In the Pipeline: 10/10/12

Well now.  The Obama crew favors a carbon tax.  Governor Romney does not.  Maybe the Romney campaign should make that difference more visible, obvious, and well-known. The Hill(10/8/12) reports: “An Obama campaign representative speculated Friday that the White House would consider a carbon emissions tax if Republicans were interested in negotiating — a political circumstance the surrogate cast as highly unlikely.”

And George Shultz favors a carbon tax.  But in all fairness he did serve in the Nixon Administration.  So, he is pretty much a Democrat anyhow (anyone remember wage and price controls?).ABC News (10/9/12) reports: “I think we ought to start by putting sources of energy on a level playing field. So I believe that we should put a revenue neutral tax on those pollutants, mainly carbon. I say revenue neutral to be sure that this is not something that causes a fiscal drag on the economy, it’s not a fundraising scheme, it’s just a method for causing all sources of energy to be on a level playing field.”

Chairman Upton (R-America) proves once again that he is the best chairman in this Congress.  By joining Mike Pompeo (R-USMA) in calling for the elimination of all subsidies, he adds formidable capability to this fight. Michigan Live (10/9/12) reports: “Even in the end, more than a year later, the administration was prepared to do another $100 million of reinvestment to try to keep it afloat despite its sorry track record that the taxpayer ended up eating every dime on because the law was violated at the end. We don’t need subsidies like this particularly when taxpayers lose every dime in their pocket. I’m for putting all these on an even footing. Let’s look at the oil and gas subsidies and let’s take them away. Let’s let them compete just like everyone else at the same level.”

This surprises us.  Usually the Chinese run the whole corrupt/crony/State-owned business thing better than we do.Renewable Energy World (10/9/12) reports: “New reports of a government-sponsored rescue package being assembled for for fast-sinking Suntech (NYSE: STP) and other major solar firms highlight everything that’s wrong with China’s struggling solar sector, most notably exposing the ridiculous levels of state report it receives. At this point the Chinese seem to no longer care about denying the allegations of unfair government support made by their western peers, and instead are focused on simple survival as the industry remains caught in its worst ever downturn created by a massive supply glut.”

Look, Senator, Governor Moonbeam (Jesuit “educated”) alerted everyone to the racket by waiving some regulations.  It is you and your colleagues that create the pain at the pump.  It is you and your colleagues that manipulate the market.  It is you and your colleagues without scruples that victimize Californians. Senator Boxer (10/8/12) reports: “Californians have too often been victimized as unscrupulous traders have created or taken advantage of supply disruptions to drive up energy prices. We cannot allow market manipulation by those who would seek to profit off the pain of our families at the pump.”

This is the sort of thing you typically see in the death throes of a movement or idea.  When it becomes clear that goals cannot be met, they are rationalized as movable, and what was once essential and necessary becomes optional and tangential. Climate Central (10/8/12) reports: “According to a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, this seeming inconsistency is not just unsurprising: it was inevitable. By focusing on the 2°C goal, negotiators inadvertently guaranteed that their efforts would fail, because there’s no hard evidence that any specific temperature target marks a dangerous threshold, with clear consequences for crossing it (instead, there is plenty of evidence that more and faster warming entails greater risks of major consequences, such as the collapse of the polar ice sheets). This uncertainty, the study argues, provides an incentive for countries to be free-loaders, jumping on board with the agreement without making potentially costly emissions reductions.”