Personally, I strongly prefer the Cantwell bill and am very disappointed and maybe even strongly against the Kerry/Lieberman bill.

Feb 4th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

A refreshing dose of honesty

Maria Cantwell and the politics of global warming

NOT long after the flood, when Noah was safely back on dry land, God promised: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man…And never again will I destroy all living creatures.” The implication is clear. “Man will not destroy this earth,” says John Shimkus, a Bible-reading Republican congressman from Illinois. So there is no need to worry about global warming.

On January 28th, America formally pledged to the UN that it would reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 17% (from what they were in 2005) by 2020. But there was a planet-sized catch. Meeting the target will depend on getting a climate bill through Congress, and that will be horribly hard. A bill to erect a cap-and-trade system to curb carbon-dioxide emissions squeaked through the House of Representatives last summer. But similar bills have stalled in the Senate, where nearly anything big needs a supermajority to pass.

Various obstacles block the way. First, Barack Obama has not yet decided what to do about health care, and he cannot wage two domestic wars at once. Second, cap-and-trade is a tough sell. An increasing number of Americans, like Mr Shimkus, doubt the science. The proportion who believe there is “solid evidence” that the earth is warming fell from 71% in 2008 to 57% last year. Among Republicans, disbelief is the norm: only 35% think there is solid evidence of warming, according to a Pew poll. The news that some climate scientists tried to muzzle dissenting voices has spread like the common cold on conservative blogs, fuelling widespread suspicion that global warming is an elaborate hoax. Many climate sceptics are furious. “My Carbon Footprint Will Fit Nicely in Your Liberal Ass,” reads a typical T-shirt. Even among Americans who believe in global warming, there is little appetite for tackling it. A hefty 85% told Gallup that the government should place a higher priority on fixing the economy, with only 12% saying the opposite.

Enter Maria Cantwell, the junior senator from Washington state. She is pushing a simpler, more voter-friendly version of cap-and-trade, called “cap-and-dividend”. Under her bill, the government would impose a ceiling on carbon emissions each year. Producers and importers of fossil fuels will have to buy permits. The permits would be auctioned, raising vast sums of money. Most of that money would be divided evenly among all Americans. The bill would raise energy prices, of course, and therefore the price of everything that requires energy to make or distribute. But a family of four would receive perhaps $1000 a year, which would more than make up for it, reckons Ms Cantwell. Cap-and-dividend would set a price on carbon, thus giving Americans a powerful incentive to burn less dirty fuel. It would also raise the rewards for investing in clean energy. And it would leave all but the richest 20% of Americans—who use the most energy—materially better off, she says.

Ms Cantwell’s bill is refreshingly simple. At a mere 40 pages, it is one-thirty-sixth as long as the monstrous House bill (known as “Waxman-Markey”, after its sponsors), which would regulate everything from televisions to “bottle-type water dispensers” and is completely incomprehensible to a layman. Instead of auctioning permits to emit, Waxman-Markey gives 85% of them away, at least at first. This is staggeringly inefficient: permits would go to those with political clout rather than those who value them most. No one is proud of this—Mr Obama wanted a 100% auction—but House Democrats decided that the only way to pass the bill was to hand out billions of dollars of goodies to groups that might otherwise oppose it. (There was plenty of pork left over for its supporters, too.)

The Senate will not pass a comprehensive climate bill any time soon. So Mr Obama is attacking the problem piece by piece, bypassing Congress. On February 3rd, he unveiled a plan to promote biofuels and a task force to study the improbable dream of “clean” coal. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered private companies to publish estimates of the climate-related risks they face. The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, is trying to regulate greenhouse gases under existing laws. But regulation is no substitute for putting a price on carbon, which would harness the power of the market to cut emissions more cheaply.

Tell it like it is

Of all the bills that would put a price on carbon, cap-and-dividend seems the most promising. (A carbon tax would be best of all, but has no chance of passing.) Ms Cantwell has a Republican co-sponsor, Susan Collins of Maine, and says she is hearing positive noises from a few other Republicans, such as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The most attractive thing about the bill is that it is honest. To discourage the use of dirty energy, it says, it has to be more expensive. To make up for that, here’s a thousand bucks.

This challenges the conventional wisdom in Washington, DC, that the only way to pass a global-warming bill is to disguise what’s in it. Leading Democrats try to sell cap-and-trade as a way to create jobs and wean America from its addiction to foreign oil. (It’s about “jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs,” said Nancy Pelosi, the speaker, last year.) Focus groups say this message ought to resonate. Frank Luntz, a pollster, released a study last month showing that voters are unswayed by melting ice caps but will support an energy bill that sticks it to the Saudis and creates American jobs. In real life, though, voters hear counter-arguments. Sure, cap-and-trade will create jobs, but it will destroy them, too. If the goal is to reduce dependence on foreign energy, why not mine more American coal? The only sound reason for acting to curb global warming is to curb global warming. Ms Cantwell does not put it so bluntly, but her bill speaks for itself.

The most recent company is called McKinstry Reklaim: http://www.mckinstryreklaim.com/

We have a plant in Oregon that recovers materials and energy from discarded automobile tires. This is exciting because today discarded tires are mostly burned or buried. A small percentage are used for playgrounds, mulch, and other uses but the true value of the tire is in the raw materials from which the tire is made. And, we have a process to recover those raw materials without burning the tire and releasing harmful gases into the air. As you can imagine, this is both fun but also not something that I can blog about because of the confidentiality of the process that has been developed. Therefore, I have been quiet about this for some time. There will be more to talk about later but this is a great story, really smart folks with a vision who created a process that works better than anyone realized. I was brought into this after the plant was built so it is especially fun for me to be involved in the fine-tuning of the process, the marketing of the end products, and the expansion of the business.

The second company  is called Pacific Coast Canola: http://www.pacificcoastcanola.com/

We have designed and permitted the construction of a canola processing plant in eastern Washington. Washington state can become a major producer of one of the world’s healthiest, most versatile, and fastest growing oils: Canola oil. We are in the final stages of putting together the financing for the plant, so again it is difficult to say too much right now. This project has many exciting parts to it: first, it will create tremendous economic opportunity for Washington state, not only because of the new jobs but also because of the new canola crop that can be grown by Washington state farmers. Below is a photo from last month of canola growing in Eastern Washington. Second, there are no large scale canola processors on the west coast of the United States so we will have great access to Washington, Oregon, and California who all care about healthier lifestyles, healthier foods, and therefore healthier oils like canola oil. And third and by no means last, canola oil makes the best quality biodiesel. At the moment the market for biodiesel is not in good shape. But when that market rebounds we will be ready with a locally produced biodiesel feedstock that can help our state, our economy, and our environment in many ways. We are lucky that canola oil is a fantastic edible oil as well as the best biodiesel feedstock because we will have many options to create value for Washington state and its farming community regardless of the timing and direction of these two markets. If all goes well we hope to start construction on this plant in late 2009.

Canola Field

Obama has come through on his most important campaign pledge.

Click to read article.

Joel Horn

The demonstration flight, which will be operated with no passengers, will be powered by a special fuel blend including components derived from algae and jatropha plants — sustainable, second-generation fuel sources that don’t impact food crops or water resources, and don’t contribute to deforestation.”

Click here to read article.

Click here to read article.

Joel Horn

“At this year’s version of the Los Angeles Auto Show, the 205-mile per hour, $100,000, 2009 Corvette ZR1 is relegated to the very rear of the Chevrolet exhibit, like the “adults only” section in video stores.”

Click here to read the article.

For the past decade U.S. automakers have failed to situate themselves in a position where they are financially sound enough to weather the current economic storm.  They have turned out model after model of overpriced, gas-guzzling land yachts, which are not good for the environment, and cost more than I paid for my first home back in the mid-70s.  In fact, the loans that many consumers carry on their SUVs exceed the mortgage that I had on that house.  That is, if they can actually afford to buy, and not just lease their car.

You can add into this mix salaries paid to top executives that probably exceed the combined income of everyone on my block.  Really, does anyone contribute enough time or sweat into their job to be worth $22 million dollars a year, the 2007 income of Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally?  That comes out to $41.83 per minute, for every minute of every day of the year.  When asked by congress if he would be willing to symbolically cut his annual salary to $1, Mulally replied, “I think I’m okay where I am.”  Yeah, I’d be ok with my income if I made $20,000 overnight while I was asleep.

I know it is going to be a very black mark on the U.S. economy for these 3 giants to take the fall that they are in for.  But, don’t you think that for the most part, they have dug their own graves?

What about producing affordable, clean-running autos?  What about manufacturing vehicles that you don’t have to go into debt for a decade to buy?  What about flying coach?  What about structuring an auto manufacturing corporation that isn’t based on a business model that is about 50 years out of date?

Congress, instead of propping up these already failed dinosaurs, why not fund a new start-up company that is dedicated to producing autos that are fuel-efficient, use renewable energy sources such as bio-diesel, and are priced at a level that the average American can afford, without having to decide between their children’s college fund or the new car?  What about, instead of ensuring that Mulally won’t have to take a pay-cut, spending those billions on bailing out the average American worker that, jobless or not, is suffering right now?

In my mind, the Big 3 are getting just what they deserve.  Thank you Congress for refusing to give them what they don’t.

Click here to read the story.

It has been frustrating to have so much advertising/reporting talk about clean coal as if it is a real possibility to move beyond oil and reduce carbon.