My op-ed in today’s USA Today is about President Obama’s proposed new fuel economy standards. Don’t like ‘em. Unfortunately, an editing snafu over at the newspaper inadvertently left out the fact that there are four models at present that meet the proposed new standard – the 2010 Honda Insight (41 mpg) and 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid (39 mpg) were left off the list.
Space prohibited me from making an additional point. Even if there is no rebound effect, my colleague Pat Michaels finds that global temperatures will only be reduced by 0.005 degrees Celsius by 2050 and 0.0078 degrees Celsius by 2100 once you plug those emissions reductions into the computer models used by the IPCC. (These are thousandths of a degree, mind you.) Of course, proponents contend that U.S. action on fuel efficiency will lead to like action abroad.…
Continue ReadingYesterday, on a strict party-line vote (34 Nay, 21 Yea), Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee defeated Rep. Fred Upton’s (R-MI) amendment to protect workers from potential job losses due to the Waxman-Markey legislation.
Upton’s amendment is short and to the point:
After section 2, insert the following section and make the necessary conforming changes in the table of contents:
SECTION 3. MAINTAINING DOMESTIC EMPLOYMENT.
… Continue ReadingThe Administrator [of EPA], in consultation with the Secretary of Labor, shall annually prepare and certify a report to Congress on the average national employment rate for the prior year. If the Administrator determines, in consultation with the Department of Labor, that the unemployment rate for the prior year meets or exceeds 15%, as a result of the implementation of this Act, the provisions of the Act shall cease to be effective.
As a physicist, my belief is that one of the reasons that intelligent energy policies have not gained sufficient traction is that we are allowing those with political agendas (vs scientists) to define some key energy terms. And as a golfer, I know that a wager can be won or lost at the first tee — where the terms and conditions are agreed on.
Outside of “fiscal responsibility” probably the most significant misused concept that we have unwittingly gone along with is the term “renewable energy”. Giving some critical thought to this moniker is no academic matter, as the majority members of the U.S. Senate’s Energy Committee are currently pushing for a national Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), or what is now called the Renewable Electrical Standard (RES). Their decision as to what is a “renewable” will have profound technical, economic and environmental consequences on the United States.…
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