Death By a Thousand Cuts Until Climate Scare Defeated

By Tom Harris April 04, 2022 @ RealClearEnergy

Following the suspension of Russian oil imports to the U.S., the Biden administration has opened negotiations with Venezuela to try to secure the supply it needs to help lower prices. President Biden also attempted to discuss increasing oil imports from Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but the Saudi prince rejected his call, as did United Arab Emirates leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed. Leading up to the 2022 mid-term elections, even Iran is now being considered by an increasingly desperate administration as a possible oil source.

Yet, the White House has insisted that it will not reconsider approving the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline from America’s closet ally, Canada. Alberta Premier Jason Kenny is confident that the project could, even now, be completed by the first quarter of 2023, if Biden approved it. Kenny said,

“If President Biden had not vetoed that project, it would be done later this year – 840,000 barrels of democratic energy that could have displaced the 600,000 plus barrels of Russian conflict oil that’s filled with the blood of Ukrainians.”

The market response to having KXL about to come online would clearly contribute to a lessening of oil prices. There is no rational downside to the project.

Not surprisingly, conservative politicians have accused Biden of preferring to cut deals with human-rights abusers Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran than simply agree to a pipeline that had received all environmental and other approvals to proceed. Republicans, and most recently 18 state attorneys general in their March 17 lawsuit, bring up the huge economic and job creation benefits KXL construction and the greater influx of Canadian oil would provide. They talk about how much safer and environmentally friendly this pipeline would be in comparison with oil imports by truck and rail. Republicans explain that KXL would contribute to enhanced North American energy security. The attorneys general especially contest Biden’s legal authority to unilaterally revoke President Donald Trump’s approval of KXL. 

These points are valid and important. But, since they don’t really challenge the primary reason that both Biden and former President Barack Obama killed KXL, they will undoubtedly fail once again. 

In “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” Biden’s January 10, 2021 Executive Order (EO) that rescinded KXL’s permit, he wrote:

“That analysis [done in 2015 by the Obama administration], … stressed that the United States must prioritize the development of a clean energy economy… The analysis further concluded that approval of the proposed pipeline would undermine U.S. climate leadership by undercutting the credibility and influence of the United States in urging other countries to take ambitious climate action.”

Biden next put his own spin on the reasons for KXL’s cancellation, speaking about how

“Extreme weather events and other climate-related effects have harmed the health, safety, and security of the American people and have increased the urgency for combatting climate change and accelerating the transition toward a clean energy economy.”

The President then echoed Obama concerns about climate leadership:  

“The United States must be in a position to exercise vigorous climate leadership to achieve a significant increase in global climate action and put the world on a sustainable climate pathway. Leaving the Keystone XL pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my Administration’s economic and climate imperatives.”

There are no less than 30 references to “climate” in Biden’s EO. KXL’s cancellation was all about the U.S. setting an example to lead the world on climate change. It was virtue signalling on a global scale. As the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation explained in their January 23, 2021 article: “How political symbolism brought down Keystone XL,” 

“A pipeline that became a referendum: …the economic arguments in favor of the pipeline could not overcome the profound symbolic value assigned to it by environmental groups and climate-focused voters. On its own, Keystone wouldn’t spell the difference between a green future and a “climate disaster.” But the pipeline became a referendum on the U.S. government’s commitment to combating climate change — a tangible thing on which American activists could focus their energies.”

So, do Republican lawmakers, premiers, and industry associations seriously contest the ludicrous climate change symbolism underlying the president’s decision? With a very few exceptions, no. Almost all of them are too afraid of being called climate change deniers by climate activists and their media allies. 

It is not just KXL that has fallen prey to the unfounded idea that we can significantly influence climate by moving away from fossil fuels. The coal industry was severely crippled by governments’ climate fixation. U.S. oil and gas producers recognize the impact of the Biden administration’s climate change/anti-fossil-fuel agenda. They see the climate-focused environmental, social and governance-investment movement sweeping Wall Street and how financial regulators are enabling compulsory reporting standards on sustainability. This will eventually lead to the exclusion of oil and gas from many investment portfolios. No wonder fossil fuel producers are reluctant to expand their operations. 

In “Rules for Radical Conservatives – beating the left at its own game to take back America,” David Kahane reminds us that:

“A good general knows never to fight a battle on his enemy’s turf, terrain, and terms unless he has no other choice.”

By accepting and, in some cases, promoting climate fears and renewable energy myths, most conservatives have completely ignored this fundamental ‘rule’ in political debate. So, of course they lost KXL and will continue to lose on many energy fronts in the radical left’s ideological war against our freedom and prosperity. It’s time they finally fought this war to actually win.

Tom Harris is executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.

Related Topics: RCE Originals, Biden, climate change, Obama, canada, keystone

This Legal Hurdle Could Trip Up Biden’s Cancellation of Keystone XL Pipeline

Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH / February 01, 2021

A lawsuit from across the northern U.S. border over the Biden administration’s halting of an oil pipeline could hang on a Supreme Court ruling against the Trump administration related to the southern border.  In his first day in office, President Joe Biden canceled construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, an action projected to wipe out 11,000 jobs, including 8,000 union jobs. 

Biden’s move reversed President Donald Trump’s executive action in early 2017 clearing the way for construction of the 1,200-mile pipeline from Alberta, Canada, through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska. The project already had begun in Canada.  Alberta Premier Jason Kenney threatened legal action against the Biden administration, calling cancellation of the project a “gut punch” and “insult” to Canada. ...........To Read More....

Biden’s Empty Environmentalism

Shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline shows the new president’s preference for symbolism over substance on environmental policy.

Nate Hochman February 3, 2021 @ City Journal, published with permission.  I recommend subscribing, it's free. 

For at least the past two decades, the American environmentalist movement has been split into two camps. On one side, less conspicuous, are the conservationists—dedicated to working with public and private actors to keep our air and water clean, preserve America’s natural beauty, and advance common-sense solutions to pressing issues like climate change. On the louder and more flamboyant side are the progressive activists, who prioritize heated rhetoric, symbolic measures, and political purity tests over practical solutions.

(Editor's Note:  I disagree with the author that climate change is a pressing issue.  RK)

President Joe Biden’s recent slew of executive orders place him firmly on the activist side. The president’s day-one cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline is a textbook example of performative—and counterproductive—climate policy. The pipeline, which would have carried 830,000 barrels of crude oil from the sands of Alberta down to the U.S. Gulf Coast, was set to be the first-ever carbon-neutral project of its kind: its developer, TC Energy Corporation, had committed to achieving “net zero emissions across the project operations,” spending $1.7 billion on renewable-energy sources to build and operate the entire initiative, making Keystone “the most sustainable and environmentally friendly pipeline project that has ever been built,” in the words of the project’s president.

Rather than celebrate these proposals as a historic win for sustainability, left-wing climate groups lampooned the pipeline as the embodiment of corporate greed and environmental degradation. “Keystone became a symbol as much as a project,” wrote the Wall Street Journal. “Environmental activists seized on it as a rallying point, portraying it as epitomizing the U.S.’s reliance on fossil fuels.”

The crusade against Keystone XL is a testament to the profound unseriousness of the environmentalist Left. The symbolic victory of the pipeline’s cancellation will not have any measurable effect on the decarbonization of the U.S. economy. Keystone’s untimely demise will not change the rate of our national consumption of fossil fuels; instead, American consumers will simply be forced to buy more oil from countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela. More of our gas will be imported by plane or ship rather than from a net-zero emission pipeline—and we’ll pay more for it at the pump, too.

Working-class Americans, meantime, will feel the loss in more than just rising gas prices. More than 10,000 construction workers will lose their jobs, thanks to the president who campaigned as “just a scrappy kid from Scranton.” Before Biden’s executive order, Keystone XL construction firm TC Energy had reached an agreement with four major unions—the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the International Union of Operating Engineers, and the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters—to employ only unionized labor in the project. That would have included almost 60,000 direct and indirect jobs, including full-time employment for an estimated 13,200 construction workers (10,400 in the U.S., and 2,800 in Canada) and a total of $3.4 billion in wages. According to a general manager working on the pipeline, hundreds of those workers have already been laid off—in the middle of a pandemic and a historic recession.

Biden’s Keystone XL move, and his early actions on the environment more broadly, reflect the changing composition of the Democratic coalition, which is driven increasingly by the politics of its upwardly mobile, college-educated base, and less and less by the competing interests of its traditional working-class constituencies. The tensions between blue-collar Democrats and their wealthy progressive counterparts are particularly visible in environmental disputes. Last year, a bitter rift emerged in the Pennsylvania Democratic Party over the question of restricting or outright banning fracking, an industry that employs tens of thousands of workers in the state. The fight pits grassroots progressive organizers and climate activists against old-school trade-union Democrats.

Republicans should see Biden’s cancellation of Keystone as a golden opportunity to make inroads with traditionally Democratic constituencies that have been left behind by their party. Similarly, the sensible wing of the environmentalist movement should use the controversy as an opportunity to distance itself from the activist wing of the coalition. Common-sense, pro-growth solutions exist to pressing issues like climate change, and many could have bipartisan appeal if environmental advocacy groups make them a priority. But cancelling Keystone XL isn’t one of them.

Nate Hochman (@njhochman) is a conservative fellow at the Citizens’ Climate Lobby and an associate contributor for Young Voices. He is currently finishing his senior year at Colorado College.

Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images

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Biden set to cancel Keystone XL pipeline and right out the gate enrages Canada

January 18, 2021 By Monica Showalter

Well isn't this coming Biden administration special?  Joe Biden has gotten word out that he intends to use his pen and phone to cut dead the Keystone XL pipeline, kicking off his presidency by annoying Canada.  According to CBC Canada:

U.S. president-elect Joe Biden has indicated plans to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit via executive action on his first day in office, sources confirmed to CBC News on Sunday.

A purported briefing note from the Biden transition team mentioning the plan was widely circulated over the weekend after being shared by the incoming president's team with U.S. stakeholders.

The words "Rescind Keystone XL pipeline permit" appear on a list of executive actions supposedly scheduled for Day 1 of Biden's presidency. 

The list shown to stakeholders is a lengthier version of a list already reported in the media based on a memo released publicly over the weekend by Biden's chief of staff Ronald Klain. That publicly reported memo from Klain did not mention Keystone XL, but cautioned that the memo was not a complete list of planned actions.

Nice detail there about Biden omitting that planned executive action in the publicly circulated memo. Apparently he didn't want the adoring media, or the Americans set to lose their jobs, or the Canadians -- to see it right away.

The Canadians, though, have gotten wind of it, their not-so-adoring press has printed it and they're enraged:............To Read More.....

 

Obama's War on U.S. Energy

By Alan Caruba

This appeared here and I wish to thank Alan for allowing me to publish his work. RK

September 19^th was an anniversary you did not read or hear about in the nation’s news media. It marked six years—2008—since the first permit application for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline was submitted to the federal government. Can you imagine how many jobs its construction would have created during a period of recovery from the 2008 financial crisis? President Obama is universally credited with delaying it.

Thomas Pyle, the president of the American Energy Alliance, pointed out that World War II, the construction of the Hoover Dam, and the Lewis and Clark Expedition all took place in less time. In a September Forbes article, he noted that “Earlier this year a Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 65 percent of Americans support building the pipeline, while only 22 percent oppose it. In Washington three-to-one margins are usually referred to as mandates.”

In contrast, in March 2013 the then-Interior Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, boasted “In just over four years, we have advanced 17 wind, solar, and geothermal projects on our public lands.” It is not these projects that Americans depend upon for energy. The opposite is a stark explanation why coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy remain the heart blood of the economy.

The Daily Caller reported in July that the “U.S. Bureau of Land Management is currently sitting on a backlog of 3,500 applications that need approval to move forward on drilling for oil and natural gas on federal land,” just part of Obama’s war on U.S. energy.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, fossil fuels met 82% of U.S. energy demand in 2013.

Petroleum, primarily used for transportation, supplied 36% of the energy demand in 2013. Natural gas represented 27%. Coal represented 20% and generated almost 40% of all electricity. In the six years since Obama took office that is a loss of 10%!

The much ballyhooed “renewable sources” of energy, justified by the false claim that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming or climate change, are a very small part of the nation’s power providers. Wind power represented 1.6% and solar power represented three-tenths of 1%! Hydropower supplied 2.6% making it the largest source of so-called renewable energy.

Politically, it has been Democrats advocating renewable sources and siding with the President’s delay of the oil pipeline and the Environmental Protection Agency’s assault on coal-fired plants to produce electricity. By contrast, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has been busy putting forth legislation to fix aspects of our energy problems and needs.

Some of the bills that were introduced included H.R. 2728: The Protecting State’s Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act; H.R. 3: The Northern Route Approval Act (regarding the keystone XL Pipeline; H.R. 1900: The Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act; H.R. 2201: The North American Energy Infrastructure Act; and H.R. 6: The Domestic Prosperity and Global Freedom Act, intended to expedite the export of liquefied natural gas to our allies around the world. The global market is growing at a colossal pace.

These bills will likely all die in the U.S. Senate, controlled by the Democratic Party. The Nov 4 midterm elections can change that if enough Republicans are elected to gain control.

It’s not just natural gas that is helping the economy improve. The Financial Times reported in late September that “The U.S. is overtaking Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of liquid petroleum, in a sign of how its booming oil production has reshaped the energy sector.” Why? “The U.S. industry has been transformed by the shale revolution, with advances in the techniques of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling enabling the exploitation of oilfields, particularly in Texas and North Dakota.”

The only places you won’t find oil drilling are on federally controlled lands. The same holds for coal and natural gas.

This is in keeping with a virtual war on U.S. energy waged from the White House. Consider what we have witnessed:

# Obama has refused to let the Keystone XL pipeline be built.

# Billions wasted on loans to renewable energy companies, many of which like Solyndra and Solar Trust of America went bankrupt.

# Obama made electric cars like the Chevy Volt part of his energy policy, providing subsidies but their high cost and low mileage capacity has resulted in few sales.

# Obama and the EPA advocated a cap-and-trade tax on greenhouse gas emissions when there has been no global warming for 19 years and carbon dioxide plays no role whatever in the Earth’s climate.

# The Obama administration terminating the construction of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada despite nearly $15 billion already spent on this necessary repository.

These are just a few examples, but in the meantime, the U.S. still requires that a valuable food commodity, corn, be turned into ethanol, an automotive fuel additive, that (a) reduces the millage in every gallon and (b) increases its cost at the pump. As Seldon B. Graham, Jr., a longtime energy industry consultant and observer, notes that “Ethanol production peaked in 2011 at 6% of total oil demand.” Favoring replacing imported foreign oil with American oil, Graham says “Americans would have saved $64.7 billion on the oil price since 2009.”

Americans are afflicted by a President and his administration that for political and environmental reasons are costing them trillions in needless, senseless energy costs, loans and subsidies, and efforts to impose laws that have no basis whatever in science.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

 

Hoeven predicts efficiency bill will collapse without Keystone pipeline attached

By Ben Geman and Zack Colman - 07/17/13 06:32 PM ET
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) predicted Wednesday that bipartisan energy efficiency legislation heading to the Senate floor faces a grim future unless it eventually includes language to advance the Keystone XL oil pipeline.  A broad energy efficiency bill sponsored by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is believed to be coming to the Senate floor in late July.

Hoeven, who is weighing offering a Keystone amendment to the bill, said there’s not enough Republican support for the legislation on Capitol Hill unless it includes Keystone.  Asked if omitting Keystone would leave the bill without enough GOP support, Hoeven replied: “I think that is not only a very real possibility in the Senate, it is for darned sure true in the House.”...To Read More....
 

Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Back Keystone Pipeline, 67%-24%…

Via National Journal:

While the Obama administration mulls whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Americans are already decided. They support the project by a wide margin, prioritizing potential economic benefits over possible environmental consequences.

The latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll finds that more than two-thirds of respondents, 67 percent, support building the pipeline to carry Canadian oil to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast; that includes 56 percent of Democrats. Less than a quarter of Americans, 24 percent, oppose the project, the poll shows…..To Read More…..

The U.S. is Blocking Energy Wealth and Jobs

By Alan Caruba

This first appeared here. I wish to thank Alan for allowing me to post his work. RK

What if I told you that the government was blocking America’s prosperity in the form of enormous untapped energy reserves that represent wealth and jobs that would once again put America on the path to fiscal security and growth?

Recently, Matt Vespa, on CNS.com reported that the International Energy Agency released a report that said the United States has the capacity to outpace Saudi Arabia as one of the world’s leading producers of oil. It projected that the U.S. could become a net oil exporter around 2020. It could become entirely self-sufficient.

Even so, the Obama administration just moved to cordon off 1.6 million acres estimated to represent one trillion barrels worth of oil in the name of conservation. At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency is moving to so encumber hydraulic fracturing—fracking—with so many regulations it will thwart increased use of this extraction technology that has been safely in use for decades.

As Dan Kish, Senior Vice President for Policy at the Institute for Energy Research, warns, there is a major government effort “to federalize hydraulic fracturing regulation” which is already being done by states “in a very professional and knowledgeable way. Take fracking away, the oil and gas production drops.”

For years, through many administrations, the federal government has been doing everything in its power to restrict drilling domestically and off-shore where billions of barrels of oil remains untapped. In October, a Wall Street Journal editorial noted that “The latest example is the Interior Department’s little-noticed August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.”

As far back as 1976, Congress designated the Reserve a strategic oil and gas stockpile to meet the “energy needs of the nation”, but oil and gas that is not extracted meets no needs. It keeps the nation dependent on imported oil and gas. In an August 22 letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar from the entire Alaska delegation in Congress called it “the largest wholesale land withdrawal and blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades.”

Noting that “Most of the other 11.5 million acres are almost indistinguishable from the acreage owned by the state that is being drilled safely nearby” the Journal pointed out that drilling on privately owned land has seen North Dakota pass Alaska as the second highest oil-producing state behind Texas.”

According to the Congressional Research Service, “The federal government owns roughly 635-640 million acres of the land in the United States. Four agencies administer 609 million acres of this land; the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture, and the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Service, all in the Department of the Interior.” The Bureau of Land Management manages 248 million acres and is responsible for 700 million acres of subsurface mineral resources.

Mostly by stealth, more and more privately owned land is being purchased by the federal government. In September 2011, Audrey Hudson, writing for Human Events, reported that “The Obama administration is spending $35 million to buy 30,000 acres of private property across the U.S. this year to make permanent homes for mice, fairy shrimp, mussels, prairie bushes and beetles. Those are just some of the 70 critters and plants to benefit from the land purchases in a dozen states as part of the government’s habitat conservation plans for endangered species.”

Quoting Rob Gordon of The Heritage Foundation, Hudson reported that “The federal government already owns more land than Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Poland combined.” The Endangered Species Act is just an excuse to secure ownership of more land and, in particular, to restrict development of every description from housing to hospitals.

Instead of a future in which our oil and gas reserves could unleash all manner of economic growth and the generation of thousands of new jobs, Ben Wolfgang, reporting in the November 22 edition of The Washington Times, “The drilling process that has brought the U.S. energy independence within reach faces renewed scrutiny from the Obama administration and an uncertain future in many states.”

“Next month, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release a draft of its long-awaited report on suspected links between water pollution and fracking, which uses huge amounts of water, combined with sand and chemical mixtures, to crack underground rock and release trapped oil and gas.” Fracking, however, occurs well below underground water levels and has been shown to have no effect on it.

What we are witnessing is the deliberate effort by the Obama administration, in concert with earlier administrations, to deny the economic benefit of tapping the nation’s vast reserves of oil and gas domestically and off-shore. This was evident, as well, in the President’s decision about the XL Keystone pipeline on the grounds that it threatened aquifers if allowed to proceed. Thousands of jobs were lost in that single decision with no evidence of the truth of the assertion.

As the nation sinks further into economic decline and default, it is obvious that the nation’s energy sector is being thwarted at a time when it holds the promise of lifting it out of growing unemployment, higher energy costs, and the drumbeat of utterly false environmental claims about greenhouse gas emissions.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Zone of Reality: Keystone Oil Pipeline

By Rich Kozlovich

I often wonder what goes on in the minds of people. This whole anti Keystone XL project is in reality an anti-oil drive that isn't what it seems. This pipeline delay is an expose of something that goes farther, deeper and wider than is obvious to the casual observer. Those who have been reading, watching and writing about this issue find that there is nothing new here. The average person would find it hard to believe. But, it is all true.

Abundant, inexpensive energy is foundational to a modern industrialized society. Are we really expected to believe they don't really understand that? Is there any doubt why so many question their motives? Is that any reason to wonder why so many question their sanity?

Keystone Kops halt US-Canada pipeline
White House, environmentalists and U.S foundations seek to block all oil sands development. Some little known information about the huge financial investment that US anti-hydrocarbon environmentalist foundations have in this battle.

Oilfield workers in Alberta, refinery workers in Texas and countless factory workers just learned that the White House will not allow construction of an oil pipeline that would bring over half a million barrels of oil a day from Canada’s Alberta Province and North Dakota’s Bakken Field to refineries in Texas and Louisiana. The job-killing decision was a victory for radical environmentalists and well-heeled U.S. foundations that have long battled Canadian oil sands companies and the U.S. oil and gas industry.

President Obama says Congress gave him insufficient time to examine environmental issues. TransCanada Keystone Pipeline LP can reapply, he added, if it reroutes the pipeline around Nebraska’s Oglala Aquifer and Sand Hills area and addresses other concerns. In the meantime, the Administration insists, the project “would not serve the national interest.”

Oil Drilling Off the South Florida Coast: The Bahamas and Cuba Stake Their ClaimsThey didn't have much reason to do it before, but the Bahamas and Cuba have defined an international boundary in the waters off the coast of Florida. Now, the reason is clear: Both countries are poised to start drilling for oil from floating rigs....We finish with a useful quotation from Lt. Col. Allen West: "You know, someone's going to do the drilling... Wouldn't it be a shame if down the road we're going to China or Cuba or someone else for our energy resources that we allow to be taken from right under our noses?"


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Observations From the Back Row: 9-6-11

...
“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

Video with John Stossel and Richard Tren regarding DDT

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!
______________________________________

Thought For The Day

By Rich Kozlovich

Recently I linked an article about the efforts of activists in and out of government who want to stop the construction of a pipeline from Canada that would carry a substantial amount of crude oil into the country. Normal people would consider this to be a good thing. But of course that explains why the activists are against it claiming it will cause the potential demise of some beetle. One of the statements used by the bureaucrats at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was that their decision was "based on science and not of policy".

Three things! First, they admitted that they didn’t really know what was causing this particular beetle’s slow demise. Second; their statement that this decision was based on science and not on policy makes me wonder why they would say that because how can policy be based on something else; and if so what that something else might be. Third; this statement reminded me of something Margaret Thatcher one said:

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”

So if this decision was really based on science they shouldn’t have had to tell anyone; it should have been obvious. If it isn’t, then shouting it from the roof tops won’t help explain the stench of bad policy based on ideology.

Re-examine assumptions behind desal project

Part 1 of this piece Sunday compared the cost of the Regional Desalination Project with the cost, in current dollars, of the New Los Padres Dam that was planned, but not built, 20 years ago.  The estimated construction cost for the desal project is $197 million more than for the dam, and annual operations and maintenance costs would be $8 million greater for the desal project. Under these circumstances, why in the world would we want to build the Regional Desalination Project?   That decision was based on the assumption that the dam could never be approved because of its adverse impact on the steelhead trout and California red-legged frog, threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. The dam would increase water flow below the dam, but it would block the steelhead migration to and from the steelhead spawning area above.

Kangaroo rat might detour San Bernardino street

A furry little roadblock may stall the city's plans to extend State Street. And the 1.5-mile project to link the 210 Freeway to Fifth Street on the Westside could cost millions more because the federally protected San Bernardino kangaroo rat has been spotted in the area. "We could be really high (in) mitigation costs, depending on how much habitat we're impacting," City Engineer Robert Eisenbeisz said. The city has $2 million - mostly through Measure I funding, a half-cent sales tax passed by county voters in 1989 - allocated for environmental and design work, but the project may balloon to $40 million, with as much as $18 million going toward mitigating damage to the kangaroo rats' habitat. At the same time, Eisenbeisz said mitigation work could cost as little as $3 million to $5 million.

Feds help rescue endangered butterfly species

Money will protect Yamhill County habitat for Fender's blue. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is coming to the rescue of the Fender’s Blue butterfly, an endangered species once thought to be extinct. The federal agency, which administers the Endangered Species Act, provided two grants totaling $767,000 to protect the butterfly’s habitat in Yamhill County. One grant provides $500,000 to acquire a permanent conservation easement on 284.6 acres of habitat in the Mount Richmond Conservation Opportunity Area, to benefit the Fender’s blue butterfly and the flower where it spends much of its life, the Kincaid’s lupine. The easement also will protect the Nelson’s checkermallow.

My Take - If the easement is 1/2 million dollars how much would the land sell for?   How much will it sell for after this easement.  Of course this merely allows for that amount to be spent, it doesn't mean anyone will actually get that kind of money.  Please follow the link on conservation easements.  You have all the obligations and no privileges, and in this case even if you sell it the new owners are stuck with it; which can really make it difficult to sell.  Of course you can just give it to the government if you prefer; I'm sure that is what they prefer.  There are some who seek to preserve their property after they are gone so they agree to such things, but these things aren't really as voluntary as it sounds in many cases.  It has been pointed out that in many cases this has merely been a way of depriving people of their rights. 

State-Based Environmental Programs: A Better Way Than EPA

By Dr. Jy Lehr

Federal and state legislators have recently been focusing on eliminating duplication of government programs that could be combined or eliminated to save billions of taxpayer dollars. Yet the elimination of one colossal duplication could save billions of dollars but has not been mentioned: Essentially all of the work done by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is duplicated and in fact done far better by the collective wisdom of our 50 state environmental protection agencies….. EPA has become a wholly owned subsidiary of environmental advocacy groups and serves primarily as an obstacle course for economic growth…. Today these research laboratories too often do the bidding of overaggressive regulators merely seeking to cherry pick data to support their predisposition to regulate…..

It has become quite apparent that EPA is no longer acting for the benefit of society in general. It was a great idea in 1971, but the agency bears no resemblance to that fine organization of long ago. The current Congress is looking to make changes. This is a good place to start.

Electric motor made from a single molecule

The butyl methyl sulphide molecule whips round an axis defined by its single sulphur atom. Researchers have created the smallest electric motor ever devised. The motor, made from a single molecule just a billionth of a metre across, is reported in Nature Nanotechnology. The minuscule motor could have applications in both nanotechnology and in medicine, where tiny amounts of work can be put to efficient use. Tiny rotors based on single molecules have been shown before, but this is the first that can be individually driven by an electric current.

My Take - The Luddite greenies are against nano-technology. 

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax -

Of cabbages and kings,

And why the sea is boiling hot,

And whether pigs have wings."

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Observations From the Back Row: 9-2-11

...

“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

Video with John Stossel and Richard Tren regarding DDT

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!

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Job-Creating Keystone Pipeline Affects Endangered Beetle, Says State Dep't

In its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on the Keystone XL pipeline, which would create thousands of jobs and transport 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to Oklahoma and Texas, a State Department official said its investigation found “no significant impact to most resources” along the path of the 1,700-mile project. But the State Department also said the pipeline could adversely affect the American Burying Beetle, an endangered species.....the latest results from the Canadian Energy Research Institute that shows the combined benefits of all present and proposed oil importation projects from Canada could result in 600,000 jobs and generate $775 billion in U.S. Gross Domestic Product between now and 2035.....In 1991, Fish and Wildlife produced an 81-page “recovery plan” to “reduce the immediacy of the threat of extinction of the American Burying Beetle” and to “improve its status from endangered to threatened."... Fish and Wildlife Web site discusses the results of current surveys about the beetle, including the lack of definitive information on the insect’s habitat and decline......“Data is lacking pertaining to American Burying Beetle reproductive habitat requirements, but species experts assume that they are more restrictive in selecting their reproductive habitat than feeding habitat.”.... The cause for the decline of this species is not clearly understood.”

My Take - Please see, More Coprolite Anyone,. RK

Gore urges Obama to block pipeline for ‘dirtiest source of fuel on the planet’

Former Vice President Gore called on President Obama late Wednesday to reject a pending permit application for a controversial pipeline project, calling the oil that it would carry “the dirtiest fuel on the planet.” “The answer to our climate, energy and economic challenges does not lie in burning more dirty fossil fuels — instead, we must continue to press for much more rapid development of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies and cuts in the pollution that causes global warming,” Gore, a vocal climate activist, wrote on his blog Wednesday night.

My Take – Well, the last two days I have outlined how Daryl Hannah and Dr. James Hansen are against the pipeline. Now we finally have the definitive answer as to whether this line should or should not be built. The High Priest of the Church of the Warming Globe has taken a public stand; one we can be thankful for. He is against building this pipeline.

Well that absolutely settles it for me. What more evidence could anyone possibly want to become convinced that this pipeline should be built? If Al’s against it then it must be a good thing. Thanks Al!

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax -

Of cabbages and kings,

And why the sea is boiling hot,

And whether pigs have wings."

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More Coprolite Anyone?

By Rich Kozlovich

Yesterday I linked an article about Daryl Hannah being arrested for protesting the Keystone XL pipeline delivering crude oil from Canada. Now we find that the radicals on the government’s payroll in the State Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Oceans have taken up this issue because of some endangered beetle, apparently as a way of stopping this pipeline. But take hope…..they have an 81 page ‘recovery plan’ for this beetle.

Interestingly, the cause of this beetle’s decline isn't clearly understood, and yet they could still come up with an 81 page ‘recovery plan’. How can anyone possibly develop a ‘recovery’ plan without that basic piece of information? For all they know their ‘plan’ could kill the rest off if they don’t know what is causing the decline in the first place.

That’s just like medieval doctors telling everyone how to cure the Black Death when they didn’t have a clue as to what it was or how it was contracted. I bet they had whole books on the subject. And they have the chutspah to claim that this decision is a "scientific" decision and not a "policy" decision. 

George Washington’s doctors decided he had a serious case of quinsy, which means “to strangle a dog” in Greek. They used really creative verbiage in those days, and did so probably because they didn’t have clue about what they were talking about.  But they needed to sound like they really knew what they were talking about.

Their treatments included burning the back of his neck, bleeding him of five pints of blood (the average person only has about 10 pints), and feeding him some kind of mercury compound as a purgative. 

And all of this was for a serious sore throat, but whether this was serious and life threatening or not, would any of this voodoo medicine helped? No, and in fact, I think it is perfectly reasonable to believe that every bit of this witch doctoring hastened his demise at the age of 67!

Allegedly he even asked them to bleed him the last time and thanked them for their efforts. Why? Because they were "educated professionals". “Eventually Washington ordered his doctors to cease their barbarisms and let him go in peace”. Among his final words were; “Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go” At this point he was probably in so much misery he couldn’t wait to go.

When you don’t know what you are dealing with how can you come up with an 81 page recovery plan?   And if you don’t know what you are dealing with how do you know that you aren’t making the problem worse and hastening their demise?   And is it reasonable that all economic activity should be stopped until they do know what they are talking about? All this for a beetle!

At this point I think it is resonable to question the "science" versus "policy" aspect of this decision.  At this point I think it would be interesting to recap the Word of the Day from August 26. Coprolite - Fossilized excrement.