Losing On Drilling

So we're going to lose on this drilling thing. Well, maybe. Despite the fact that additional drilling as a means to lower gas prices makes no logical sense, the problem is that the moratorium on offshore areas needs to be reaffirmed annually by Congress. It usually gets rolled over in a continuing resolution to keep the government working. But the Republicans have signaled their intention to block any effort to reinstitute the ban, and it's likely they have the votes, at least in the Senate, to do that. Plus, Speaker Pelosi is already announcing that there will be a bill with drilling. There is, however, a catch.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Saturday when the U.S. Congress returns next month from its summer recess, Democrats will offer legislation that could give oil companies drilling access to more offshore areas.

In the Democrats' weekly radio address, Pelosi of California said expanding drilling areas would be part of a broader bill which addresses other energy issues [...]

Pelosi said the legislation would require oil companies to pay billions of dollars in drilling royalties, which would be invested in clean energy resources.

Democrats also want to release supplies from the U.S. emergency oil stockpile to help lower gasoline prices, increase drilling in an Alaskan oil reserve that is already open to exploration and require utilities to generate a portion of their electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind energy.

In addition, Pelosi said, the legislation would seek to rein in excessive energy market speculation that many U.S. lawmakers blame for running up crude oil and gasoline prices.

"This comprehensive Democratic approach will ensure energy independence which is essential to our national security, will create millions of good paying jobs here at home in a new green economy, and will take major steps forward in addressing the global climate crisis," Pelosi said.

The gambit here is that Republicans will never back removing subsidies for oil companies, being then seen as frauds, but I don't even see that in this iteration of the bill. Of course, the bipartisan "Gang of 10" bill does include that aspect.

Even then, I don't see how Republicans suffer any more than normal from being in bed with Big Oil. They've won the opening round of the debate, and Democrats are negotiating with themselves. Meteor Blades explains the reality here:

There is a widespread – though far from universal view – that accepting the Gang's approach is the politically astute, expedient and smart thing to do. Undercut the GOP advantage on the drilling issue by yielding to the inevitable, as some have put it, and thereby inoculate Democrats on Election Day. A cheap bargain, the argumnet goes, because companies will never drill anyway or the new President can reverse the deal come January.

Thus, on the cusp of a new administration, after 27 years of lousy energy policies that have brought us to our current situation, there is a scurry to pass a cobbled-together energy policy – still not completely written – with just a couple of weeks of discussion. One final victory for a lame-duck administration run by oil men and their pals whose secret energy meetings on government time we are still not privy to. Odds are there will not be a reversal of this policy once passed.

Just one of the areas that deserves far more debate is, surprise, oil and gas leasing. When leases on private land pay royalties of 12% to 25%, why should taxpayers only receive 12% to 16%? What about decades of royalty underpayments on taxpayer-owned land and Indian tribal land and allotments? What about the 68 million acres already being leased but not being drilled? Why grant more oil-shale leases when the five current demonstration leases are years from producing commercially viable oil from a source whose promise of bonanza has failed three times in the past 120 years, bankrupting dozens of companies and soaking up hundreds of millions of dollars in government subsidies? [...]

As unlikely as is finding 60 votes in the Senate and 218 in the House to renew the ban, it's nothing compared with getting the 67 Senate votes and 290 House votes required to override a Bush veto. And if the ban is attached to a continuing resolution, then the question arises: Who wins the battle over drilling vs. everything else the government does?

No Social Security checks go out, Veterans' Administration hospitals start turning people away, and, of course, gas prices remain near $4. With three weeks to sort it all out, right in the middle of a watershed election campaign, who would really "pay a terrible price in November"?

The smart money says we're headed for another lame energy policy, not a far-sighted, planet-friendly, grandchildren-friendly, well-integrated, comprehensive package of proposals but a mish-mash of contradictory elements that nudges us into a different lane of the disastrous road we've been hurtling down since we took our first sip of Saudi crude six decades ago.

I think that's the most likely scenario. And it's not like you're going to get an honest rendering of this debate from a media, when their convention coverage is owned by Exxon Mobil, for example.

I think at this point I prefer the "praise the Lord" approach to the problem over anything Congress does. After all, prices have gone down 35 cents in the past month - prayer works!

(That's the other thing, nobody seems to be focusing on the fact that prices are way down, and it's because demand is down, no thanks to the politicians. If policies were put in place to encourage lower demand - investments in transit, telecommuting, flex hours, smarter urban planning - prices would go down vastly more than the "drill and hope" scenario. Why has not one Democrat made that argument in public?)

That's Billion With A B

The kicker is that there's an Exxon station right by my house which I try desperately to avoid but occasionally visit. Me and most of the rest of the civilized world:

Record earnings for Exxon, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, have become routine as the surge of oil prices in recent years has filled its coffers. The company’s income for the second quarter rose 14 percent, to $11.68 billion, compared to the same period a year ago. That beat the previous record of $11.66 billion set by Exxon in the last three months of 2007.

Exxon’s profits were nearly $90,000 a minute over the quarter, but it was less than Wall Street had expected. Exxon’s shares fell 4.6 percent, to close at $80.43. (The company calculates that it pays $274,000 a minute in taxes and spends $884,000 a minute to run the business.)

Which means they make a million bucks a minute in raw revenue. They really expect us to not know the meaning of the word "profit." Also, I know something they're not paying 10 cents a minute on - alternative energy.

Shell's profits were a record, too. But Wall Street thinks they should have been MORE of a record, so I'm supposed to feel sorry for the oil companies and give them offshore leases.

There are these little nuggets - oil spills on the Mississippi, record profits for Big Oil, Veco bribing a sitting Senator - that should demolish the "Drill Now" argument. It's real simple - if you expect the folks who are getting rich off of high gas prices to do the lowering for you, then you're a sucker. And guess what? People actually aren't the suckers that media types and politicos make them out to be.

1. Yesterday's CNN poll found 69% supported coastal drilling, but only 51% believed it would lower gas prices. And that's without a real coordinated effort to get the facts out about how painfully little coastal drilling would affect prices.

2. Also in that CNN poll, when voters are asked which presidential candidate would do a better job on gas prices, coastal drilling opponent Barack Obama beats coastal drilling supporter John McCain, 51% to 40%. Obama has emphasized the need to invest in clean energy and use less oil, and that forward-thinking approach appears to resonate more than the drill, drill, drill mantra.

3. The headlines in California today talk up a Public Policy Institute of California poll showing support for coastal drilling rising from 41% to 51%.

But PPIC's own analysis says: "California adults narrowly support allowing more oil drilling off the California coast and narrowly oppose building more nuclear power plants, with deeply divided opinions across party lines. By comparison, there is solid support and consensus for increasing fuel efficiency of automobiles and increasing federal funding for research on alternative energy sources."

4. All of the above is in sync with last week's poll from the Wilderness Society, which found:

-- Only 34% "strongly" support coastal drilling, with another 19% merely supporting it "somewhat."

-- 54% don't believe coastal drilling will lower gas prices (slightly more than in the CNN poll), a number that rises to 64% when respondents are reminded that "we have already opened up most of our public lands to oil drilling and gas prices have not gone down."

-- 63% believe coastal drilling "is more likely to enrich oil companies than to lower gas prices for American consumers."

-- A whopping 76% believe "Investing in new energy technology including renewable fuels and more efficient automobiles" is a more important priority than "expanding exploration and drilling for more oil."

More on the CNN poll here - oil companies are blamed for high gas prices, overwhelmingly.

So this suck-up from Republicans, thinking they've got an issue to run with, is another phantom, as sure as immigration was in 2006. Meanwhile, Harry Reid smartly let the GOP walk right into a trap today.

Going into this week, the Senate Republicans insisted that they would block all the legislative measures until an energy bill was first brought to the floor.

Democratic leadership, initially furious over the obstructionism, is now calling their bluff. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last night introduced a Department of Defense Authorization bill that would, among other things, include a 3.9 percent across-the-board pay raise for military personnel; major funding increases for research into traumatic brain injury treatment and troop suicide prevention efforts; $26 billion for the Defense Health Program, and $500 million for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. A vote could come as early as tonight.

It did come tonight, and Republicans filibustered. Now I know the DSCC has a large war chest. Every dollar of it that goes against those Senators up for re-election who either voted "No" today or missed the vote:

Sununu (NH), Cornyn (TX), Chambliss (GA), Inhofe (OK), McConnell (KY), Stevens (AK), Wicker (MS)

And the message is simple - "Your Senator voted to get your kids killed. Send them a message and send them home."

They can stamp their little feet on this oil thing all they want. In so doing they make a mockery - yet again - of "supporting the troops."

Reason #762,917 To Vote For A Democratic President

Exxon Mobil made more money than everyone in your city will make in their entire lives last quarter:

Exxon Mobil Corp. posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $40.6 billion — on Friday as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from historic crude prices at the end of the year.

Exxon also set a U.S. record for the biggest quarterly profit, posting net income of $11.7 billion for the final three months of 2007, beating its own mark of $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005.

I don't believe in a windfall profits tax, but these oil companies continue to get tax breaks to unburden them from the strain of having to pay the federal government to take oil out of its ground. That's a function of corporate hegemony in the age of conservatism. And it's not likely to change at all under either Mitt Romney or John McCain. After saying in last week's Presidential debate that he agreed with the Republican governor of California that states should be allowed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, Romney - and you're not going to believe this - flip-flopped.

But Romney didn’t want to side with the environment for too long. The AP reports that “[a]fter the debate,” — and after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — “Romney’s campaign issued a statement in which he said that the federal government, not individual states, should set limits on carbon emissions.”

Romney’s alleged support of California’s emissions waiver is further discredited by the fact that on Jan. 4, he was skeptical of states’ efforts in an interview with the Detroit News Editorial Board:

"[The energy bill] does maintain the distinction between light trucks and automotive (standards), which is encouraging, although it leaves open the door to states putting in place tougher standards and the EPA putting in place additional regulations."

And it's not like Straight Talk McCain is any better than Multiple Choice Mitt on this issue.

In reality, McCain is far from an environmental champion. The League of Conservation Voters gives him a lifetime score of just 26 percent. While he may have been a co-sponsor of the first Senate bill calling for mandatory reductions of greenhouse-gas emissions way back in 2003, he hasn't kept up to speed on what legislation like that should look like. The 2007 version of his Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act is weaker than most others that have been offered up, calling for a cap at 2004 levels by 2012 and gradual reductions to 30 percent of 2004 levels by 2050. Current science tells us we need 80 percent reductions by 2050 to avert catastrophic warming, putting McCain's plan way behind the times. He also voted against a renewable portfolio standard in 2005 that would have required the U.S. to draw 10 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020, and though he used to be a major critic of ethanol, he flip-flopped on the issue when running in Iowa. To his credit, he does still say he opposes government subsidies for ethanol.

Most importantly, while he says climate change is one of his top three issues, he offers only a paltry agenda on the subject. In speeches, he promises to wean the nation off "foreign oil" and lead the country to energy independence, but there doesn't appear to be any plan backing those promises.

The Republican leaders are not to be believed to do anything meaningful on climate change. What we need are innovative solutions like the one proposed in California, which both Democratic candidates are well-positioned to offer:

California is pursuing new ideas to reduce vehicle emissions in the state after the U.S. EPA denied the state a waiver it needed to implement its vehicle greenhouse-gas emission standards. California lawmakers are expected to vote on a bill this week that would set up a "feebate" system for new car purchases. Excessively polluting vehicles would become more expensive to buy while the cost of buying efficient cars would fall. One-time fees of up to $2,500 would be charged for new inefficient vehicles like Hummers and Chevy Tahoes while cars like Civic and Prius hybrids could earn similarly large rebates. Vehicles that fall somewhere in the middle of the efficiency spectrum would either earn smaller dividends, require smaller fees, or remain unchanged. If the bill is approved, the state air board will decide which vehicles fall where on the fee/refund scale. Similar legislation failed to pass the state legislature last year, but the EPA's waiver slapdown has increased pressure on California lawmakers to approve other ways of reducing emissions.

Some say that, with McCain as the Republican nominee, climate change will be off the table. Don't bet on it.

The Death of the Earth

OK, let's bring Fluff Friday to a screeching halt.

The IPCC report on global warming is one of the darkest and most hopeless things I've read in a long time. Not only does it acknowledge climate change as a major problem, not only does it confirm with a 90% degree of certainty that it's man-made, but it pretty much says that we're so far gone that it cannot be stopped and all we can do now is prepare for the major challenges to the planet in the future. They of course try to put a brave face on it, but you can almost see the downcast stares embedded in the soundbites. In fact, they admit that.

Global warming is so severe that it will "continue for centuries," leading to a far different planet in 100 years, warned a grim landmark report from the world's leading climate scientists and government officials. Yet, many of the experts are hopeful that nations will now take action to avoid the worst scenarios.

They tried to warn of dire risks without scaring people so much they'd do nothing — inaction that would lead to the worst possible scenarios.

"It's not too late," said Australian scientist Nathaniel Bindoff, a co-author of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report issued Friday. The worst can be prevented by acting quickly to curb greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

The worst could mean more than 1 million dead and hundreds of billions of dollars in costs by 2100, said Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, one of many study co-authors. He said that adapting will mean living with more extreme weather such as severe droughts, more hurricanes and wildfires.

"It's later than we think," said panel co-chair Susan Solomon, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist who helped push through the document's strong language.

The best we can hope for, according to the report, is a 3-degree rise in the planet's temperature by the end of the century. Without acting now and taking drastic measures, that goes up to 11 degrees. That would basically rise sea levels by 23 inches or more, and wipe out entire island nations and tens of thousands of miles of coastline. And this could grow to as much as 20 FEET.

Here's the bold action called for by the world's biggest polluter:

In Washington, Bush administration officials praised the report but said they still oppose mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The problem can be addressed by better technology that will cut emissions, promote energy conservation, and hasten development of non-fossil fuels, said Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

They won't even fix the fucking levees in New Orleans, you think they'll get on board with the kind of leadership needed to fight climate change?

Now, I could claim that the science is still sketchy and nobody knows what the future will bring and collect by $10,000 from Exxon Mobil and go home. But if you live within a mile of a major ocean like I do, you tend to take these things a bit more seriously. And there's something that every one of us can do to at least mitigate these effects. They're teaching it in schools in Britain. Wal-Mart is urging its staff to become carbon-neutral and pushing to sell 100 million low-energy light bulbs. Here in California, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine wants to ban traditional light bulbs by 2012 and sell only fluorescents in the state. And the new Attorney General, Jerry Brown, is continuing a lawsuit started by Bill Lockyer against the leading automakers, seeking damages for their selling cars that emit heat-trapping gases. Things are starting to happen, and people are taking responsibility.

But there's a whiff of this being entirely too late. For too long we ignored the effects of driving gas-guzzling cars, of leaving lights on indoors, of allowing major manufacturers to spew soot into the air. For too long we figured that our grandchildren wouldn't be impacted, and anyway winter comes every year, followed by summer, so what's the problem? For too long we had the attitude of myopic idiots like Dennis Miller, saying things like "One degree isn't going to turn the Arctic into Phoenix, capiche?" We acted like Americans are prone to act, caring about nobody but ourselves, and essentially we broke the planet. And even now that it's broken we won't fully commit to the effort to fix it.

Part of me thinks that alarm can often be tempered by advancements in technology (like giant space mirrors!), and you can see positive results like in how we dealt with the now-rare issue of acid rain. But part of me thinks this is such a big and abstract issue that it'll take a million Al Gores to wake up the public. And the sleep is too deep, and the clock has already struck midnight.

There, NOW I've killed Fluff Friday dead!

UPDATE: Mr. Gore goes to Washington:

Former Vice President Al Gore has accepted an invitation to testify next month in a congressional hearing on the highly controversial issue of climate change.

Gore will appear at a joint hearing on Wednesday, March 21. He will be the only witness to appear before the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality and the Science and Technology Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. Gore served on both committees during his House tenure representing a Tennessee district.

It'll be interesting to see Gore's reaction to the IPCC report, because he typically strikes a note of optimism about the crisis, that we can do something in the next 10 years to reverse its effects.