Taxpayer subsidies? I got your subsidies right here pal! (And why aren't my free market friends raising hell about this?)

One of the most persistent criticisms of efforts to stimulate clean energy jobs (wind, solar, etc.) is that it requires taxpayer funded government subsidies.

As Russ Harding of the Midland, MI-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy says in
a 2009 column “if the answer is yes (that they require subsidies), the end economic results are more likely negative rather than positive.”

The critics never acknowledge that the status quo is laden with huge subsidies for the coal, nuclear and oil that currently make up the bulk of our fuels.

Now we have some idea how much those subsidies are. And they’re huge.

The Environmental Law Institute has published a report, Estimating U.S. Government Subsidies to Energy Sources, 2002-2008. The findings: Subsidies to fossil fuels “totaled approximately $72 billion over the study period, representing a direct cost to taxpayers.”

Most of the fossil fuel subsidies were permanent alterations to the tax code. The largest, $15 billion, was the Foreign Tax Credit – a direct incentive for U.S. companies to invest in energy production outside the U.S. instead of in homegrown fuels made by Americans.

By comparison, most of the $29 billion in renewable energy subsidies were time-limited – a huge barrier to investors who are understandably unwilling to invest in industries that may get their tax breaks yanked at the whim of the next Congress.

So this raises two key questions:
1) As a country supposedly unified in increasing our energy independence and moving away from dangerous, unhealthy fossil fuels, why are we subsidizing the fuels we don’t want, rather than the ones we do?
2) Why aren’t so-called “free market” proponents like the Mackinac Center raising more – or any – hell about the tax breaks for fossil fuels? (Hint: Some of these organizations have funders with names like Exxon Mobil)

If we’re going to subsidize energy production, let’s subsidize clean, renewable, American-made energy. If we’re going to be purist “free market” proponents, let’s work to eliminate all energy subidies – and it makes sense to start with the biggest ones: Fossil fuels.

Anytime someone says clean American energy shouldn’t have to get subsidies to compete, they need to answer these questions. Every. Single. Time.
###

That igloo was funny! Hey Sen. Inhofe, where the #@!% are you now? (and some yucky science stuff for the rest of you)

That was so damn funny when the family of climate skeptic Sen. James Inhofe built an igloo near the Capitol during record snowfall in February!

Well, where the #@!* are you now Sen. Inhofe? Haven’t heard much from him, nor from the usual suspects whose decibels rise whenever it’s cold out – Detroit News cartoonist Henry Payne; WJR talk show host Rush Limbaugh Frank Beckmann, or our friends over at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Maybe it’s because they realize that a week-long stretch blistering heat in the American Midwest has no statistical significance when analyzing long-term global temperature trends. And now they feel foolish having used similar stretches of abnormally low temperatures to crow about the climate conspiracy (since they have precious little science on their side).

NAW! Didn’t think so.

To speak a little science (some of you can log out now: Science stuff, yuk!) you’ll recall that NOAA recorded the hottest global temperatures on record for January through April of this year. Now they’ve release May, 2010 data. Yep, hottest May on global record.

Planet to Sen. Inhofe: “How do you like me now?”

##

Attacking a wind power plan that no one's proposed. Or, are you calling Google a liar?

He’s baaaaacckkk! Russ Harding of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy has penned a new column attacking wind energy as too expensive for Michigan and….get this!....a blight on our scenic vistas! http://www.mackinac.org/12798

There’s nothing wrong with the “blight on our scenic vistas” argument. Lots of people think wind turbines are ugly. And even those of us who don’t generally agree that there are spots where they don’t belong. On top of Sleeping Bear sand dunes, for example.

But it’s just a hoot that the Mackinac Center has suddenly found a soft spot for Pure Michigan. But only when it involves wind turbines. Apparently they don’t see the same aesthetic dilemma with coal plants. Or drilling rigs on the shores of the Great Lakes. Or piles of toxic mine tailings. Or paved over wetlands.

Anyway, Mr. Harding cites a study done for the right wing Heritage Foundation that “predicts that using on-shore wind to provide electricity for a family of four as opposed to coal would increase monthly bills from $188.66 to $339.58. For off-shore wind that climbs to $403.65.”

Good God. Surely this would make clean energy proponents rethink their plan to generate the entire nation’s electricity from wind power. Right?

Oh, wait….NO ONE IS PROPOSING OR HAS EVER PROPOSED GENERATING 100 PERCENT OF OUR ENERGY FROM WIND POWER! But that’s how the Heritage Foundation did the calculations cited by Russ.

No, Michigan’s just hoping to hit 10 percent renewable power by 2015, and only part of that is wind energy. Most plans to cut our dependence on dirty, polluting and expensive coal envision energy efficiency as the most important way to meet our electricity needs. That saves ratepayers money as they use less electricity. Efficiency is followed by a mix of numerous renewable energy generation sources: Wind, solar, biomass, natural gas, geothermal, hydroelectric, and, in some scenarios, nuclear.

I mean, for God’s sake, even Google has a plan to eliminate our reliance on coal by the year 2030: http://bit.ly/8HhdEJ And everyone knows Google rules the universe. The chart shows Google’s plan. Wind is a modest part of the mix.

The cost of wind energy is coming down. The cost of coal is going up. Michiganders sent $1.36 billion to other states in 2008 to buy coal according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. That’s money that would stay in our economy if it were invested in homegrown clean technologies or energy efficiency products instead.

Plus, mining coal requires blowing the tops off beautiful Appalachian Mountains and bulldozing the rubble into the streams in the valleys below: http://mountainjustice.org/facts/steps.php

Now, there’s an aesthetic concern worthy of Russ Harding’s attention.
###

Climate Change: Smoking gun fizzles, Princeton physicist accuses me of issuing propoganda!

The British House of Commons’ investigation into the hacked e-mails of climate researchers is complete. To jog your memory, this is the so-called “Climategate conspiracy” smoking gun that was going to blow the lid off the climate change hoax and reduce 40 years of climate research to a smoking pile of rubble.

The Washington Post said the investigators criticized “a culture of withholding information” but concluded that “the integrity of its climate change research was not in doubt….The 14-member parliamentary committee said in its report that it had found nothing to challenge the "scientific consensus" that global warming is occurring and influenced by human activity.” 

Here’s the Post’s writeup: http://bit.ly/8XvCRB

And here’s the Brits’ investigation: http://bit.ly/9sMU4P

None of this is likely to slow down die-hard skeptics. For them it merely means the British House of Commons is in on the conspiracy along with the rest of us. It’s beautiful in its simplicity. If your scientific research or your laymen’s understanding of it affirms that climate change is a problem, BANG! you’re part of the hoax and nothing you say henceforth can be credible. End of story.

Speaking of skeptics, a Princeton physicist – in a publication of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy - has accused me of issuing a “propaganda statement” via a press release I issued on behalf of the Michigan Environmental Council. The release blasted the credentials and motivations of a torturously skewed panel of climate “experts” convened recently by the Mackinac Center.

Here’s our press release: http://bit.ly/cSXA2O
Here’s the Mackinac Center’s piece with the Princeton skeptic (who, it should be noted, is a smart and distinguished researcher in a field with some relevance to climate science, but is not a climatologist): Http://bit.ly/9xMiWD

So if you’d like to read them and decide for yourself where you find the propaganda, I’m cool with that! No pun intended.
###

Finding common ground with anti-government right wingers: iPhones are cool!

As advertised (see the post immediately below this one), there were no scientists on the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s ‘expert’ panel at Oakland University yesterday discussing the most complex and pressing science issue of our time (climate change).

I will spare you the predictable diatribes against Al Gore, scientists, the media, liberals, environmentalists, etc.

But the most telling moment was when one panelist, the Reason Foundation’s Shikha Dalmia, to her credit, said she would not discuss climate science, because: “Unless you are a trained climate scientist you have no business talking about it as far as I’m concerned.”

The irony was lost entirely on the other panelists, who proceeded to expound on climate science at excruciating and grossly inaccurate length.

Afterward, Detroit News cartoonist and 'expert' panelist Henry Payne and I had a spirited discussion about renewable energy, the environmental community, the cost of peak-load electricity generation and iPhone apps.

We agreed. iPhones are cool.

###

Anti-regulation activists come to Michigan dressed as science experts! (But did they stay at a Holiday Inn Express?)

Today, a panel of anti-government anti-regulation activists will convene on two Michigan college campuses, Oakland University and Central Michigan University: http://bit.ly/cSXA2O

They will spread this message: Thousands of climate scientists worldwide are either incompetent or have abandoned their ethical, moral and professional obligations as part of an insidious plot to fake the issue of climate change.

They could be right....and Arkansas-Pine Bluff could win the NCAA basketball tournament this year.

Here’s a more plausible explanation:

The panelists each work for organizations dedicated to eliminating government regulation. Two of the three are paid by big foundations and companies to fight government oversight. Climate change solutions almost certainly will require government oversight. Therefore, these organizations are desperately denying the science that threatens their mission: Minimizing regulation and protecting clients.

So maybe thousands of climate scientists are stupid or crooked.

Or maybe the panelists’ hatred of government regulation and/or loyalty to their funders is so great that they will do anything in order to block it.

The latter explanation is business as usual for the folks who continue to defend tobacco companies and oppose government regulations that prevent the Great Lakes from being siphoned into Asia-bound tankers for sale to the highest bidder.

It is telling that the so-called ‘expert panel’ today tackles the most pressing and complex scientific matter of our time, yet there are no scientists on the panel! Instead we get a newspaper cartoonist – Henry Payne of the Detroit News -- and two paid flacks for anti-government foundations: Paul Chesser of the Heartland Institute and Shikha Dalmia of the Reason Foundation.

The anti-science crusade has been successful, as it was against tobacco regulation a generation ago. Recent polls show a decline in the number of Americans who believe the science of climate change: http://bit.ly/cfnt8g


But even with the recent dustup over e-mails stolen from climate scientists, no major US scientific organization has changed its stance on climate. In fact, a list of 250 (and growing) U.S. scientists (mostly climatologists) have signed this open letter: http://bit.ly/b5JnK8

I’ve already filled out my NCAA bracket. People who analyze basketball for a living predict an early exit for Arkansas-Pine Bluff. I’ll root for them because I love to see the underdogs make fools of the experts. But that’s not where I’m putting my money. How about you?

##

Asian Carp solution: More fishing!

Legislative hearings on the threat that Asian carp pose to the Great Lakes have been scheduled in Lansing.

http://www.mlive.com/mudpuppy/index.ssf/2010/02/asian_carp_hearing_in_lansing.html

The Frankenfish have devoured everything in their path on their way to Lake Michigan, now accounting for something like 90 percent of all biological life in the Illinois River.

Michigan and other states are trying to force a closure of the last locks standing between the carp and Lake Michigan http://www.stopasiancarp.com/. So far, President Barack Obama’s administration has been tone deaf to the appeal.

But maybe none of this is necessary.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s reliable policy experts have unveiled a truly free market solution: “More fishing could help ensure that the non-native carp do not overcrowd the native fish of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers.”

You just can’t make this stuff up.

http://www.mackinac.org/10633

###