In a politics-as-usual move, the Three Stooges of Carbon are proposing something other that cap and trade in order to gather enough votes to pass a “comprehensive” climate and energy bill. Instead of cap and trade on the whole economy, they’re proposing specific carbon reduction mechanisms (taxes) on individual sectors like transportation or utilities, you know, the incidentals Americans can do without.

Obviously dropouts from Econ 101, the Three Stooges of Carbon have forgotten it doesn’t matter how the Government taxes carbon emissions, the result will be the same; decreased competitiveness and fewer American jobs.

The Three Stooges of Carbon are following a well worn path: unneeded legislation in the face of uncomfortable testimony. Dr. Alan Viard noted in his testimony to the Senate Finance Committee last August:

Because it leads to the same production and emission decisions, cap and trade with free allocation has the same impact on prices and wages as a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade program with auctioned allowances.

Meanwhile, here in the left coast California, the Governor has decided to live the reputation of a meathead bodybuilder. His rejection of an LAO report about job loses due to AB 32 and comments that he believes implementation will make more jobs than it looses is unfathomable. He remains a member in good standing of the Chruch of Global Warming Arisen.

What They Knew Then

The federal government passed the Clean Air Act Amendments in 1990. One section, Title IV, was meant to control electric utility emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxides (NO and NO₂) in order to eliminate acid rain. Acid rain was a growing problem, and everyone knew about it. The main street media quickly had seen a great story and begun an endless news loop reminiscent of today’s global warming hype. Lesson plans were developed and American students quickly knew the truth as environmental zealots saw it.

The father of acid rain, Robert Angus Smith, studied the relationship between the increasing amount of soot in Manchester, England and the increased amount of acidity in precipitation. He dubbed this phenomenon acid rain. However, it was not until the 1980’s that journalists began to hype the accusation that electricity-producing plants were ruining nature by causing acid rain. In the introduction to her 1981 article on the subject, Anne LaBastille summed up the zeitgeist with these purple prose-

Deadly Waters: In an Adirondack stream, brook trout confined in a wire cage succumb to asphyxiation – a result of the water being polluted by rain- and snow-borne sulfuric and nitric acids. Acid rain has eliminated fish in thousands of lakes in Scandinavia and hundreds in the U.S. and Canada. Scientists believe acid rain comes from the burning of fossil fuels. . .

Except is was all false. Even though we still fund the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP), brainchild of the very environmental Jimmy Carter, not only does the problem not exist, it never did exist. The preliminary report of the initial 10 year study found that there was no correlation between acid rain and increased acidity of lakes. Just like climategate today, the environmental zealots and their political lackeys first engaged in ad hominem attacks, had the NAPAP director fired, and instructed the new director to rewrite the report to reflect their certainty of acid rain. The full report was delayed until after passage of the Clean Air Acts Amendments of 1990.

The final report, after passage of huge taxes on Americans who use electricity, found that;

1. Acid rain had not injured forests in either the U.S. or Canada
2. Acid rain has had no observable effect on human health
3. Acid rain had not injured crops, and may even have a positive effect on some crops
4. Acid rain had acidified only a very small number of lakes, and these could be restored to health by liming

What We Know Now

According to the EPA the Acid Rain Program, the 1990 Amendments have made significant progress:

Air Quality: Emission reductions achieved under the ARP have led to improvements in air quality with significant benefits to human health. Between 1989-1991 and 2006-2008 average ambient sulfate concentrations have decreased by 38 percent in the Mid-Atlantic, 44 percent in the Midwest, 43 percent in the Northeast, and 28 percent in the Southeast.

If the goal was to “improve” air quality, we’ve done well by some measures. But since the goal was to halt acid rain, it can only be seen as another Government boondoggle. The average annual pH of America’s rainwater had been rising (becoming less acidic) since testing began in 1978, only slowing after the implementation of 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments:

(The red segment shows rising pH in rainwater from 1978 to 1990,
the green from 1990 to 2008.)

The consensus in 1990 was that mankind was exacerbating acid rain through sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxide (NO and NO₂) emissions. Voices of doubt were suppressed and political agendas dominated. Congress bravely stepped in to save the nation from catastrophe and taxed Americans through higher utility bills. But the problem was never acid rain. Some lakes in the U.S. and Northern Europe have experienced acidification, but the causes lie elsewhere.

What We Can Expect

Congress enacted the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments in the face of growing skepticism about acid rain. They were beholden to extremist donors, both radical environmentalist and run-of-the-mill progressives. It’s déjà vu all over again.

As the climategate scandals continue to unfold and the global warming consensus unravels, wrong-headed efforts are afoot by Republicans and Democrats to resurrect federal climate change legislation. Here in California, expect a world-wide effort by the environmental radical elite to the defeat the suspend AB 32 proposition. Look for the standard environmental radical tactics- vicious personal attacks on those who disagree and outright lying.

Californians can still take back their State and start toward a golden future, but not until they unseat the flacks of the radical environmental lobby.

The meltdown of the climate campaign.

BY Steven F. Hayward

March 15, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 25

If you are not a subscriber to the Weekly Standard or don’t visit their website regularly, you’re missing some of the best written and researched news and opinion available. The article above is lengthy but a riveting read. If you’re pondering the repeal of AB 32, take time to read Mr. Hayward’s article.

Contrast that with California. Our penchent for big government has us at the brink of financial and concomitant social breakdown. The ever perceptive Michael Barone at the Washington Examiner is spot on in his analysis:

Texas has been teaching some economic lessons to which California should pay heed.

They are lessons that are particularly vivid when you contrast Texas, the nation's second most populous state, with the most populous, California. Both were once Mexican territory, secured for the United States in the 1840s. Both have grown prodigiously over the past half-century. Both have populations that today are about one-third Hispanic.

But they differ vividly in public policy and in their economic progress -- or lack of it -- over the last decade. California has gone in for big government in a big way. Democrats hold big margins in the legislature largely because affluent voters in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area favor their liberal positions on cultural issues.

Those Democratic majorities have obediently done the bidding of public employee unions to the point that state government faces huge budget deficits. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to reduce the power of the Democratic-union combine with referenda was defeated in 2005 when public employee unions poured $100 million -- all originally extracted from taxpayers -- into effective TV ads.

Californians have responded by leaving the state. From 2000 to 2009, the Census Bureau estimates, there has been a domestic outflow of 1,509,000 people from California -- almost as many as the number of immigrants coming in. Population growth has not been above the national average and, for the first time in history, it appears that California will gain no House seats or electoral votes from the reapportionment following the 2010 census.

Not so the Lone Star State. In 2008-2009 over 140,000 Americans relocated to Texas because economic opportunity abounded. In the same year, California lost 100,000 to other states, and imported just about the same number from regions South.

Our ruinously expansive and incompetent State House is dysfunctional- we stand at risk from Texas and any other state or nation that fosters actual economic opportunity. What is most puzzling is that the effete liberal majority in major costal enclaves cannot see the danger ahead. People will not live here without a job, no matter how “green” we are. Businesses will not stay here no mater how nice the climate. We are doomed as industrious people depart for greater freedom and opportunity. Government does not create prosperity.

If the liberals' death wish only extends to themselves, they should have our full support. Yet, it is conceivable that their death wish extends to the country itself. They rarely have anything very complimentary to say about their country. President Barack Obama talks about the United States as though it were a failed state. Liberals in general talk about the United States as though it were the provenance of slavery, bigotry, male chauvinism, and -- oh yes -- cowboy diplomacy.

A recent Gallup poll shows that Americans see the U.S. as the world’s top military power now but doubt whether this will be true in 20 years. Only about a third of Americans believe the U.S. will still be ranked first militarily in 2029. Americans are intuitively smart, and they have taken note of a disturbing trend occurring outside the headlines: investment in military modernization is declining during a time of rapid military buildups abroad. They are right to be concerned.

Continued cuts in future defense investments proposed in President Obama’s 2010 and now 2011 budgets are putting long-held U.S. military advantages in jeopardy. These cuts are coming at a time when the U.S. military is already experiencing shrinking margins of technological superiority relative to the rest of the world. 

This foolish indifference to terrorism and national security threats spring from the idea that the world's problems that produce terrorism are primarily economically and socially-centered rather than driven by harshly material, historical, political and religious forces. This fits perfectly with President Obama’s community organizing background: if I lecture those foreigners enough, they’ll all come around., then we’ll have coffee.

A shifting military balance does not bode well for American security or for global stability. Declining defense capabilities limit the foreign-policy options of current and future administrations and jeopardize security commitments while undermining national interests.

Americans must recommit themselves to living by the principles that made this nation safe, free, and prosperous while defending them against attack. The surest way to reduce America’s vulnerability is to maintain a strong economy, and thus the ability to provide consistent, sensible, and effective military and homeland security funding.

This must be a broad national effort by all levels of government, with the recognition that threats can spring up quickly. No amount of Pollyannaish fretting about violence by economically and socially disenfranchised victims will bring back American lives lost to lack of foresight.

In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.
Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

California, on the verge of fiscal collapse, living with a new structural unemployment, and unable to govern herself, stands at an economic crossroad. Forms and decisions of the past do not seem to work anymore and we are left with no easy options. M. Bastiat reminds us above that we are poor economic predictors, rarely able to imagine the effects of our actions. Amidst this confusing morass springs a false hope based on nothing but faith: that a new “green economy” will lead us out of the economic wilderness.

Most Californians know in their hearts that constant assertions about a State saved by the “green economy” is a fairy tale for the gullible. Unfortunately, the public is being misled by poor reporting. Since the release of the Many Shades of Green study by Next10, the media has parroted the talking points of the green economy apologists without investigation.

The problem with the study, and the reporting of the study, is that everyone’s talking percentages, not real numbers of jobs produced.

• From 1995 to 2008, California added 42,000 jobs to the “core green economy”: from .77% of the workforce to .88%. In 14 years. We can anticipate more than 2,000,000 Californians unemployed in this year alone.
• A one percent reduction in the average unemployment over the same period would have resulted in 450,000 more jobs than the total core green economy; this is even assuming that every green job would be totally lost.
• Projecting out to 2050, the core green economy will rise to 1.5% of the labor force. These kinds of numbers provide little hope to California’s working classes.

No matter how well intentioned, breaking windows and filling in ditches cannot spur actual economic growth.

Californians pay unimagined opportunity costs to prop up the “green miracle.” The “core green economy” only grows through artificially high energy costs, overbearing regulation, and direct subsidies from tax payers. In an actual free market, the faux miracle of the green economy evaporates. If the green economy was going to provide for a prosperous and plentiful future, it would not need massive government regulatory systems and huge transfer payments from taxpayers.

The wealthy classes from the “core green economy” are, and will probably remain, here in California; it’s a nice place to live. Research and development, lobbying, and most consultancy will stay in the Silicon and Sacramento Valleys: manufacturing and distribution will be elsewhere. This will be small comfort to the average Californian.

Let’s take a couple real life examples of how the green economy is working.

Firstly is MiaSolé, a high risk startup developing a more efficient  type of solar panel technology using Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) thin-film. MiaSolé’s business model only works if one assumes much higher energy costs as a result of implementation of AB 32. Several years late, they began shipping product in 2009 from their Northern California test manufacturing facility. Start up cost have exceeded $300M, and they are the recipients this year of an federal tax credit of $101.8M. They must increase production soon if they are going to be economically viable. They’ve solved the R & D problems, they’ve figured out how to build the panels, and they’re ready to expand. But just like so many other high-tech industries, they’re taking the 1000 projected manufacturing jobs and moving out of State.

Secondly is the recent announcement by Sacramento region Solar Power Inc. that it has signed an agreement to distribute its products through new dealerships in Spain and Portugal. Like Miasolé, the solar panels they market only become economically viable through artificially high electricity costs caused by government manipulation of the market. Though heralded as an another green success story for California’s economy, a few moments on their web site revealed that their manufacturing plant is in Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China. It seems unlikely that new dealerships in Europe and increased manufacturing in China will result in more jobs in California.

The opportunity costs of indulging the green economy elitists are never examined. We’re frequently offered a false choice of going green or going broke. Let’s consider another paradigm: imagine a California that encourages energy production until electrical and petrochemical costs are less than half of today’s, reforms its regulatory environment to encourage new and expanding businesses, provides ample water for whatever uses Californians can devise, re-creates a fast and efficient transportation system, and stops consuming more and more of its GDP in government spending.

What would our economy look like? Could we have a recovery that creates jobs for the great majority? Could we attract business from other states and countries? Would we have enough tax revenue to fix some of our enduring problems?

The unseen effects of the green economy myth cannot be definitively known, but the over-blown promises of its advocates are incredibly unlikely. On the other hand, we have plenty of data to support the notion that a freer, unfettered economy can bring prosperity back to California. Voters may well lay blame for their economic pain at the doorsteps of the green elites. Only the rich and prosperous can afford environmental dilettanism.

Speaking at an Innovation Economy Roundtable, a partnership between the Aspen Institute and Intel, Otellini stresses the connection between high-level math and science innovators and the nation’s GDP. He also expresses a concern that United States may no longer be a “magnet for great innovative companies.”

Fielding questions from business, press, and government representatives, Otellini discusses topics ranging from the need for widespread broadband infrastructure (“It’s like having an electric car with no roads”) to China’s growing economic power (“Japan was just the warm-up for the real game: China. … There are more English speakers in China than there are Americans!”).

But Otellini is particularly focused on driving the changes necessary to fix the economy—and fast. Specifically, Otellini worries that the Obama administration is too distracted by issues like health care and energy, saying that fixing the economy should take priority over all other legislative issues right now. “I’m worried that, by the time we wake up from this crisis, we’ll be in the abyss,” he said.

While the discussions about education are riveting, it’s his comments about America’s precarious place in the global economy that should grab our attention. Judy Woodruff jumps right in when Otellini suggests Obama’s current policy priorities should be deferred while we address America’s economic challenges.

Also, his comments about private sector creating jobs, not government is refreshing to hear from a silicon valley insider. See Thomas Friedman’s column at the New York Times for a very interesting perspective (he’s the happy looking man to Otellini’s right).

This is a long listen; you should eat lunch along with the participants, but his comments are important. The democrats disregard voices like Otellini’s at the nation’s peril.

After due consideration, many Californians respond:

Mr. President, bring it on.

The original suite of bills that the Legislature started with would have cut spending and raised taxes to the tune of about $5 billion, but only $2 billion managed to come out of the legislative meat grinder. California’s budget is so far out of balance that the State should be considering de-funding whole programs and departments. Not surprisingly, Legislative leaders say other budget balancing measures won’t be considered until later in the year.

While our electeds in Sacramento fail in their most basic duty, the Governor is in Washington begging for more federal money and crowing that the Feds are handing out more Medicare dollars than originally expected. The Governor suggested on ABC news that the economy is on the way back, and that the green sector and government spending on infrastructure were key to getting out of our current slump. Unfortunately for all of us, growth in government spending through a green economy propped up by taxes and intrusive government regulations plus even more faux stimulus projects will not result in a prosperous California. We cannot tax our way to wealth creation.

Yesterday the Field Poll released a new poll showing that California voters favor spending cuts over tax increases as the primary means of dealing with the deficit. 50% prefer that the budget deficit be closed either entirely or mostly through spending cuts. Just 13% favor doing so solely or mostly through tax increases. Another 29% favor an equal mix of spending cuts and tax hikes. On the other hand, hope springs eternal in the hearts of California voters: 75% believe California can deal with its major issues without making fundamental changes to the state constitution if lawmakers are more willing to compromise and work together. These must be the same people who bought houses in 2008 because their agent said they couldn’t lose.

A year into the Obama administration, no one should be surprised that progressive Democrats continue their march toward environmental fascism, but what in the world is up with Lindsey Graham? In a recent interview with Thomas Friedman at the NY Times, Graham offered up the following-

I have been to enough college campuses to know if you are 30 or younger this climate issue is not a debate. It’s a value. These young people grew up with recycling and a sensitivity to the environment — and the world will be better off for it. They are not brainwashed. ... From a Republican point of view, we should buy into it and embrace it and not belittle them. You can have a genuine debate about the science of climate change, but when you say that those who believe it are buying a hoax and are wacky people you are putting at risk your party’s future with younger people. You can have a legitimate dispute about how to solve immigration, but when you start focusing on the last names of people the demographics will pass you by.

In other words, don’t confront the young with the truth, they won’t like you anymore. This certainly fits with America’s lack of parenting. What the GOP should be focusing on is exposing the fraudulent science behind global warming and showing young people the truth. We cannot simply surrender our young minds to the Marxist professors that permeate high schools and college campuses.

This also points up the problems with go-along-to-get-along Republicans like Lindsey Graham: they have no core values. Any description of what it means to be a Republican would include the rejection of overbearing government regulation in our lives. Any cap and trade system is a massive intrusion into the economic life of Americans, especially pernicious because the taxes will be hidden in the price every item or service purchased.

Sen. Graham also opined to Mr. Friedman's question about the Republican party’s position on carbon-

“What is our view of carbon as a party? Are we the party of carbon pollution forever in unlimited amounts? Pricing carbon is the key to energy independence, and the byproduct is that young people look at you differently. . . Instead of being just one more short, white Republican over 50. I am now semi-cool. . . There is an awareness by young people that I am doing something different.”

So we get to the truth; Sen. Graham is willing to impoverish the nation so he can feel cool, one of the popular kids.  It’s unfortunate the Sen. Graham will not face the voters of South Carolina until 2014, although there are rumors of a recall effort.

GREAT DISCUSSION

The following is a great wrap-up of the current state of the cap and trade legislation in the Congress.