But global warming is just liberal propaganda
- Thread starter 3 Seconds
- Start date
Part 1 --the extreme nonsense
May 4, 2009
The Bias Against Oil and Gas
By Robert Samuelson
WASHINGTON -- Considering the brutal recession, you'd expect the Obama administration to be obsessed with creating jobs. And so it is, say the president and his supporters. The trouble is that there's one glaring exception to their claims: the oil and natural gas industries. The administration is biased against them -- a bias that makes no sense on either economic or energy grounds. Almost everyone loves to hate the world's Exxons, but promoting domestic drilling is simply common sense.
Contrary to popular wisdom, the United States still has huge oil and natural gas resources. The outer continental shelf (OCS), including parts that have been off-limits to drilling since the early 1980s, may contain much natural gas and 86 billion barrels of oil, about four times today's "proven" U.S. reserves. The U.S. Geological Survey recently estimated that the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana may hold 3.65 billion barrels, more than 20 times a 1995 estimate. And there's upward of 2 trillion barrels of oil shale, concentrated in Colorado. If only 800 billion barrels were recoverable, that's triple Saudi Arabia's proven reserves.
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> <!-- OAS_AD('Block'); //--> </SCRIPT><!-- BEGIN TAG - 300x250 - www.realclearpolitics.com - DO NOT MODIFY --><SCRIPT src="http://optimizedby.rmxads.com/st?ad_type=ad&ad_size=300x250§ion=180925" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT><!-- END TAG -->
<SCRIPT src="http://optimizedby.rmxads.com/imp?Z=300x250&s=180925&_salt=3595922731&B=10&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.realclearpolitics.com%2Farticles%2F2009%2F05%2F04%2Fthe_bias_against_oil_and_gas_96324.html&r=1" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT>
None of these sources, of course, will quickly provide oil or natural gas. Projects can take 10 to 15 years. The OCS estimates are just that. Oil and gas must still be located -- a costly and chancy process. Extracting oil from shale (in effect, a rock) requires heating the shale and poses major environmental problems. Its economic viability remains uncertain. But any added oil could ultimately diminish dependence on imports, now almost 60 percent of U.S. consumption, while exploration and development would immediately boost high-wage jobs (geologists, petroleum engineers, roustabouts).
Though straightforward, this logic mostly eludes the Obama administration, which is fixated on "green jobs" and wind and solar energy. Championing "clean" fuels has become a political set piece. On Earth Day (April 22), the president visited an Iowa factory that builds towers for wind turbines. "We can remain the world's leading importer of oil, or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy," he said.
The president is lauded as a great educator; in this case, he provided much miseducation. He implied that there's a choice between promoting renewables and relying on oil. Actually, the two are mostly disconnected. Wind and solar mainly produce electricity. Most of our oil goes for transportation (cars, trucks, planes); almost none -- about 1.5 percent -- generates electricity. Expanding wind and solar won't displace much oil; someday, electric cars may change this.
For now, reducing oil imports requires using less or producing more. Obama has attended to the first with higher fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles. But his administration is undermining the second. At the Department of Interior, which oversees public lands and the OCS, Secretary Ken Salazar has taken steps that dampen development: cancelled 77 leases in Utah, because they were too close to national parks; extended a comment period for OCS exploration to evaluate possible environmental effects; and signaled more caution toward shale for similar reasons.
Any one of these alone might seem a reasonable review of inherited policies, and it's true that Salazar has maintained a regular schedule of oil and gas leases Still, the anti-oil bias seems unmistakable. Conceivably, Salazar may reinstate administratively many restrictions on OCS drilling that Congress lifted last year. Meanwhile, he's promoting wind and solar by announcing new procedures for locating them on public lands, including the OCS. "We are," he says, "setting the Department on a new path" -- emphasizing renewables.
It may disappoint. In 2007, wind and solar generated less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity. Even a tenfold expansion will leave their contribution small. By contrast, oil and natural gas now provide two-thirds of Americans' energy. They will dominate consumption for decades. Any added oil produced here will mostly reduce imports; extra natural gas will mostly displace coal in electricity generation. Neither threatens any anti-global warming program that Congress might adopt.
Encouraging more U.S. production also aids economic recovery, because the promise of "green jobs" is wildly exaggerated. Consider. In 2008, the oil and gas industries employed 1.8 million people. Jobs in the solar and wind industries are reckoned (by their trade associations) to be 35,000 and 85,000, respectively. Now do the arithmetic: A 5 percent rise in oil jobs (90,000) approaches a doubling for wind and solar (120,000). Modest movements, up or down, in oil will swamp "green" jobs.
Improved production techniques (example: drilling in deeper waters) have increased America's recoverable oil and natural gas. The resistance to tapping these resources is mostly political. To many environmentalists, expanding fossil fuel production is a cardinal sin. The Obama administration often echoes this reflexive hostility. The resulting policies aim more to satisfy popular prejudice -- through photo ops and sound bites -- than national needs.
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> checkTextResizerCookie('article_body'); </SCRIPT>
Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group
<!-- stopprint --><!-- sphereit end -->
May 4, 2009
The Bias Against Oil and Gas
By Robert Samuelson
WASHINGTON -- Considering the brutal recession, you'd expect the Obama administration to be obsessed with creating jobs. And so it is, say the president and his supporters. The trouble is that there's one glaring exception to their claims: the oil and natural gas industries. The administration is biased against them -- a bias that makes no sense on either economic or energy grounds. Almost everyone loves to hate the world's Exxons, but promoting domestic drilling is simply common sense.
Contrary to popular wisdom, the United States still has huge oil and natural gas resources. The outer continental shelf (OCS), including parts that have been off-limits to drilling since the early 1980s, may contain much natural gas and 86 billion barrels of oil, about four times today's "proven" U.S. reserves. The U.S. Geological Survey recently estimated that the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana may hold 3.65 billion barrels, more than 20 times a 1995 estimate. And there's upward of 2 trillion barrels of oil shale, concentrated in Colorado. If only 800 billion barrels were recoverable, that's triple Saudi Arabia's proven reserves.
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> <!-- OAS_AD('Block'); //--> </SCRIPT><!-- BEGIN TAG - 300x250 - www.realclearpolitics.com - DO NOT MODIFY --><SCRIPT src="http://optimizedby.rmxads.com/st?ad_type=ad&ad_size=300x250§ion=180925" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT><!-- END TAG -->
None of these sources, of course, will quickly provide oil or natural gas. Projects can take 10 to 15 years. The OCS estimates are just that. Oil and gas must still be located -- a costly and chancy process. Extracting oil from shale (in effect, a rock) requires heating the shale and poses major environmental problems. Its economic viability remains uncertain. But any added oil could ultimately diminish dependence on imports, now almost 60 percent of U.S. consumption, while exploration and development would immediately boost high-wage jobs (geologists, petroleum engineers, roustabouts).
Though straightforward, this logic mostly eludes the Obama administration, which is fixated on "green jobs" and wind and solar energy. Championing "clean" fuels has become a political set piece. On Earth Day (April 22), the president visited an Iowa factory that builds towers for wind turbines. "We can remain the world's leading importer of oil, or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy," he said.
The president is lauded as a great educator; in this case, he provided much miseducation. He implied that there's a choice between promoting renewables and relying on oil. Actually, the two are mostly disconnected. Wind and solar mainly produce electricity. Most of our oil goes for transportation (cars, trucks, planes); almost none -- about 1.5 percent -- generates electricity. Expanding wind and solar won't displace much oil; someday, electric cars may change this.
For now, reducing oil imports requires using less or producing more. Obama has attended to the first with higher fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles. But his administration is undermining the second. At the Department of Interior, which oversees public lands and the OCS, Secretary Ken Salazar has taken steps that dampen development: cancelled 77 leases in Utah, because they were too close to national parks; extended a comment period for OCS exploration to evaluate possible environmental effects; and signaled more caution toward shale for similar reasons.
Any one of these alone might seem a reasonable review of inherited policies, and it's true that Salazar has maintained a regular schedule of oil and gas leases Still, the anti-oil bias seems unmistakable. Conceivably, Salazar may reinstate administratively many restrictions on OCS drilling that Congress lifted last year. Meanwhile, he's promoting wind and solar by announcing new procedures for locating them on public lands, including the OCS. "We are," he says, "setting the Department on a new path" -- emphasizing renewables.
It may disappoint. In 2007, wind and solar generated less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity. Even a tenfold expansion will leave their contribution small. By contrast, oil and natural gas now provide two-thirds of Americans' energy. They will dominate consumption for decades. Any added oil produced here will mostly reduce imports; extra natural gas will mostly displace coal in electricity generation. Neither threatens any anti-global warming program that Congress might adopt.
Encouraging more U.S. production also aids economic recovery, because the promise of "green jobs" is wildly exaggerated. Consider. In 2008, the oil and gas industries employed 1.8 million people. Jobs in the solar and wind industries are reckoned (by their trade associations) to be 35,000 and 85,000, respectively. Now do the arithmetic: A 5 percent rise in oil jobs (90,000) approaches a doubling for wind and solar (120,000). Modest movements, up or down, in oil will swamp "green" jobs.
Improved production techniques (example: drilling in deeper waters) have increased America's recoverable oil and natural gas. The resistance to tapping these resources is mostly political. To many environmentalists, expanding fossil fuel production is a cardinal sin. The Obama administration often echoes this reflexive hostility. The resulting policies aim more to satisfy popular prejudice -- through photo ops and sound bites -- than national needs.
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> checkTextResizerCookie('article_body'); </SCRIPT>
Copyright 2009, Washington Post Writers Group
<!-- stopprint --><!-- sphereit end -->
Part 2 the results of extreme nonsense--
May 3, 2009
California as Liberalism's Laboratory
By George Will
WASHINGTON -- California's increasingly severe and largely self-inflicted economic crisis will deepen on May 19 if, as is probable and desirable, voters reject most of the ballot measures that were drafted as part of a "solution" to the state's budget deficit. They would make matters worse. National economic revival is being impeded because one-eighth of the nation's population lives in a state that is driving itself into permanent stagnation. California's perennial boast -- that it is the incubator of America's future -- now has an increasingly dark urgency.
Under Arnold Schwarzenegger, the best governor the states contiguous to California have ever had, people and businesses have been relocating in those states. For four consecutive years, more Americans have moved out of California than have moved in. California's business costs are more than 20 percent higher than the average state's. In the last decade, net out-migration of Americans has been 1.4 million. California is exporting talent while importing Mexico's poverty. The latter is not California's fault; the former is.
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> <!-- OAS_AD('Block'); //--> </SCRIPT><!-- BEGIN TAG - 300x250 - www.realclearpolitics.com - DO NOT MODIFY --><SCRIPT src="http://optimizedby.rmxads.com/st?ad_type=ad&ad_size=300x250§ion=180925" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT><!-- END TAG -->
<SCRIPT src="http://optimizedby.rmxads.com/imp?Z=300x250&s=180925&_salt=240398159&B=10&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.realclearpolitics.com%2Farticles%2F2009%2F05%2F03%2Fcalifornia_sagging_96300.html&r=1" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT>
If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit, which is larger than the budgets of all but 10 states. Since 1990, the number of state employees has increased by more than a third. In Schwarzenegger's less than six years as governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent.
Liberal orthodoxy has made the state dependent on a volatile source of revenues -- high income tax rates on the wealthy. In 2006, the top 1 percent of earners paid 48 percent of the income taxes. California's income and sales taxes are among the nation's highest, its business conditions among the worst, as measured by 16 variables directly influenced by the Legislature. Unemployment, the nation's fourth highest, is 11.2 percent.
Required by law to balance the budget, the Legislature has "solved" the problem by, among other things, increasing the income, sales, gas and vehicle taxes. This, although one rationale for the federal government's gargantuan "stimulus" was to spare states the need to raise taxes which, in California, will more than vitiate the stimulus.
Proposition 1A would create a complicated -- hence probably porous -- spending cap, and a rainy day fund. Realists, however, do not trust the Legislature to obey the law, which may be why some public employees unions cynically support 1A. Another May 19 proposition, opaquely titled the "Lottery Modernization Act," would authorize borrowing $5 billion from future hypothetical lottery receipts. The title is a measure of the political class' meretriciousness.
If voters pass 1A's hypothetical restraint on government spending, their reward will be two extra years (another $16 billion) of actual income, sales and vehicle tax increases. The increases were supposed to be for just two years. Voters are being warned that if they reject the propositions, there might have to be $14 billion in spending cuts. (Note the $15 billion number four paragraphs above.) Even teachers might be laid off. California teachers -- the nation's highest paid, with salaries about 25 percent above the national average -- are emblematic of the grip government employees unions have on the state, where 57 percent of government workers are unionized (the national average is 37 percent).
Flinching from serious budget cutting, and from confronting public employees unions, some Californians focus on process questions. They devise candidate-selection rules designed to diminish the role of parties, thereby supposedly making more likely the election of "moderates" amenable to even more tax increases.
But what actually ails California is centrist evasions. The state's crisis has been caused by "moderation," understood as splitting the difference between extreme liberalism and hyperliberalism, a "reasonableness" that merely moderates the speed at which the ever-expanding public sector suffocates the private sector.
California has become liberalism's laboratory, in which the case for fiscal conservatism is being confirmed. The state is a slow learner and hence will remain a drag on the nation's economy. But it will be a net benefit to the nation if the federal government and other state governments profit from California's negative example, which Californians can make more vividly instructive by voting down the propositions on May 19.
Remember the story of the mule that paid attention only after being walloped by a two-by-four? The Democratic-controlled state Legislature is like that. Fortunately, it has handed voters some two-by-fours -- the initiatives. Resounding rejections of them should get Sacramento's attention.
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> checkTextResizerCookie('article_body'); </SCRIPT>georgewill@washpost.com
May 3, 2009
California as Liberalism's Laboratory
By George Will
WASHINGTON -- California's increasingly severe and largely self-inflicted economic crisis will deepen on May 19 if, as is probable and desirable, voters reject most of the ballot measures that were drafted as part of a "solution" to the state's budget deficit. They would make matters worse. National economic revival is being impeded because one-eighth of the nation's population lives in a state that is driving itself into permanent stagnation. California's perennial boast -- that it is the incubator of America's future -- now has an increasingly dark urgency.
Under Arnold Schwarzenegger, the best governor the states contiguous to California have ever had, people and businesses have been relocating in those states. For four consecutive years, more Americans have moved out of California than have moved in. California's business costs are more than 20 percent higher than the average state's. In the last decade, net out-migration of Americans has been 1.4 million. California is exporting talent while importing Mexico's poverty. The latter is not California's fault; the former is.
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> <!-- OAS_AD('Block'); //--> </SCRIPT><!-- BEGIN TAG - 300x250 - www.realclearpolitics.com - DO NOT MODIFY --><SCRIPT src="http://optimizedby.rmxads.com/st?ad_type=ad&ad_size=300x250§ion=180925" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT><!-- END TAG -->
If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit, which is larger than the budgets of all but 10 states. Since 1990, the number of state employees has increased by more than a third. In Schwarzenegger's less than six years as governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent.
Liberal orthodoxy has made the state dependent on a volatile source of revenues -- high income tax rates on the wealthy. In 2006, the top 1 percent of earners paid 48 percent of the income taxes. California's income and sales taxes are among the nation's highest, its business conditions among the worst, as measured by 16 variables directly influenced by the Legislature. Unemployment, the nation's fourth highest, is 11.2 percent.
Required by law to balance the budget, the Legislature has "solved" the problem by, among other things, increasing the income, sales, gas and vehicle taxes. This, although one rationale for the federal government's gargantuan "stimulus" was to spare states the need to raise taxes which, in California, will more than vitiate the stimulus.
Proposition 1A would create a complicated -- hence probably porous -- spending cap, and a rainy day fund. Realists, however, do not trust the Legislature to obey the law, which may be why some public employees unions cynically support 1A. Another May 19 proposition, opaquely titled the "Lottery Modernization Act," would authorize borrowing $5 billion from future hypothetical lottery receipts. The title is a measure of the political class' meretriciousness.
If voters pass 1A's hypothetical restraint on government spending, their reward will be two extra years (another $16 billion) of actual income, sales and vehicle tax increases. The increases were supposed to be for just two years. Voters are being warned that if they reject the propositions, there might have to be $14 billion in spending cuts. (Note the $15 billion number four paragraphs above.) Even teachers might be laid off. California teachers -- the nation's highest paid, with salaries about 25 percent above the national average -- are emblematic of the grip government employees unions have on the state, where 57 percent of government workers are unionized (the national average is 37 percent).
Flinching from serious budget cutting, and from confronting public employees unions, some Californians focus on process questions. They devise candidate-selection rules designed to diminish the role of parties, thereby supposedly making more likely the election of "moderates" amenable to even more tax increases.
But what actually ails California is centrist evasions. The state's crisis has been caused by "moderation," understood as splitting the difference between extreme liberalism and hyperliberalism, a "reasonableness" that merely moderates the speed at which the ever-expanding public sector suffocates the private sector.
California has become liberalism's laboratory, in which the case for fiscal conservatism is being confirmed. The state is a slow learner and hence will remain a drag on the nation's economy. But it will be a net benefit to the nation if the federal government and other state governments profit from California's negative example, which Californians can make more vividly instructive by voting down the propositions on May 19.
Remember the story of the mule that paid attention only after being walloped by a two-by-four? The Democratic-controlled state Legislature is like that. Fortunately, it has handed voters some two-by-fours -- the initiatives. Resounding rejections of them should get Sacramento's attention.
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> checkTextResizerCookie('article_body'); </SCRIPT>georgewill@washpost.com
Cie hit it...the argument is not about the earth warming, it is about why.
If you can ever pin someone down on that argument and have a decent discussion with them, you will see that there are intelligent and well researched and argued points for each side.
I happen to be more convinced by the "neocon" side that argues that warming is a trend and is cyclical.
But, none of it will matter in 50, 100, 1000 years, whatever...we will forever be burdened by climate change alarmists who believe that cutting emissions of carbon by any methods necessary (in the name of saving the planet) is our #1 goal.
These are the scenarios, all predicated upon the passage of sweeping carbon tax/cap&trade, or any sort of regulatory choking of carbon emissions, because it will happen, and soon, there is no doubt about that:
1) The earth's temperature does not continue to rise (which will eventually happen, as any and all cycles in nature are exactly that: cyclical, and will rise and fall)...but the legislation will claim all responsibility for 'fixing the earths problem' and we will forever be subjected to more and more carbon regulations
2) The earth's temperature will continue to rise (as the cycle has not yet completed) and we will see more and more regressive carbon regulation until the earths temperature begins to fall, at which point scenario 1 will take over.
The earth's temperature will rise and fall as it always has for billions of years...a bunch of self righteous pricks in washington cant stop that, but they will take billions upon billions of your dollars and try to say that they will.
Remember the Global Cooling scare in the 1970's?
If you can ever pin someone down on that argument and have a decent discussion with them, you will see that there are intelligent and well researched and argued points for each side.
I happen to be more convinced by the "neocon" side that argues that warming is a trend and is cyclical.
But, none of it will matter in 50, 100, 1000 years, whatever...we will forever be burdened by climate change alarmists who believe that cutting emissions of carbon by any methods necessary (in the name of saving the planet) is our #1 goal.
These are the scenarios, all predicated upon the passage of sweeping carbon tax/cap&trade, or any sort of regulatory choking of carbon emissions, because it will happen, and soon, there is no doubt about that:
1) The earth's temperature does not continue to rise (which will eventually happen, as any and all cycles in nature are exactly that: cyclical, and will rise and fall)...but the legislation will claim all responsibility for 'fixing the earths problem' and we will forever be subjected to more and more carbon regulations
2) The earth's temperature will continue to rise (as the cycle has not yet completed) and we will see more and more regressive carbon regulation until the earths temperature begins to fall, at which point scenario 1 will take over.
The earth's temperature will rise and fall as it always has for billions of years...a bunch of self righteous pricks in washington cant stop that, but they will take billions upon billions of your dollars and try to say that they will.
Remember the Global Cooling scare in the 1970's?
