Why Kyoto?

Tuesday May 13, 2003

With the European Union struggling to meet the lofty goals enshrined in the Kyoto Treaty, it’s an appropriate time for some soul searching. Why does the world need Kyoto anyway? The Europeans, thankfully, deigned to provide the world with answers. Germany, in June 2001, released a statement declaring that the world needs Kyoto because its greenhouse gas reduction targets “are indispensable.” Similarly, Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson in June 2001 said flatly, and without explanation, that “Kyoto is necessary.” This begs an obvious question: Indispensable and necessary for what?

 

FACT: Not for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as Europe has proven, or to solve the “problem” of global warming—Dr. Tom Wigley of the National Science Foundation found that Kyoto would reduce global temperatures by a mere .07 degrees Celsius by 2050. As it turns out, according to France, Kyoto’s raison d’etre is quite unrelated to saving the globe. French President Jacques Chirac said during a speech at The Hague in November of 2000 that Kyoto represents “the first component of an authentic global governance.” Margot Wallstrom, the EU’s Environment Commissioner, takes a more nuanced position, asserting that Kyoto is about “the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide.”

 

Cost of Kyoto

Wednesday May 7, 2003

Several leading Democrats have roundly criticized President Bush’s tax cut proposal for being “too expensive” and “something we can’t afford.” The tax cut, according to these economic solons, will exacerbate the deficit and hurt the nation’s economy. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said recently that the Bush tax cut would create “huge, permanent, new obligations that will worsen our long-term economic situation.”

 

FACT: When it comes to the nation’s “long-term economic situation,” these leading Democrats apparently criticized President Bush for abandoning the Kyoto Protocol—yet they fall conspicuously silent on the issue of Kyoto’s destructive impact on the economy. According to the Energy Information Administration, the Kyoto Protocol would cost the US economy up to about $400 billion annually (4% of GDP), a figure that over time would dwarf the cost of the tax cut.

 

Green Groups

Wednesday April 30, 2003

Green groups, with a hefty dose of righteousness, frequently trumpet their wholehearted commitment to the environment as their defining mission. Take, for example, the Natural Resources Defense Council, which seeks "to protect the planet's wildlife and wild places and to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all living things." Similarly, the Sierra Club uses equally grandiose language about its intentions, saying it exists to "explore, enjoy and protect the wild places of the earth."

FACT: These groups, despite such rhetorical flourishes, care more about fundraising than they do about the environment. According to a 2001 series in the Sacramento Bee, six national environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and NRDC, spent so much on fund raising and overhead they didn't have enough left to meet the minimum benchmark for environmental spending--60 percent of annual expenses--recommended by charity watchdog organizations. As National Journal's Congress Daily reported today, according to FY 1999 federal tax returns, the nation's nine largest environmental groups--the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Foundation, the National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Union of Concerned Scientists, Environmental Defense, Wilderness Society and the League of Conservation Voters--amassed $234.4 million in contributions. In FY 2001, the last year for which data is available, that figure jumped to $330 million--largely fueled, incidentally, by the election of President Bush--with several groups more than doubling the amount of cash raised.

Natural Resources Defense Council

Thursday April 24, 2003

The Natural Resources Defense Council has released yet another polemic criticizing the Bush Administration’s environmental policy. In a shocking development, NRDC finds that “America's environmental laws face a fundamental threat more sweeping and dangerous than any since the dawn of the modern environmental movement in 1970.” NRDC claims that Bush poses the most “far-reaching and destructive” environmental threat of all time. The environment, they ominously note, is “under siege.”

 

FACT: With rhetoric like that, it would seem President Bush, at least according to NRDC, is incapable of doing anything positive for the environment, right? Well, the good folks at NRDC, apparently without irony, said recently that EPA’s proposal to reduce diesel emissions from off-road vehicles represented “the biggest public health step since lead was removed from gasoline more than two decades ago.” According to the Washington Post, an NRDC official referred to the emissions plan as “the biggest health advance in a generation.” Let’s see…the environment is “under siege,” yet the nation is undergoing the “biggest public health step in a generation.” Sounds credible to us.

 

US PIRG and Renewable Energy

Thursday April 17, 2003

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) released a report yesterday trumpeting the marvels of renewable energy (renewables currently comprise about 2 percent of electricity generation). The report, which condemned the use of “dirty” fossil fuels, found that it is not only possible, but also economically beneficial, to have 20 percent of the nation’s electricity fueled by renewable energy by 2020.

 

FACT: While renewable energy should be part of the nation’s energy mix, U.S. PIRG is, to put it mildly, vastly overestimating its commercial and technological viability. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), our electricity mix in 2020 will break down as follows: coal, 44 percent; natural gas 36 percent; nuclear, 11 percent; hydroelectric, 6 percent. Non-hydro renewables will make up only 3 percent of electric generation. Even under scenarios that assume rapid improvements in renewable technologies with correspondingly lower costs to consumers, the figure jumps to just 4.6 percent. In a rather striking understatement, EIA said: “Projections of large increases in renewable energy use should be viewed with caution.”

 

Los Angeles Times and New Source Review

Wednesday April 16, 2003

Editorialists at the Los Angeles Times wrote in the paper’s April 14th edition that the Bush Administration’s proposed New Source Review reform (which would restore clarity lost during the Clinton years over what constitutes “routine maintenance”) “would let plants use rhetorical ruses to slink past environmental restrictions.” This is, the paper declared, “free-market” philosophy run amok. Besides, they aver, “there’s no evidence that fewer rules will lead to better breathing.”

 

FACT: The Bush Administration is trying to reform the Clinton Administration’s extreme definition of routine maintenance, which, before Carol Browner’s tenure, allowed plants to forgo the costly, burdensome NSR permitting process for minor activities, including those that increased energy efficiency, improved safety, and that didn’t significantly increase pollution.

 

As for the lack of evidence that fewer rules lead to “better breathing,” the LA Times editorialists should read about, among other things (including NSR reform), the 1990 Acid Rain trading program, which eliminated complex, command-and-control requirements in favor of a simple market-based trading system. The President’s Clear Skies initiative is based on that very system, which has led to 100 percent compliance and unprecedented reductions of sulfur dioxide emissions over the last decade.

 

ANWR

Thursday April 10, 2003

During the Senate ANWR debate, one of the most common ANWR canards came from Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), who offered this rhetorical exposition on the demerits of drilling: "Is it worth desecrating--and I use that word advisedly--this magnificent part of America for oil, 6 months' worth of oil, to ruin the natural beauty of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge forever for 6 months' worth of oil?”

 

FACT: Lieberman’s 6-month estimate is obtuse and misleading, based on the outlandish assumption that the US would consume no imported oil and no domestic oil for that same 6-month period. It also assumes ANWR holds 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable oil. But the U.S. Geological Survey's most conservative estimates say ANWR holds 5.9 billion barrels of recoverable oil. This would provide the US with 2 million barrels of oil per day (the Arctic Pipeline daily maximum) for 8 years, more than the 1.6 million barrels a day the US imports from Saudi Arabia. Moreover, USGS also found that ANWR could hold as much as 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil, which would produce a reliable domestic supply of oil for almost 22 years.

 

ANWR

Wednesday April 9, 2003

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) gave an elaborate visual presentation during the Senate ANWR debate, showing awe-inspiring pictures of wild game. We recount in full: “This picture on the plain shows the caribou and beautiful mountains with the water in front…. This unbelievable photograph shows a polar bear reflected in the water. Cast your eyes on this…. The muskoxen is seen running through this area. The next photograph shows the porcupine caribou swimming. These are pretty extraordinary photographs. This gives Members an idea of what we are trying to save and why we ask colleagues from both sides of the aisle to please support us in striking this instruction from the budget.”

 

FACT: Sen. Boxer is implying that oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s North Slope has hurt wildlife. She’s wrong. We’ll let the National Research Council's study, titled "Cumulative Environmental Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska's North Slope," speak for itself:

Caribou: "For the past 50 or 60 years, all four [caribou] herds have been exposed to oil and gas exploration activity, but only the [Central Artic Herd] has been in regular and direct contact with surface development related to oil production and transport….The [Central Artic Herd] has increased from around 5,000 animals in the late 1970s to its current (2000) size of 27,000."

Polar Bear: "Industrial activity in marine waters of the Beaufort Sea has been limited and sporadic and likely has not caused serious cumulative effects on ringed seals or polar bears."

Muskoxen: "No effects of seismic exploration on muskoxen have been detected to date."

Porcupine Caribou: "To date, oil and gas activities have had little influence on the Porcupine Herd…"

 

ANWR

Monday April 7, 2003

During the March 19 debate over drilling in ANWR, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) left the false impression that oil spills have plagued Alaska’s North Slope. "We have seen what happens when oil spills,” she said. “We know that no matter what technology is promised, accidents occur. We have certainly experienced that in Alaska given what has happened in the past from spills, and I put that in the Record before."

FACT: North Slope oil drilling has and can be done in an environmentally sound manner. In “The Cumulative Environmental Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska's North Slope,” the National Research Council stated: “Major oil spills have not occurred on the North Slope or adjacent oceans through operation of the oil fields." The report also stated that small spills have occurred but “have not been frequent or large enough for their effects to have accumulated.”

 

ANWR

Thursday April 3, 2003

[Despite defeat in the Senate, ANWR is still alive. So for the next several days, the ‘EPW Fact of the Day’ will debunk the inaccurate and misleading statements made by some members during the recent Senate ANWR debate]

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) noted on the Senate floor that when “President Eisenhower [in 1960] set aside 8.9 million acres to form the original Arctic Range, his Secretary of the Interior noted that the area was: ‘one of the most magnificent wildlife and wilderness areas in North America, a wilderness experience not duplicated elsewhere.’” She continued: “I say to my Republican friends, it was a Republican President who said let's preserve this place forever.”

FACT: This statement is both irrelevant and misleading. It’s misleading because from 1960 to 1980, the federal government allowed oil and gas leasing in what was then called the Arctic Range. It’s irrelevant because the 8.9 million acres have nothing to do with the area under debate. In 1980, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act set aside 1.5 million acres of ANWR’s Coastal Plain (called the 1002 area) for potential oil and gas exploration, an area that, with the exception of 3 months out of the year, is covered in snow and ice. Proponents favor drilling in just 2,500 acres (the size of Dulles Airport) of the Coastal Plain, which represents less than one-tenth of one percent of the 19-million acre refuge.

 

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