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How Obama Made Energy Platform 'Pop'
Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
President Has Gained Support by Framing Issues in Terms of Jobs, Security
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... Now, four months into his presidency, Obama has elevated energy and climate issues to near the top of his agenda; he has made them pop by packaging them as ways to create "green" jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on imports of foreign oil. Favoring pragmatism over moral suasion, the president is attempting to make a sharp shift in national policy on an issue that many voters have yet to embrace as a priority, advisers and lawmakers say.

His efforts, combined with those of congressional Democrats, have already pushed forward groundbreaking initiatives. February's stimulus act lavished money on projects for renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy research. This month, the White House announced that it had negotiated corporate, state and environmentalist support for higher fuel-efficiency and tailpipe-emissions standards that would clamp the first nationwide limits on greenhouse gases.
(31 May 2009)

The Democratic-Industrial Complex
by Scott Bland and Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic
Over the past few weeks, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have reached a series of high-profile agreements with key industries that have usually aligned with the GOP. Automobile manufacturers, the health insurance industry, medical professionals, pharmaceutical executives, and electric utilities - not traditional Democratic allies - all have joined, to varying extent, in the big policy initiatives of Obama's second hundred days.

Most of the attention on these agreements has understandably focused on their near-term legislative impacts. But the cooperation between Democrats and traditionally skeptical industries could have far-reaching campaign implications as well. These industries already started shifting their dollars towards the Democrats after they regained the House and Senate majorities in 2007. Now, these nascent policy alliances offer Democrats the prospect of a more solidified financial commitment, creating yet another potential roadblock for a scrambling Republican Party. As Democratic lobbyist Steve Elmendorf put it, a closer alliance between Democrats and these industries "means potentially that [the Republicans'] time in the wilderness will be longer because these groups will not help them to get back into the majority."
(28 May 2009)

Raising CAFE standards won't work
Rolf E. Westgard, Duluth News Tribune
Geologist's view: Best way to improve fuel efficiency: Raise gas taxes
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The Obama administration is introducing a national 39 miles per gallon fuel-efficiency target for passenger vehicles, replacing a number of ineffective miles-per-gallon standards set by individual states. Meeting the new mileage target will result in fewer carbon dioxide emissions per vehicle mile — but it also will result in many vehicles traveling more miles, creating more traffic jams and fewer trips via fuel-efficient public transportation.

Administration planners appear unaware of 19th-century British economist William Stanley Jevons, who studied the coal-fueled steam engines that powered the Industrial Revolution. Jevons noted that as those improving engines used less coal for the same output, their use grew, and the total consumption of coal actually increased. In his book, “The Coal Question,” Jevons set forth what is known as the Jevons Paradox: “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuels is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”

Between 1960 and 2004, U.S. energy efficiency per unit of output increased by more than 100 percent, but total energy fuel consumption increased by 100 percent. A recent Swedish study showed that each 20 percent increase in vehicle fuel efficiency results in a 5 percent increase in total fuel consumption.

A direct, though unpopular, large increase in gasoline taxes both encourages fuel-efficient cars and limits excessive driving. It encourages the use of, and pays for, those new, expensive, light-rail systems — like the Central Corridor and perhaps the Duluth-to-the-Twin Cities Northern Lights Express — that are being built everywhere in the U.S.

The Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 continues the folly with a complex cap-and-trade program that allows those who pollute less to sell pollution rights to those who pollute more. This will create a large trading market with a new class of brokers and traders, securitizing and reselling pollution rights. The bill gives away tradable emission allowances, with many going to the coal-burning electricity sector.

The bill also provides about 2 billion tons of carbon offsets, which is a third of total U.S. carbon dioxide annual emissions. Polluters can earn these carbon offsets by supporting “renewable” projects around the world, such as hydroelectric dams in developing countries. Such dams are often ecological disasters. Other eligible offset programs are municipal solid waste incinerators, considered renewable as there is a steady stream of such waste or surplus biomass. But burning that material produces as much carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour as coal power plants.

Once again, a direct carbon tax encourages the most effective use of carbon-based fuel and bolsters the competitive position of true renewables like wind and solar.

As greenhouse gases result from the burning of fossil fuels, garbage, or biomass, we can expect carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to continue rising.

ROLF E. WESTGARD of St. Paul is a member of the American Associ ation of Petroleum Geologists.
(31 May 2009)