Senator Jeff Bingaman’s request for the Congressional Business Office (CBO) to study the impact of reduced demand on our nation’s energy security proves that there really is such a thing as a stupid question. Ever ready to provide the fig leaf of legitimacy for any congressional absurdity, CBO decided to answer the request without even attempting to provide an analysis of the economic impacts the nation would incur as a result of socialized controls on energy consumption. Their product explains: “This report examines the ability of some commonly proposed policies to decrease those costs, but it does not evaluate the costs or benefits of implementing those policies or how well they would address other objectives” (p. v, Energy Security in the United States, May, 2012).

The specific market interventions analyzed to control consumption include higher taxes, increased public transportation, and government edicts regarding fuel efficiency. With the caveat in place that they will not examine the broad economic impacts of reduced consumption — consumption being a major factor of production for much of the nation’s goods and services — CBO concludes, almost comically, that reduced energy demand will make the nation less vulnerable to supply disruptions. In related news, the sun also rises. Senator Bingaman touts the unassailable scientific proof of his presupposition, “As many experts, and now the CBO, have repeatedly observed, every barrel of oil that we avoid using in the U.S. transportation sector makes our economy stronger, not to mention our personal pocketbooks, and less vulnerable to the volatility of the current marketplace.”

The only trouble is that the report does not show that decreased consumption makes our economy stronger. CBO was only addressing the obvious fact that those who consume less are less impacted by a market change. Did we really need a government study to tell us the obvious?  Then again, Senator Bingaman has demonstrated of late his great need for remedial instruction in economics. Of course, taxpayers have a right to know how much money Senator Bingaman’s continuing education is costing them, and perhaps they should ask the good senator to compensate the federal treasury for this monumental exercise in futility.

As for whether increased supplies would also make us less vulnerable, the CBO turns somersaults to discount this benefit by assuming that foreign suppliers would make adjustments to reduce world supply and negate any price adjustment. Never mind whether the economic benefits to the nation in terms of jobs and government revenue are worth allowing capitalistic incentives to work. Bring on the taxes, fuel-efficiency mandates, and more government spending on infrastructure — perfectly timed to coincide with a bipartisan congressional committee’s efforts to iron out a multibillion-dollar transportation bill.

According to the CBO, the federal government must do all they can to keep oil prices from dropping.  Otherwise, consumption will get dangerously high (p. 25) because wasteful consumers don’t have the good sense to cut back their energy usage. No, they require assistance from nanny-state bureaucrats to help them decide whether they need a car, a truck, or a heavily subsidized bus or train ride.  Like health care, energy policy is far too important of a national concern to allow the consumers — and voters for that matter — determine what’s in their best interests.

Senator Bingaman (soon to be former Senator Bingaman) clearly wishes to tie his political legacy to solar-powered trolleys, and hopes that his lasting political bequest to the American people is a world free of oil.  But common sense tells Americans that petroleum, an organic fuel, will power cars and trucks for the foreseeable future. Senator Bingaman and the CBO do us all a great disservice with reports that add nothing to the national debate, put not one additional American back to work, and in fact further weaken our great nation with threats of more government intervention in the energy market. 

Here’s an excerpt from global-warming alarmist Elizabeth Moon where she tells BBC Radio what she’d do if she were in charge:

If I were empress of the Universe I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached – a barcode if you will; an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals.

It would be imprinted on everyone at birth. Point the scanner at someone and there it is.

Anonymity would be impossible as would mistaken identity making it easier to place responsibility accurately, not only in war but also in non-combat situations far from the war.

More here from Haunting the Library on the environmentalist fetish of being able to track and regulate personal behavior for the supposed greater good.

Singer Will.i.am — Obamaton and climate crusader — showed up to Oxford University to discuss climate modeling in a private helicopter.

I wonder what the climate models show if hypocritical rich morons actually behave the way they want everyone else to behave.

The island nation of the Maldives — poster child of the dangers of climate change — has a carbon emissions problem of its own. Check out this BBC report on the burning of the island’s trash titled, ’Apocalyptic’ island of waste in the Maldives

Maybe if the Maldives, instead of burning the trash, should use it to build the island higher to guard itself against the climate change they are causing?

Philadelphia Weekly:

As the United States looks to green technology to keep up with rising energy costs, wind energy has become a beacon of hope. Pennsylvania now ranks 15th in the nation in wind energy, and wind farms in our region have been honored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But there are problems.

Even if all the wind farms in Pennsylvania were utilized, they’d still only make up for about 6 percent of needed electricity in the state. And, ironically, they also seem to be messing with nature: One unintended consequence of the installation of wind turbines has been a massive increase in bat deaths. Bats seem to be drawn to them, and scientists can’t figure out why. But they do know that the rapid decline in our bat population—which is crucial to general insect control—is really bad news.

“A high [bat] fatality rate was observed at a wind farm in West Virginia in 2003 and from that point on, we began seeing high fatality rates in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and then different rates across the country,” says Dr. Cris D. Hein, coordinator of the Bats and Wind Energy Program for Bat Conservation International. “So it became an issue that needed to be addressed quite rapidly, as wind development grew in the early 2000s.”

Each year, an estimated hundreds of thousands of bats are killed after colliding with, and getting shredded by, wind turbines. Last year, Pennsylvania’s 420 turbines killed an estimate 10,000 bats, according to the state Game Commission. And that has left scientists with a conundrum: Between the repurcussions of global warming and the shrinking oil supply, going green is inevitable. So how do we stop the destruction of nature—the very nature we’re attempting to save?

The rest here.

A recent Associated Press article highlights the differences between New York and Pennsylvania concerning natural-gas production via hydraulic fracturing. New York has a moratorium on fracking, Pennsylvania allows it. The result, farmers and landowners in Pennsylvania are benefitting from fracking, while farmers and landowners just across the border look on with envy.  

When Dan Fitzsimmons looks across the Susquehanna River and sees the flares of Pennsylvania gas wells, he thinks bitterly of the riches beneath his own land locked up by the heated debate that has kept hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, out of New York.

“I go over the border and see people planting orchards, buying tractors, putting money back in their land,” said Fitzsimmons, a Binghamton landowner who heads the 70,000-member Joint Landowners Coalition of New York. “We’d like to do that too, but instead we struggle to pay the taxes and to hang onto our farms.’”

Indeed, the 30,000-member New York Farm Bureau supports natural-gas development.

Not everyone in Pennsylvania is enamored with fracking. While the process itself has not proven harmful, some farmers have complained that some drilling companies have been careless in their operations by not properly storing or isolating wastewater from livestock. In addition, contractors have destroyed valuable timber when building access roads.

New York landowners, however, are well aware of these potential problems and they are not relying (primarily) on government to protect their interests or property from harm.  Rather they propose building extensive protections into their leases.

“I turned down an offer of $700,000 because the lease was really bad,” said Jim Worden, who raises cows, corn, soybeans and oats near Binghamton. “We won’t sign a lease that jeopardizes our family’s future. It’s not so much about money as about protecting yourself and the environment.”

A landowner’s coalition traveled to Albany recently to demand their right to profit from the natural resources kept at arms length by local drilling bans.

Dairy farmer Jennifer Huntington in Otsego County sued the town of Middlefield over one such ban because it prevented a planned conventional gas well on her land. A judge upheld the ban but Huntington plans to appeal.

“We would have used the royalties to update the anaerobic digester that we installed in 1984,” Huntington said, referring to technology that produces methane fuel from manure. “We would have purchased a better oil seed press to more efficiently press soybeans for biodiesel. We would have invested in our farm, our land, and our employees.”

Who would have guessed that landowners understand their own interests better than government? 

In the satire game these days, it’s hard to stay one step ahead of reality.

As the Detroit News cartoonist, I’ve occasionally lampooned Washington’s “greening” of the automobile with an eco-NASCAR send-up. Now comes the real news headline, courtesy of the Washington Examiner, that NASCAR is partnering with the EPA to green the sport:

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, NASCAR will encourage fans to buy “sustainable concessions” at races, expand the use of “safer chemical products,” conserve water, reduce waste, promote recycling, push products approved by the EPA that have a small enviro footprint and encourage suppliers to get an “E3 tuneup” aimed at promoting sustainable manufacturing.

This after NASCAR had already buckled to the EPA (and Big Ethanol) on using E15 fuel. Once the rebel of sports — a distinction that attracted a Live Free or Die, anti-government demographic and the iconic NASCAR Dad — NASCAR’s heavy corporate sponsorship is turning it PC.

“This collaboration is a statement of NASCAR’s commitment to green innovation and our role as a leader in sustainability,” said Mike Lynch, NASCAR managing director of green innovation. NASCAR director of green innovation? You can’t make this stuff up.

Will the satirical poster at the top of this post be reality come 2015?