Posted by: David Lungren David_Lungren@epw.senate.gov

"More Carbon Dissidents" - "Gas at $7 a gallon ?" -  "Democrats Revolt Over Energy"

Inhofe EPW News Round-up

Washington Times:  Climate scientists plot to fight back at skeptics  - "Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails. Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work. The scientists have been under siege since late last year when e-mails leaked from a British climate research institute seemed to show top researchers talking about skewing data to push predetermined outcomes. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authoritative body on the matter, has suffered defections of members after it had to retract claims that Himalayan glaciers will melt over the next 25 years.

Wall Street Journal : Editorial : More Carbon Dissidents  -  So eight senior Senate Democrats think that Congress-instead of the Environmental Protection Agency-should decide whether or not to regulate carbon. Imagine that: Policy choices that carry enormous consequences for "the workers, industries, taxpayers and economic interests of our states" should be made by duly elected representatives. That's how the coal-state Senators-led by Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and including Ohio's Sherrod Brown and Michigan's Carl Levin-put it in a recent letter to EPA chief Lisa Jackson, who is set on using clean-air laws written in the 1970s to impose the carbon limits that Congress won't pass.  A bill is pending in the Senate that would strip the White House's green bureaucrats of this "endangerment" authority. Last week House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson and Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton introduced a resolution that would effectively veto the EPA's ruling.

NYT: Dot Earth: Fuel Taxes Must Rise, Harvard Researchers Say  - To meet the Obama administration's targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving would simply have to increase, according to a report released Thursday by researchers at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The research also appears in the March edition of the journal Energy Policy. The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency's budget for fiscal 2010.

WSJ:  Democrats Revolt Over Energy  - The actions add up to a significant challenge to Mr. Obama, who took office promising a fresh approach to energy policy that would promote jobs, slash greenhouse-gas emissions and put the U.S. in the forefront of new energy-technology development. More than a year into his presidency, Mr. Obama's policies are encountering resistance from big industries and members of his own party. Under federal law, Yucca is the designated site for the nation's spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. But the repository is more than a decade behind schedule. As a result, the waste generally remains at the nuclear reactors and DOE sites where it was generated.

Washington Post : Raising the gas tax might be the only way to wean Americans off oil -  No one knows exactly how America will find its way to a cleaner economy. That's why, as a rule, Congress shouldn't pick winners and losers in climate-change legislation and instead leave those calls to private actors operating in an environment in which emitting carbon becomes progressively more costly. But there are a few cases where it's clear who should lose -- and as soon as possible. Because of the range of social costs it exacts, oil is one of them.

Guardian UK: Pielke Jr.: Major change is needed if the IPCC hopes to survive  - The IPCC also needs improved mechanisms of accountability to its own admirable objectives. For instance, while the IPCC has a mandate to be "policy neutral," its reports and its leadership frequently engage in implicit and explicit policy advocacy. For instance, IPCC leaders often take public stands in support of, or opposition to, certain policies on climate change, such as when its chairman weighs in on U.S. domestic legislation. The IPCC reports, particularly Working Group III, reflect a particular policy orientation, which is decidedly not "policy neutral." To cite one example, the IPCC has concluded that the world has all the technology that it needs to achieve low stabilization levels. However, this conclusion ignores a significant body of academic work (such as by New York University professor emeritus Martin Hoffert and colleagues) suggesting that the world does not in fact have all the technology that it needs.

Strassel:  Environmentalists pressure the insurance industry  - Copenhagen was a flop. Congress's cap-and-trade bill is stalled. The EPA has delayed its climate rules. If you think this means American business is escaping the threat of carbon restraints, think again. Most of the climate debate focuses on Washington. This misses a more clever and committed force-environmental groups that impose their agenda on companies via pressure, legal threat and sympathetic regulators. A textbook example has been quietly unfolding in the insurance sector. The question is whether governors will stand by to let green activists effectively regulate their businesses.

Human Events: EXCLUSIVE: Inhofe Blasts Gore Over Climategate  - I asked Inhofe a series of questions keyed to Gore's claims in the NYT piece. GORE CLAIM: "We would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world. SEN. INHOFE: "We're dependent on foreign oil for one reason. We have all of the recoverable resources here in America. We're number one in the world. We're ahead of China, and of Russia. The problem is, the political problem, that the liberals and the Al Gores don't allow us to develop our own resources. And so if we did, we would be-we could be totally independent in a very short period of time if we could just develop our own resources, such as our shale, the oil, our gas-we have enough gas to run this country for ninety years. But we can't get to it."

Washington Examiner: A gas tax to cure global warming? Compromise looks to revive stalled plan - Even without creating a cap and trade system, such a proposal would face opposition among Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, particularly those who will not support any bill that threatens to raise prices or impose a fuel tax, which could happen under this proposal. "No bill that collides with the urgent imperative of job creation has a chance right now and to the extent that a climate bill has that feature or is seen as having that feature, it can't go anywhere," said William Galston, a political scholar at the Brookings Institution. Senate proponents of the bill are up against a daunting deadline, with a little more than six months left to tackle legislative business before the chamber adjourns for 2010 campaigning. Few, if any, endangered Democrats will be willing to vote on a bill that could be unpopular among economically struggling constituents.

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