In the Pipeline: 7/18/13

Fighting the good fight. AEA (7/18/13) reports: “The American Energy Alliance launched two sets of radio advertisements today educating Americans on the harms of a carbon tax. The ads, which will run in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York, ask listeners to contact Representatives Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.), Bill Enyart (D-Ill.), Chris Smith (R-N.J.), and Bill Owens (D-N.Y.) urging them to say no to a carbon tax.”

He’s also created an intern endowment. Politico (7/18/13) reports: “Bill Clinton had his day at the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency’s headquarters was officially renamed the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building on Wednesday, and the former president and his EPA chief used the occasion to tout past successes and claim some credit for laying the groundwork for President Barack Obama’s push to bypass Congress to implement his climate change agenda. ‘When I left office, there were 43 million more Americans breathing air that met federal standards,’ Clinton said. ‘Who can say a government should walk away from that?’”

The resistance is growing. The Daily Caller (7/17/13) reports: “A new video charges the “war on coal” is hurting jobs in Alabama. ‘Liberal environmentalists, especially from the northeast [United States], have made the Alabama Public Service Commission ground zero in their fight to raise energy costs in the southeast,’ said Paul Reynolds, chairman of the Alabama Free Market Alliance in a video by Yellowhammer TV. President Barack Obama recently announced that he would direct the Environmental Protection Agency to cap carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants, which critics argue will hurt the coal industry.”

It’s been 1,763 days and it’s still not approved. The Globe and Mail (7/17/13) reports: “Despite renewed rallying efforts from environmentalists intended to stir broad opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline and extensive media coverage of several serious spills involving Alberta oil sands crude, Americans still solidly back the controversial project to funnel Canadian crude to Texas refineries, according to a new poll…Public support is up slightly since January while opposition to TransCanada’s $5.3-billion pipeline from Alberta to sprawling refineries on the Gulf Coast remains stuck below one-quarter, at 24 per cent. While Republicans were more strongly in favour, the poll found a solid majority – 56 percent – of Democrats also backed Keystone XL, suggesting that even among his base, Mr. Obama faces no serious threat if he gives the project a green light. The president is expected to decide sometime later this year. Opponents had vowed to create a new groundswell of opposition over the summer, with funding from billionaire turned climate-change activist Tom Steyer. But so far, despite scattered and persistent demonstrations dogging the president and a single large – but below expectations – rally in Washington, there’s no evidence of a swing in public opinion away from broad backing of the project.”

Even former Sierra Club head lawyer, David Bookbinder, admits that Obama’s CO2 power plant regs won’t “leave an exceptional environmental legacy.” We can’t figure out why Bookbinder thinks this has anything do with the environment. Is he really that naive?Politico (7/16/13) reports: “One of the centerpieces of Barack Obama’s recently announced Climate Action Plan is setting carbon-dioxide emission standards for existing power plants, a move the president said would ‘put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution.’ Obama’s political opponents, meanwhile, have labeled the move the opening salvo of a ‘war on coal’ that threatens to destroy jobs and cripple the U.S. economy. But some important facts are getting lost amid the predictable posturing. In fact, such standards would be neither the end of the world nor leave an exceptional environmental legacy.”