP frame that renewables are the same as “conservation and efficiency.” That’s how they try to pigeonhole all progressive solutions — Doing with less. New renewables, including solar baseload, are a serious supply option that are all but certain to deliver more new kilowatt hours through 2050 and beyond than new nuclear power plants and coal with carbon capture and storage combined.]

Assuming this includes the solar investment tax credit along with the PTC, then this is far and away the most important piece of the legislation. Renewables have had to contend with uncertain year-by-year renewal for a long time. Consider the effect on the wind power, as this chart from a Union of Concerned Scientists study shows:

(more…)

What epic gaffe could unite Colorado’s Democratic Senator Ken Salazar — “over my dead body” — and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer – “Over my cold, dead, political carcass“?

That would be Arizona Senator John McCain telling The Pueblo Chieftan on Thursady that he wants to renegotiate the famous 1922 Colorado River compact to take water from the so-called upper basin states, including CO and NM, where the river originates and give it to lower basin states like his home state of AZ:

“I don’t think there’s any doubt the major, major issue is water and can be as important as oil. So the compact that is in effect, obviously, needs to be renegotiated over time amongst the interested parties. I think that there’s a movement amongst the governors to try, if not, quote, renegotiate, certainly adjust to the new realities of high growth, of greater demands on a scarcer resource’.

In short, the fact that lots and lots of people keep moving into the desert means Colorado should give up more of its water.

[Note to McCain — Given your recent history of misinformation and disinformation on the subject (see “Will McCain’s cynical lies destroy the chance for serious energy and climate policy?“), I’d skip the analogy to oil.]

Them’s fighting words — literally! The word rival, after all, comes from “people who share the same river.” In the West they say, “Whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting.” See also “Warming Will Worsen Water Wars.”

Needless to say, Coloradans do not see things the way that the senator from Arizona does. Democratic Governor Bill Ritter pointed out McCain seems utterly unaware that the compact was just renegotiated in December:

“Just last year, the seven states entered into a new implementing agreement, and that agreement is working as intended,” Ritter said. “It would be sheer folly to re-open the compact at a time like this when all of the states are working cooperatively on this issue.”

In a piece titled, “McCain suggests raiding Colorado’s water,” the deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post wrote Friday on behalf of “Five million thirst-crazed Coloradans”:

(more…)

“Petroleum industry attacks ‘Gang of 10′ energy plan” is perhaps the least surprising headline in the history of E&E News (subs. req’d). After all, the last thing conservatives and their Big Oil donors is an actual “all of the above” compromise (see “The Big Energy Lie“).

American Petroleum Institute President Red Cavaney calls the proposal “a classic case of one step forward, two steps back — or in this instance ‘light on new production/heavy on new taxes.’ ”

At issue is the plan unveiled Aug. 1 by the “Gang of 10″ senators, led by Democrat Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Republican Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, that is aimed at breaking a partisan stalemate on energy policy.

“New taxes on … U.S.-based energy companies would drastically cut capital that otherwise could be invested in domestic oil and natural gas production and expanded refining capacity,” API says. “The net result could be to stifle high-risk, capital-intensive projects in the U.S., leaving Americans more dependent on foreign sources of energy, while jeopardizing U.S. jobs and economic growth.”

Well, it would certainly drastically cut the staggering 55% of profits that Big Oil executives are currently devoting toward buying back their own stock and hence boosting the value of their options (see “Follow your money“).

I will discuss my thoughts on the details of the Gang-of-10 plan next week, though, I have previously endorsed the general idea of compromise (see “Since offshore oil is de minimis, why shouldn’t Obama and the Dems make a deal?“). Here is the rest of the E&E News story

(more…)