Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Climate Progress

Climate Progress


Obama's science adviser targeted by smear campaign

Posted: 24 Aug 2009 09:32 AM PDT

HoldenConservative media outlets are waging an online defamation campaign against Presidential Science Advisor Jon Holdren, using out-of-context quotes and misinformation to portray him as hell-bent on pursuing population control through the use of forced abortions and mass sterilization.

Fox News reported that Holdren was bent on adopting a "planetary regime" of population control, while blogger Michelle Malkin called him a "wackjob" who entertains policies that would mandate "forced abortions, mass sterilizations, and poisoning the water supply to control the population." On February 27, FrontPage Magazine published an article decrying Holdren's "globalist, redistributionist, Malthusian views."

The attacks are widely off the mark. The evidence generally cited by critics is a 1977 textbook entitled "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, and Environment." The authors — Holdren is one of three — in a chapter detailing various coercive and non-coercive policies for "population control" ultimately come out strongly against such policies. They argue that the harm caused by their adoption "would, in our opinion, militate against the use of any such agent" of involuntary population control.

This Huffington Post piece won't come as a shock to anyone who follows the climate debate and sees how the deniers routinely smear the scientific reputation of serious climate scientists like Holdren and NASA's James Hansen.  Indeed, the deniers and delayers and their media flacks were pimping lies and disinformation about Holdren when he was just a nominee (see "More proof Holdren is a great choice: Pielke, Tierney, Lomborg, and CEI diss him").

I have known Holdren for over a decade and have discussed energy/climate issues with him many times. He probably has more combined expertise on both climate science and clean energy technology than any other person who could plausibly have been named science adviser. You can see a video of an excellent talk he gave here (along with talks by Chu and me). For a more recent BBC interview, see "The Climate Quote of the Week".

He is about as far from a partisan flamethrower or radical environmentalist as one could possibly find among the scientific community.  It is, however, certainly the case that anybody who spends as much time as Holdren has researching climate and talking to leading experts is going to become hellbent on avoiding Hell and High Water, the myriad catastrophic impacts our unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases will impose on our children and grandchildren and the next 50 generations.  Hence the NYT quote from a Revkin piece:

"I am one of those who believes that any reasonably comprehensive and up-to-date look at the evidence makes clear that civilization has already generated dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system," Dr. Holdren said. "What keeps me going is my belief that there is still a chance of avoiding catastrophe."

Duh.

More debunking of the attacks on Holdren can be found in the Huffington Post piece:

Holdren's work was also a product of its time. As the American Prospect noted in its July 21 issue, "population control" was a not particularly controversial concept at the time, and one that many scientists did support in various forms.

Shocked at the mischaracterization of their work, Holdren's coauthors, Anne and Paul Ehrlich, released this statement earlier in the summer: "We were not then, never have been, and are not now 'advocates' of the Draconian measures for population limitation described — but not recommended — in the book's 60-plus small-type pages cataloging the full spectrum of population policies[.]" They had merely described measures "that, at the time, had either been tried in some country or analyzed by some commentator."

Holdren is on leave from Harvard University, where he is a professor of environmental policy. Prior to that he taught at UC Berkeley for over 20 years. His work focused on causes and repercussions of global environmental change, analysis of energy technologies and policies and initiatives to reduce the dangers from nuclear weapons and materials.

At his confirmation hearings, Holdren answered extensive questions from members of Congress covering a broad range of topics, including one question about the appropriate role of government in population control.

"I think the proper role of government is to develop and deploy the policies with respect to economy, environment, security, that will ensure the well being of the citizens we have," he said.

He was unanimously confirmed.

All of this, however, has been lost on Holdren's conservative critics, many of whom continue to selectively quote his work. In recent weeks "Intelligent Design" groups have joined the cause, publishing their own screeds against Holdren. These sites have gained such traffic in recent weeks that at the time of writing this article, a Google search for "John Holdren" yielded one such attack as the second hit.

The White House has generally scoffed at alarmist and far-fetched criticisms. But from "death panels" to "mass sterilizations," the administration is facing an increasing barrage of charges that the president wants to stop your family from being born or facilitate them dying. In Holden's case, the White House felt the misrepresentations had gained enough steam to warrant a defense.

"The quotations used to suggest that Dr. Holdren supports coercive approaches to limiting population growth were taken from a 1977 college textbook on environmental science and policy, of which he was the third author," said Rick Weiss, Director of Strategic Communications at the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

"The quoted material was from a section of the book that described different possible approaches to limiting population growth and then concluded that the authors' own preference was to employ the non-coercive approaches before the environmental and social impacts of overpopulation led desperate societies to employ coercive ones. Dr. Holdren has never been an advocate of compulsory abortions or other repressive means of population limitation."

The climate and clean energy bill does not "let coal plants off the hook" as Carl Pope and Eric Schaeffer assert

Posted: 24 Aug 2009 07:23 AM PDT

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) concluded its analysis of the House climate Bill:

… new coal bill without CCS beyond those that are already under construction are almost eliminated.  There is also a large increase in coal power plant retirements [and a 60% drop in coal use in power plants] by 2030 from current levels in the ACESA main cases, well above the 1% of existing coal capacity projected to retire in the reference case.

EIA comes to this conclusion even though it is lousy at modeling energy efficiency and natural gas and renewable energy (see "Despite its many flaws, EIA analysis of climate bill finds 23 cents a day cost to families, massive retirement of dirty coal plants and 119 GW of new renewables by 2030 — plus a million barrels a day oil savings").

Indeed, by 2020, the House climate bill would likely reduce reduce coal use at existing power plants by 20% to 30% or more (see "Why unconventional gas makes the 2020 Waxman-Markey target so damn easy and cheap to meet").  The CBO analysis would lead to roughly the same conclusion (see here).  And by 2030, I expect an even bigger coal use drop than EIA projects.

So it is dismaying that two people whom I respect greatly have published an op-ed that, while well-intentioned, is just quite wrong on this subject.  I'm referring to "No more loopholes for King Coal," an op-ed written by Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club and Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Integrity Project, along with Trip Van Noppen, president of Earthjustice.  Since their mistaken assertions have become a common refrain among some environmentalists, I will address this issue in detail.  Their piece begins:

The American Climate and Energy Security Act takes a big first step toward reining in both our addiction to fossil fuels, and the global warming pollution that is slowly cooking our planet. But the House bill, engineered by environmental champions Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, contains one big loophole that needs to be closed by the Senate.

Although coal-fired power plants account for roughly a third of U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions, the legislation gives them a free pass to continue business as usual — without making any serious reductions in heat-trapping carbon dioxide for 15 years or more.

The good news is that new coal plants permitted after January 1, 2009, would be required to cut their emissions in half no later than 2025. But the bad news is very bad: the bill exempts the huge fleet of America's oldest and dirtiest coal plants from any Clean Air Act requirement to control carbon-dioxide emissions. In the face of a warming world and a cooling economy, old dirty coal plants need to clean up or retire to make way for cleaner energy. Instead of encouraging investment in new industries and new plants that are subject to stringent standards, the bill leaves the door open for the expansion of old plants that are subject to no safeguards at all.

By "grandfathering" existing coal-fired capacity, which accounts for half of U.S. electricity generation, the bill repeats the mistakes of the 1977 Clean Air Act — mistakes that we have been paying for in the form deadly air pollution ever since.

The bold-faced statements are simply not accurate, especially not as written.

No existing coal plants are grandfathered under this bill. All coal plants — all electric power plants — must have allowances in order to emit CO2.  It is true that the bill does not mandate shutting down existing coal plants — and I do think it would be worthwhile to have a "Cash for coal clunkers" provision.  But fundamentally this bill uses a shrinking emissions cap and a rising carbon price to shut down existing coal plants.

The article asserts:

The tilt toward coal in the House bill means that other sectors – including the bankrupt auto industry, now largely owned by the taxpayers — will have to do the bulk of what is necessary to meet the bill's target of an economy-wide 17 percent reduction in all greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

I read some version of that myth regularly in critiques of the climate bill — but in fact the reverse is true.

CO2 emissions reductions must come from reductions in coal, oil, and natural gas.

It is hard to drive down oil consumption sharply in the near term (through, say, 2030), especially using a cap-and-trade system.  That is especially true because Obama has already put in place tough new fuel economy standards (see "Obama to raise new car fuel efficiency standard to 39 mpg by 2016 — The biggest step the U.S. government has ever taken to cut CO2"), so the climate bill doesn't really focus on that sector.

Also, under this bill, natural gas consumption is likely to be no worse than flat, if not slightly higher over the next two decades under this bill.  This is an important point I will address in a separate post.  Fundamentally the efficiency measures aimed at end-use natural gas consumption will free up gas to be used in the electric sector to replace coal.  Since so many tens of gigawatts of existing natural gas plants are underutilized, this is the cheapest way to cut CO2 emissions (after efficiency and conservation) in the bill (as I discuss in detail here).

Thus the emissions reductions in the bill are primarily going to come from coal use.  That is why EIA comes to the conclusion it does.  That is why the CBO analysis — and my own — leads inexorably to a sharp reduction in coal use at existing plants over the next decade.

Giving out some allowances for free to regulated utilities is not grandfathering nor does it let coal plants off the hook (see Robert Stavins: "The appropriate characterization of the Waxman-Markey allocation is that more than 80% of the value of allowances go to consumers and public purposes, and less than 20% to private industry").  Harvard University's Robert Stavins is certainly not anyone's idea of a progressive economist (see here and here), but he is obviously one of the country's leading economic experts on cap-and-trade.  As he explains:

Generally speaking, the choice between auctioning and freely allocating allowances does not influence firms' production and emission reduction decisions.  Firms face the same emissions cost regardless of the allocation method.  When using an allowance, whether it was received for free or purchased, a firm loses the opportunity to sell that allowance, and thereby recognizes this "opportunity cost" in deciding whether to use the allowance. Consequently, the allocation choice will not influence a cap's overall costs.

The Pope et al. article contains one very confusing statement:

… the bill exempts the huge fleet of America's oldest and dirtiest coal plants from any Clean Air Act [CAA] requirement to control carbon-dioxide emissions.

Well, there currently aren't any CAA requirements to control CO2 emissions at coal plants — nor are there likely to be for a long, long time (if ever) even if the climate bill fails.  Yes, if the bill passes in its current form, it does stop the EPA from using the endangerment finding to regulate CO2 emissions under the CAA, but the endangerment finding is far better suited to addressing new sources that it is existing sources, as I discuss here:  "The dangerous myth that the EPA's endangerment finding can somehow stop dangerous warming if the climate bill dies."  As John Podesta, former Clinton Administration Chief of Staff and now CEO of CAP, recently said "It would be difficult for the EPA to enact a CO2 cap and trade without congressional cooperation."

I agree with NRDC that it would be valuable for EPA to keep this authority under climate legislation, but is not one of the top five things I would change about the climate bill if I could.  Certainly, if the EPA does keep the authority, it won't try to use that authority to shut existing coal plants down faster than the bill itself would.

Ironically, the Pope et al. piece doesn't mention offsets at all, and offsets are certainly the biggest potential way coal companies could avoid shutting down existing coal plants.  But in fact, EIA assumes a great many offsets will be used and it still finds a very sharp reduction in existing coal plants over the next two decades.  The CBO analysis also assumes a lot of offsets will be used, and yet its analysis suggests coal consumption will drop 20% to 30% by 2020.  I'm not a big fan of offsets, as I've said many times, but in the climate bill, they do fulfill one useful political purpose — they are a backstop against exorbitant costs in case clean energy advocates (like me) turn out to be wrong in our analysis of the bill.  If 1) domestic clean energy emissions reduction strategies prove expensive and scarce, while 2) offsets prove to be cheap and abundant, then the utility industry (and rate-payers) aren't screwed over the next decade.  I'm not terribly worried about either one of those propositions being proven true (let alone both), since it would fly in the face of all reasonable analysis and all historical precendence (as I discuss at length here and here).  That said, I'd still like to sunset the offsets.

In the real world the much-maligned House climate and clean energy bill would do what clean energy and climate advocates have been demanding for decades:  It would set up the framework to allow low-carbon technologies to compete against fairly — and thus steadily replace — existing coal at the lowest possible cost.

Efficiency, renewables, and natural gas would meet the overwhelming fraction of the emissions targets, ultimately generating some $100 billion a year investment in clean energy (see "The only way to win the clean energy race is to pass the clean energy bill").  Yes, if carbon capture and storage proves practical and affordable at a large scale by the 2020s, then coal producers will be able to avoid some of the sharp reductions EIA projects.  But again, that wouldn't be such a bad thing since such then China and India could use the technology — and we could combine it with biomass cofiring to create negative carbon electricity.  In reality, though, CCS is unlikely to be a major player through 2030 (see here and here) especially since the coal industry continues to be unserious about the technology.

The bill can certainly be improved — and like CAP, I know Pope and Schaeffer are working very hard to make those improvements and deliver the strongest possible bill.  But it simply isn't true that the bill grandfathers existing coal plants or gives coal a free pass.  Quite the reverse.

The latest polluter front group trying to kill the clean energy bill is overseen by a proud former shill for a man convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges

Posted: 24 Aug 2009 04:40 AM PDT

How many fake "citizen groups" fighting to destroy a livable climate and kill clean energy jobs can there be?  First the coal lobby hired a top GOP voter-fraud company to run a massive "grassroots" effort to undermine climate and clean energy action.  Then Big Oil started manufacturing 'Energy Citizen' rallies to oppose clean energy reform.  Now comes a group operating under the auspices of Robert Bradley, a man who proudly shilled for Enron CEO Ken Lay who was convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges in 2006.  Bradley may be the only ex-Enron staffer still bragging about the deceits of his former employer (see here).  Brad Johnson has the Astroturf details in a post first published here.  The picture is of American Energy Alliance staffers Kevin Kennedy, Patrick Creighton, and Laura Henderson — all former House GOP staff — on tour in Pennsylvania.

AEA Team

The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a new polluter front group, is touring the nation to smear President Barack Obama's clean energy reform agenda. Employees riding the "American Energy Express" bus are spreading the conservative lies that the American Clean Energy and Security Act will "cripple our sluggish economy." AEA is the 501 c(4) offshoot of the Institute for Energy Research, a right-wing oil-industry think tank run by Robert Bradley, a former speechwriter for Kenneth Lay. E&E News reports that AEA's "Energy Town Hall" bus tour pictures workers in hard hats:

The American Energy Alliance, which is affiliated with the conservative Institute for Energy Research, has begun a four-week bus tour to county fairs, sporting events and public meetings in several coal-reliant states. Representatives of the group will travel in a large blue bus carrying the slogan "Stop the National Energy Tax, Save American Jobs" and a picture of workers in hard hats. They will cross Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia. Yesterday, AEA officials participated in a rally with another group, Americans for Prosperity, in Zanesville, Ohio; a day earlier, they visited a county fair in western Pennsylvania.

In fact, by attacking legislation that addresses climate change and our national dependence on fossil fuels, AEA is preventing a clean-energy economic boom. Laughably, AEA claims it has "no ties to any political party":

AEA has no ties to any political party, and it has no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party.

AEA may be telling the truth that it has "no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party" — its only interest seems to be blocking progressive reform by spreading lies and distortions. However, AEA is tightly connected to the Republican Party and right-wing oil interests. In fact, all of its employees are former House Republican staffers:

Thomas J. Pyle, AEA President, Is A Oil Lobbyist And DeLay Operative. Before joining the Institute for Energy Research and the American Energy Alliance, Pyle worked as a lobbyist for the right-wing oil giant Koch Industries, first in-house starting in 2001, and then at the Rhoads Group. In 2008 Pyle became a lobbyist for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Previously, Pyle served as policy analyst for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives and as staff director for the GOP Congressional Western Caucus. Pyle started as a legislative assistant for radical anti-environmentalists Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA). [Institute for Energy Research, Center for Public Integrity]

Patrick Creighton, AEA Communications Director, Worked For Bush And Pennsylvania Republicans. Patrick Creighton was the special assistant to Samuel T. Mok, the chief financial officer at the Department of Labor from 2004 to 2006. He then worked as a spokesman for oil and natural gas advocate Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) from 2006 to 2009, worked to elect Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), then joined Thompson's office until May 2009. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Kevin Kennedy, AEA Federal Affairs Director, Promoted Alaska Drilling Under Don Young. After graduating from Union College in 2004, Kevin Kennedy worked for the Astroturf organization Arctic Power, which advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 2007, Kennedy became a legislative assistant for the corrupt Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and the House Committee on Natural Resources. He joined the Institute for Energy Research and American Energy Alliance in 2009. [Institute for Energy Research]

Laura Henderson, AEA Spokesperson, Served Shelby, Dole, And Tiberi. Laura Henderson was a former press secretary for offshore drilling advocate Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) from 2005-2009. Previously, she worked for former Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) and Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH). [Institute for Energy Research]

Daniel R. Simmons, AEA State Affairs Director, Is A Koch-Funded GOP Staffer. Simmons was the Director of the Natural Resources Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing network funded by Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and other corporate and right-wing organizations. Previously, Simmons was a Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, also funded by Koch. From 2001 to 2005, Simmons served on the staff of Rep. George Nethercutt (R-WA) on the House Natural Resources Committee. Simmons holds a B.A. in Economics from Utah State University and a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law, also supported by Koch Industries. [Institute for Energy Research, Legistorm]

Furthermore, AEA's EnergyTownHall.org website is run by yet another former GOP House staffer:

GOP.gov Webmaster Nathan Imperiale Runs EnergyTownHall.Org. AEA's EnergyTownHall.org was designed by NJI Media Group, part of Endeavour Global Strategies. Endeavour's head, Sean Spicer, is a long-time GOP operative, including communications work for the House Republican Conference and the Bush White House. NJI Media Group's president, Nathan Imperiale, served as Director of New Media for the House Republican Conference, building its GOP.gov website. [Twitter, 2/13/09; Endeavour Global Strategies]

AEA's "American Energy Express" joins a field crowded by conservative oil and coal propaganda — the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity's "Factuality" bus tour, the American Petroleum Institute's "Energy Citizens" oil rallies, and the Americans For Prosperity "Hot Air" balloon tour.

Does the health reform morass hurt prospects for the climate bill?

Posted: 23 Aug 2009 12:35 PM PDT

Good question — but don't expect many useful answers from the Washington Post, even though "The Post asked politicians, academics and others whether the health-care debate has made it unlikely that climate change legislation will be passed in the near future."

The Post isn't really interested in asking people who might offer an objective opinion.  The first answer they print is from Steven Hayward and Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute.  Hmm.  I wonder if they'll take the opportunity to diss the bill and environmentalists.  Last year, Green gave a speech in which he asserted such standard right-wing denier falsehoods as:

We're back to the average temperatures that prevailed in 1978….

No matter what you've been told, the technology to significantly reduce emissions is decades away and extremely costly.

[AEI seems to have removed the speech from their website (excerpts here) -- apparently they think people believe they are a center-right organization and don't know they spout far right-wing nonsense when they think they won't be caught.]

The second answer the Post prints is from a member of Congress — the only member actually featured in the print edition of the paper.  One guess which member they chose.  Yes, it was the uber-denier Senator James Inhofe (R-OIL).  Seriously what exactly is the Washington Post thinking?  Inhofe has spouted more disinformation on global warming than perhaps any other politician in the entire world.  Does the Post really need to give him a platform to rail against the bill?

The original question is a fascinating one, or it would have been had the Post defined what they meant by "near future"?  There never was a big chance of climate change legislation being passed this year — as I have been blogging for many, many months (see "Looks like no Senate vote on climate and clean energy bill until at least November — thank goodness!").  Also, I think the CBO has made clear that health care reform is tougher than climate action (also see here).

Rather than asking partisans on both sides, who are essentially forced to restate their basic positions, the Post should have asked some independent objective political observers — although I grant that such folks are harder and harder to find (see "David Broder is the sultan of the status quo, stenographer of those centrists who are fatally uninformed about global warming").

The closest the Post comes is Geoff Garin, "Democratic pollster and strategist; president of Hart Research Associates."  Garin at least has to preserve his reputation as a pollster and strategist, so his response is worth reading:

Passing energy reform isn't any tougher because of the battle over health care. There is broad public support for an energy reform policy that reduces carbon emissions and promotes increased reliance on alternative and renewable energy. Americans believe it is urgent that we end our dependence on oil, especially imported oil, and see the development of alternative energy as offering real potential to create the next generation of American jobs.

This doesn't mean that the fight to pass significant energy reform will be easily won. We will see the same kind of massive resistance by the Republican leadership on energy as there has been on health-insurance reform, and we will see the same scare tactics as well. But the public understands the stakes with energy reform even more clearly than it does with health reform, and at least a few Republicans in Congress seem to understand they will put themselves on the wrong side of history by standing in the way of a clean-energy future.

Of course, we don't yet know how the health debate will end. I still expect Congress will pass significant reforms to protect consumers and expand access to affordable coverage — with virtually no help from Republicans. The bruising nature of the health debate might make a few Democrats more gun-shy about taking on another controversial fight, but success on health care is just as likely to create a template and a launching pad for success on energy. And if Congress fails to get anything done on health reform, the pressure to show some accomplishment on energy will be even greater.

I think that is basically right, although I must add that every sharp political analyst I know believes that if health care reform goes down, so will the climate bill.

For me, the biggest reason the climate bill is less likely to pass if health care reform dies is because that would probably mean the president hasn't reversed his dreadful messaging of recent weeks — a point I will elaborate on in subsequent posts.  Put another way, if Obama's climate messaging in the fall is as lousy as his health care messaging from this summer, the Inhofe-led deniers in the Senate won't bother waiting for lunch, they will eat him for breakfast.

From a larger perspective, Obama can be a successful president without passing health care reform, since every prior president has failed at this difficult task.  But if he fails to pass a climate bill, then his presidency will inevitably be seen as a failure by future generations increasingly suffering the harsh consequences of our inaction.  I think Obama understands that and so I expect he will do what needs to be done to pass the bill.