. . . The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. If scientific and technological information is developed and used by the Federal Government, it should ordinarily be made available to the public. To the extent permitted by law, there should be transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking. . . .
Ah, remember those idealistic days of 2009, when our Moralizer In Chief Barack Obama promised to "restore" scientific integrity to our government. Well, those days are long gone.
Obama is using the EPA to conduct a war on coal, promoting new guidelines under the Clean Air Act that will stop the creation of any new coal fired power plants and force the shut down of many existing plants as they reach a point of needing to upgrade. Since coal is the primary source for our nation's electricity needs, this will end up costing our nation dearly - with the poor and middle class being the hardest hit.
The justification for these new guidelines is that they will save lives. The EPA is basing this assertion on two longitudinal, observational scientific studies, the Harvard Six Cities Study (HSCS) and the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS II):
Both studies showed that exposure to fine particle air pollution (that is, particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 microns, or PM2.5) was linked with increased mortality. Their results provide the basis for most EPA regulations targeting air quality because, the EPA claims, such regulations will save a large numbers of lives.
There are some real questions about the reliability of the conclusions reached by the researchers. For Instance:
The association of PM2.5 with mortality shows geographic heterogeneity – no such association is seen in the western US, where the climate is dry and PM2.5 make-up differs from that in the eastern US.
Second, the results of the studies have been presented in a way that focuses narrowly on PM2.5 and precludes putting the association in perspective relative to other predictors of mortality, including cigarette smoking, income, and other factors.
Third, reports from these two studies tend to cite only supporting studies and to ignore studies that have not found an association of PM2.5 with mortality."
But here is the kicker. Those two studies are . . . wait for it . . . secret.
What what what?
Yes, the EPA is claiming that the data, meta-data, computations - in short, everything about the "scientific studies" that would allow the studies to be subject to vetting and reproduction (i.e., the scientific method) - are secret and cannot be released.
This is the polar opposite of scientific integrity.
And, believe it or not, it gets worse, the same people who "carried out the studies used by the EPA as the basis for regulation and are also involved in the implementation of EPA policy."
The ostensible reason given for not releasing the information regarding these studies is the claim that to do so would violate third party confidentiality rules:
[I]f third parties are given access to the data, the identity of study participants could become public, in violation of the researchers’ guarantee of confidentiality. The lead researcher on the CPS II study has made this argument. Supporters of the subpoena argue that the dataset could be stripped of personal identifiers.
In fact, the issue of confidentiality appears to be a dodge since large datasets of this type are routinely stripped of personal identifiers to protect subject confidentiality and enable use by researchers.
The EPA should be shut down over this. Republicans have been trying to have the EPA provide this data for over two years. The EPA has steadfastly refused. Republicans have now filed a subpoena to which Democrats have objected - their grounds:
The ranking Democratic member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D – TX) characterized Chairman Smith’s action as an attempt to make the data available to “industry hacks” in order to discredit the research and weaken clean air regulation.
The scientific method - the ability to pour over another's experiment line by line and either prove it or disprove it - is the sina que non of scientific integrity. Rep. Johnson either doesn't seem to know that or otherwise puts it in a back seat to politics. This, from Obama's EPA, is just politicized science at its very worst.
Let's go over some of the eye-opening facts about our gas and oil industry:
- Oil Prices: The major oil companies do not set the price of oil. That price is set independently by traders based on world supply and demand, the strength of the dollar, stability in oil producing regions, and weather events, among other factors.
- Oil Usage - Transportation: Per the DOE, oil accounts for 94% of the energy used in our transportation sector.
- Oil As Our Single Largest Source Of Energy: Per the DOE, oil is our single most important source of energy, accounting for 35.6% of all energy consumed in America. In comparison, solar and wind, added together account for less than 1% of all energy consumed in the U.S. There is a reason for that. Wind and solar energy are vastly more inefficient and costly than oil, gas and coal. They are not commecially viable without substantial subsidies.
- Profit Margin: While oil companies' profits may be vast, that is because their volume is vast. America uses over 20 million barrels of oil daily. The actual profit margin across the oil industry averages less than 6 cents on the dollar. By comparison, Obama's favorite crony capitalist, GE, has a profit margin nearly 33% higher.
- Oil Companies & Taxes: The oil and gas industry is a cash cow for government. Oil and gas companies pay, on average, more than 40% of their profits in taxes. To put a number to this, over the past three years, the oil and gas industry has paid over $242 billion in taxes. Obama's favored business, GE, paid no taxes last year.
- Oil Companies & Jobs: Domestic gas and oil companies play a huge role in our private sector, supporting "9.2 million U.S. jobs and 7.7 percent of the U.S. economy."
- Reinvesting Profits: Exploring and exploiting new sources of oil is a time consuming and very expensive process. For instance, Exxon, in the first quarter of 2011, made an after tax profit of $10.65 billion. Of that, Exxon invested "$7.8 billion into capital and exploration."
- Our Trade Deficit & Foreign Oil: We are, today, transferring vast amounts of our wealth outside of the U.S. to purchase foreign oil. Approximately 62% of our monthly trade deficit comes from the purchase of foreign oil.
[A]bout 1.5 percent of the shares of oil companies are held by the officers and board members of those companies. That is comparable to other industries. Similarly, if you look at who is holding the other 98.5 percent of the shares, more than 60 percent is being held by either mutual funds or the companies that manage large portfolios for pensions. There is another 9 percent that is held directly by pension plans and insurance companies and foundations. . . . . What do you say to people who are critical of oil and natural gas industry earnings? Aren't they really being critical of the benefits that are going to millions of American consumers and retirees?
Mr. Shapiro: Those earnings go to two places. They go to the dividends and the value of the stock that is held by pensions and people saving for their retirement. That comprises the overwhelming majority of the ownership of these companies. The other place where oil and natural gas company earnings go is into investment. The oil and natural gas industry has enormous investment needs. . . . That is the other place those earnings go. They go to the retirement plans of both average Americans and certainly the beneficiaries of the major pension plans in the country. They are public employees or auto workers and the earnings also go toward investments that generate returns in the future.
What all of these facts mean are that oil companies are huge industries that, in a myriad of ways, play a very critical role in supporting our economy. Moreover, nothing is going to replace our oil usage at any point in the forseeable future. Yet, with gas prices rising and the oil industry showing huge profits in the last quarter, the left wants to show they are doing something about gas prices - by punishing the oil industry. Specifically, Obama and Harry Reid propose removing "big oil's subsidies." And in reality, this is merely the latest in Obama and the left's much larger war on our domestic oil and gas industry.
George Will recently opined that the ideology and politics of the left are "untethered from the facts." Will, noting the left's substitution of wishful thinking for plans based in reality, chalks this up to deep historical ignorance. Will is half right. The other reason the left's politics and ideology are "untethered from the facts" is because the left are at least as intellectualy dishonest as they are historically ignorant. The actions of Obama, Reid and the left, to demonize and attack our oil and gas industry because gas prices are rising is merely the most recent proof.
The first deceit of the left is that the oil and gas industry receives no subsidies. Rather, what they receive, and that which Obama aspires to remove, are four tax write downs, three of which - domestic manufacturing tax deduction, percentage depletion allowance, and foreign tax credit - are available to every manufacturing entity in the U.S. The only way in which oil companies are treated partially different than other manufacturing entities in the the U.S. is as regards:
Intangible drilling costs -- According to CNN, "[a]ll industries get to write off the costs of doing business, but they must take it over the life of an investment. The oil industry gets to take the drilling credit in the first year."
So when Obama says he wants to take away all of "big oil's subsidies," what he is really saying is that he wants to single out our oil and gas industry for unfavorable tax treatment as compared to all other manufacturing concerns in America. He wants to treat them as a pariah and steal more of their profits.
It is hard to imagine a plan more "untethered from reality" or more cynically designed to gain political advantage, irrespective of the expense to our nation. Basic economics dictate that this plan will negatively impact our economy.
Singling out our domestic oil and gas for special, unfavorable treatment will reduce domestic oil production, it will increase our trade imbalance, it will cost us private sector jobs, it will harm the pensions of millions of Americans, and it will result in rising gas and oil prices to the consumer. Charles Krauthammer does a great job of skewering Obama and the left for the intellectual dishonesty inherent this ostentatious push to punish our oil and gas industry:
Ultimately, this proposal by Obama and the left is going nowhere, simply because there are too many Republicans in Congress to allow them to get away with this insanity. Were this the only attack on our oil and gas industry from Obama and the left, perhaps it would be no big deal. But the reality is that Obama is waging war on our oil and gas industry very effectively by other means.
While Obama recently claimed credit for increased oil production in America under his watch, that was the height of hypocrisy. To the extent that there has been a slight uptick in production under his watch, that is because of expansions of oil drilling on private lands in North Dakota, South Texas and West Texas. Further, these figures have been bumped upward by the opening of BP's deepwater Thunder Horse well. That well was leased under Reagan, the exploratory well dug under Clinton, the well set under Bush, and production only now coming to full flow. In sum, Obama had as much to do with the increase in domestic oil production on his watch as he has had to do with the daily rising and setting of the sun.
To the contrary, as stated earlier, Obama is warring quite effectively on our domestic oil drilling. He is doing so, on one hand, by severely restricting the availability of public lands and coastal regions for exploration and drilling and, on the other hand, by limiting permits for such activities:
In 2008 there were 2,416 new oil and natural gas leases issued on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land spanning 2.6 million acres. In 2010, under the Obama Administration, the number of new leases issued dropped to 1,308 and acres leased dropped to 1.3 million. The total onshore acreage leased under the Obama Administration in 2009 and 2010 are the lowest in over two decades, stretching back to at least 1984.
There is also, of course, the permatorium on drilling in the Gulf, though at least a few drilling permits have recently been issued. The effects of Obama's war will be with us long after Obama himself is but a distant, very unpleasant memory in our national consciousness.
What makes this war on our domestic production, with all its attendant negatives for our economy, all the more mind boggling is that Obama has promised to significantly finance Brazil's development of their own oil industry. That is inexplicable - though of course it does bear noting that George Soros has a substantial investment, close to $1 billion, in Brazil's oil industry.
Fortunately for our nation, Obama's war on our domestic oil production is something that we can change at the ballot box. But there is also another front in the left's war on oil and gas - one that wholly bypasses Congress and the ballot box. I am referring to the radical environmentalists who have been given keys to the courthouse under our environmental laws. They are seeking new ways daily to bring our nation to its knees by hitting the off switch on oil, gas and economic growth.
One of their well honed methods is to request that a species be listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Once whatever little beastie is then declared endangered, any and all human activity that effects that beasties's habitat becomes enjoined. So for example, California's Central Valley, which but three years ago was a thriving bed of agriculture, has seen its irrigation water shut and is today "Zimbabwe West." The reason - a law suit brought under the ESA to protect a 3 inch fish with no commercial value, the Delta smelt.
And then there are the law suits charging that carbon dioxide is a pollutant for which emitters are liable. Their ultimate goal is to have the courts take over our nation's energy policy. Whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant and whether it is causing "global warming" are scientific questions very much at issue and that courts are unqualified to answer. Even assuming arguendo that CO2 is a pollutant causing global warming, what to do about it is a political question with massive ramifications for our economy. It is not a question to be decided by our Courts, but by our elected representatives.
Yet our federal judiciary, from the Supreme Court on down - none of whom are scientists - has shown an avid willingness to hear and decide such cases. The EPA is regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant today under the Clean Air Act because five members of the Supreme Court felt qualified to pass judgment on this issue. Moreover, enterprising lawyers have brought suits against power companies under a nuisance theory because they are contributing to carbon dioxide in the air. These law suits are currently in the court system. If the lawyers succeed, the Courts then become the single most important arbiters of energy policy in America. On top of this, we have seen in the past week NASA's Jim Hansen, the "Bernie Madoff of climate science," file lawsuits with children as the plaintiffs seeking to have courts take complete control over our energy policy in the name of Global Warming.
While Obama's attempt to punish our domestic oil and gas industry for daring to make a profit is not going to go anywhere, his and the left's larger war on that industry is "untethered from the facts." We are all going to ultimately pay the price. I am praying that we are able to elect someone in 2012 who is both capable of articulating a coherent energy policy and who is able to take our courts and the radical left out of the business of deciding our nation's energy policy.
The EPA is making good on Obama's threat to force control of carbon on America through the back door if Congress refused to act. It is doing so with an extremely heavy hand as it tries to skate around the sytemic problems of regulating greenhouse gasses within the legal framework of the Clean Air Act - a law ill designed for such a purpose.
Responding to the EPA's heavy handed approach, the Texas Attorney General has forwarded a caustic and detailed letter that, as AJ Strata points out, reads almost like a declaration of war. The AG repeatedly points out how the EPA is vastly overstepping its authority and takes extreme umbrage at the EPA's attempts to steamroll Texas into submission. Read the whole story at The Stratasphere.
Update: Dr. Melissa Clouthier, posting at Liberty Pundit, sees this as another manifestaton of push back by states and individuals against the vast overreach of the Obama administration. I would have to agree.
Accross the pond, the Daily Express has become the first national newspaper to give front page billing to Climategate. On the flip side of the coin, the BBC is furiously fighting a rear guard action to minimize fall-out from Climategate.
Down under, Australian PM Kevin Rudd, who has made cap and trade legislation to "combat global warming" the centerpiece of his agenda and who, but a week ago, seemed destined to see it pass the legislature, watched as the measure went down in flames today. The Times of London has the story.
James Delingpole rounds up the evidence that Climategate is starting to unravel the AGW world. Writing at UK's Telegraph. Delingpole brings up plans by some scientists to bring criminal fraud charges against the CRU. Equally of interest, he tells of a challenge to the Tory Party's David Cameron over Cameron's own mindless embrace of the green madness. This from Mr. Delingpole:
Watch out Green Dave! The Independent reports on the growing backlash within the party to Cameron’s libtard-wooing greenery. Turning to the Independent for a balanced report on environmental matters is a bit like consulting Der Sturmer for a sensible, insightful view on the Jewish question. Still, for once, the house journal of eco-loonery seems to have got it right and the point made by Tory backbencher David Davis is well made:
“The ferocious determination to impose hair-shirt policies on the public – taxes on holiday flights, or covering our beautiful countryside with wind turbines that look like props from War of the Worlds – is bound to cause a reaction in any democratic country.”
At PJM, Ed Driscoll has a great roundup of climate scares then and now. The sky is falling, the sky is falling indeed.
Also at PJM, Christopher Horner picks up an interesting disconnect regarding Michael Mann and "Mike's trick" to hide the decline.
And also at PJM, an interview with distinguished scientist Roger Pielke, Sr., who discusses how climate science has been corrupted by the IPCC and how contrary voices have been ignored. Among his specific charges, Pielke states that the surface temperature data being relied upon has significant problems of reliability. While Pielke does not question some level of AGW, he believes the IPCC conclusions have been proven untenable.
Updates: This from PJM on what is likely to be the most important aspect of the fallout from Climategate - the application reconsideration of carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the EPA's regulatory authority:
In light of the Climategate fraud scandal, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) on Wednesday filed a petition asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend its plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act, pending a thorough investigation of and public comment on the newly released information. . . .
Reason Mag has a very good article on the damage Climategate has done to the field of climate science and what that field needs to do to recover some sembelance of credibility. Someone needs to tell Barbara Boxer that it involves a bit more than simply prosecuting the individual or individuals who leaked the CRU e-mails. She is in complete denial.
As is the Huffington Post which, according to Newsbusters, is in the midst of a fully blown Climategate panic attack.
And Jon Stewart has a lot of fun with Climategate, though he has to add an evil Republican in for balance apparently:
Even as Rep. Waxman announces that, after but a few brief hearings, he will move Cap and Trade legislation out of committee this week, someone in government has leaked a classified OMB document that raises very serious questions as to why the EPA issued a rule finding carbon dioxide a "pollutant" subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. Our thugocracy in Washington is pushing back, saying that the document should be ignored. And lo and behold, it would seem that is precisely what most of the MSM is doing. (Note - the exception to that is, as always, Jake Taper of ABC News, a man who rises in my estimation daily)
You can find the leaked document here. Some of the critical passages from the document:
The finding rests heavily on the precautionary principle, but the amount of acknowledged lack of understanding about basic facts surrounding GHGs seem to stretch the precautionary principle to providing for regulation in the face of unprecedented uncertainty. (The TSD notes several areas where essential behaviors of GHGs are "not well determined" and "not well understood" (e.g., why have U.S. methane levels decreased recently?).)
. . . In the absence of a strong statement of the standards being applied in this decision, there is a concern that EPA is making a finding based on (1) "harm" from substances that have no demonstrated direct health effects, such as respiratory or toxic effects, (2) available scientific data that purports to conclusively establish the nature and extent of the adverse public health and welfare impacts are almost exclusively from non-EPA sources, and (3) applying a dramatically expanded precautionary principle. If EPA goes forward with a finding of endangerment for all 6 GHGs, it could be establishing a relaxed and expansive new standard for endangerment. Subsequently, EPA would be petitioned to find endangerment and regulate many other “pollutants" for the sake of the precautionary principle (e.g., electromagnetic fields, perchlorates, endocrine disruptors, and noise).
. . . [A]n endangerment finding under section 202 may not be not the most appropriate approach for regulating GHGs. Making the decision to regulate CO2 under the CAA for the first time is likely to have serious economic consequences for regulated entities throughout the U.S. economy, including small businesses and small communities. Should EPA later extend this finding to stationary sources, small businesses and institutions would be subject to costly regulatory programs such as New Source Review.
These are just a few of the very serious criticisms of the EPA decision to regulate carbon dioxide in the memo - a decision clearly greenlighted by the thugocracy in the White House and that is now being used as a cudgel to force cap and trade. But cap and trade is a system that has not proven itself as effective - to the contrary, last year it was reported that the cap and trade system had proven completely ineffective, with carbon dioxide levels in Europe actually rising under the program. Indeed, the sole proven benefits of cap and trade seem to be, one, as a method of vastly expanding the reach of government, two, as a vehicle for vastly expanding government coffers, and three, as a windfall for certain special interests while increasing the direct and indirect costs to everyone else.
There is also another potential problem with regulation of CO2. It puts a premium on moving into "green energy" that is, at best, not cost effective and unproven at scale. It does so while insuring that traditional means of energy production are not replaced by like means as they age. This will almost surely lead to catastrophe, as indeed, it seems a path that Britain is on today. This is oft a topic of discussion on the blog EU Referendum. See here and here. And while it is a topic no one is even raising in the U.S. at this point, it is very much a foreseeable consequence for us if we go far down this mad road of CO2 regulation.
At any rate, given the importance of this OMB document and given the ramifications of the decision to go forward with cap and trade, one would think that this would be given a lot of play in the MSM. One would of course be wrong on that. The story only made the NYT blogs and an AP story made it into the back pages of the Washington Post. The One is not to be questioned. This really is beyond a travesty.
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