Is there a connection?

The fact is, I'm perfectly willing to pretend I'm afraid of carbon. The more people are afraid of AGW, the faster we can get some nice, clean nuclear power plants built. Yay!

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Chris explains how that works.

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. . . the "Gang of Ten" proposal:

API must express its opposition to the approach outlined by the Group of 10 because it falls far short of what is needed.

Unfortunately, the proposal appears to be a classic case of one step forward, two steps back -- or in this instance "light on new production/heavy on new taxes." Current world events only reinforce the critical importance of ensuring that our nation develops the full range of its domestic energy resources for economic competitiveness and national security reasons.

The proposalÂ’s approach to access to federal oil and natural gas resources is far too limited in its scope. And, it is unfortunately paired with the imposition of at least $30 billion in new taxes on the oil and natural gas industry that would have the effect of limiting needed oil and gas investment. A lesson learned well in the 1970-80 period. These measures create an environment that will virtually assure a future with less, not more, domestic production.

While this new proposal would expand access in the waters of the Outer Continental Shelf, it unfortunately limits any expansion over current law to the eastern Gulf of Mexico and waters off four Atlantic Coast states in the South. Even in these areas, development in federal waters less than 50 miles offshore would be banned – despite the fact that offshore facilities would need to be 12 or fewer miles from shore to be visible from land.

Leasing in the North Atlantic and off the Pacific Coast would be banned and plentiful hydrocarbon resources in Alaska would remain off limits. Significant regulatory burdens on new development would remain in place. The imposition of $30 billion in clearly discriminatory new taxes, to pay for federal investment in alternatives and renewables, ignores the fact that the industry already provides more than 70 percent of all North American investment in research and development in emerging energy technologies.

Americans today are calling for Congress to do much more to supply their needs for additional energy. Our companies are supplying more energy – and more kinds of energy – to meet this growing demand. The U.S. Energy Information Administration continues to point out that oil and natural gas will be an essential part of this nation’s energy future for decades to come. Opening all available domestic resources to safe and environmentally responsible development would significantly boost U.S. supplies of oil and natural gas; increase the nation’s energy security; add more well-paying American jobs; help with our balance of payments and economic growth during a time of recessionary fears and bring billions of dollars into the Treasury instead of sending them abroad.

Huge and discriminatory new taxes on the U.S. oil and gas industry make no sense. The only beneficiaries of such an ill-advised approach would be international competitors in the global oil markets, who would benefit as US companies were made less competitive in the quest to find and develop global energy supplies. Already, the top 27 U.S. energy-producing companies have seen their annual tax liability rise to more than $100 billion, an 80-percent increase from 2004 to 2006. New taxes on these U.S.-based energy companies would drastically cut capital that otherwise could be invested in domestic oil and natural gas production and expanded refining capacity. The net result could be to stifle high-risk, capital-intensive projects in the U.S., leaving Americans more
dependent on foreign sources of energy, while jeopardizing U.S. jobs and economic growth.

Other than that, it's a great idea, you know. Read the entire text of the API Letter (it's a PDF), which was sent to all senators. We need a bill, but the GoT proposal ain't the one. And even one of the "DontGo" recommendations reportedly contains that "50 miles off shore" proviso for coastal development. That's at least twice of what's necessary for environmental safeguards. (Unless, perhaps, you're a yachting enthusiast; in that case, you might have to negotiate around the occasional oil platform that people on the beaches simply cannot see. Unless you get everywhere you go on sail-power alone—with no backup motor involved whatsoever—you might want to consider taking one for the team.)

The API site is here, by the way. They know their stuff, and because they have ties to the people out in the field who are doing the exploration and conducting the research on oil and natural gas, they can give much more pragmatic recommendations on how to solve the energy crisis in the short-term/medium-term, as we continue to work on alternative forms of fuel and creative ways to generate electricity.

So, let's be clear: having a relationship with the industry is a feature. Not a bug. But there's your disclosure, anyway. They are an invaluable think-tank and public information source on oil and natural gas, and we should listen to their input.

(If you're too much of a purist/anti-capitalist to do so. In that case, I assume you also ignore anything the American Booksellers Association has to say about the printed word.)

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Ace has the full story, complete with blockquotes--the last paragraph of one showing the distinctive signs of Ace-tampering.

I just can't see the problem with drilling in ANWR (or the coasts, for that matter) given:

1) the high international stakes for failing to do so;
2) the fact that our environmental safeguards are more sophisticated than they were when we developed Prudhoe Bay (and some of the installations off the California coast);
3) given that the caribou in Prudhoe Bay seem perfectly happy and healthy anyway;
4) the fact that Americans seem to think it's fine to "despoil" the wilderness areas / oceans of other countries in order to attain the petroleum we still use on a daily basis (and in some of these cases these countries' environmental safeguards are so poor that the word despoil does not belong in quotes); and
5) the fact that Alaskans overwhelmingly want this to be done. They need the jobs; they really do.

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Here.

Their news feed is here.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:22 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Via #DontGo:

The Republican Senators joining this Gang are Lindsey Graham , John Thune, Saxby Chambliss, Bob Corker and Johnny Isakson.

As of now there is no solid evidence showing the Gang of Ten will succeed. Especially considering the fact that these Senators organized BEFORE #dontgo kicked off. I would imagine there are conversations going on that suggests the Gang of Ten should back off because Republicans are now dominating on the #dontgo issue.

But if the Gang of Ten sticks to its guns, even after a full week of movement style activism and center-right based rallying, I think a revolt against these Senators might be in order.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 03:39 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Well, let's see:

“Faced with the prospect of having the ban on offshore energy production expire at the end of September if Congress does nothing, this headline-hungry gang decided it had to do something before leaving town for the August vacation,” Murphy said. ““The New Era plan is the same as the era we find ourselves stuck in today – flush in subsidies, tax credits, and various other government handouts, but short on the energy supplies our economy and our consumers need to prosper. American families would be better served if the Gang and the entire Congress simply stopped trying to help, stepped aside, and let the offshore ban expire.”

IER Analysis: Key Flaws in the ‘New Era’ Plan:

• The Gang of Ten calls for additional offshore production in areas currently under moratoria, but proposes a process that fails to guarantee/deliver any new supplies whatsoever. New production on federal offshore lands is left to the discretion of several state legislatures.

• Production potential is severely limited. Only four coastal states would be granted the ability to “opt out” of energy bans. Arbitrary 50-mile buffer zones would exclude potential resource deposits, such as the Gulf of MexicoÂ’s Destin Dome, which is some 25 miles offshore.

• The plan ignores the urgent national need to repeal the offshore energy exploration and production bans that have contributed to the very problem their plan purports to solve. It may even give the ban the force of permanent law for the first time ever. This is an especially short-sighted, as the Congressional ban is set to expire in less than two months, on October 1, 2008, which will open the entire 1.76 billion acre outer continental shelf (OCS) to energy production.
Spending $85 billion on tax credits, subsidies, and various other federal handouts in lieu of increasing domestic oil and gas production is the kind of failed approach to energy policy that helped deliver the crisis we find ourselves in today. Government continues to be the source of the problem; government-centered ‘solutions’ will only compound our problems.

• Dedicating additional, inordinate sums to biofuel programs is especially unwise, as they represent up to 75 percent of the recent spike in food prices, according to the World Bank. They are not as “renewable” as their proponents claim, and may not even provide any environmental benefits whatsoever.

Except (to a very small degree) for that point, since I think ethanol is part of our energy future, along with methanol. But it looks like the subsidies might be skewed, and I'd rather save our mandates for flex-fuel vehicles and let the market sort this out to the degree that's possible.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 03:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Rage against the machine . . . and the "Gang of Ten."

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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. . . discusses energy possibilities with the "Don't Go"/"Drill Now" people. (Video is in the upper-left-hand corner.)

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Keeping the pressure up on Reid and his Senate, too:

Nice to know that the Republican Senators are working as hard as our guys in the House to keep this issue on the front burner—and that they also favor an all-of-the-above approach that includes alternative electrical sources, innovative vehicle designs, increased use of biofuels, and conservation.

Via a Twitter Tweet from Sean Hackbarth of The American Mind.

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Hm.

I'm actually of two minds about the ethanol situation; corn ethanol seems a lot less destructive to me than a lot of other things we do in order to prop up agribusiness, and I don't believe that corn/soy ethanol are behind the rise in food prices, simply because we have increased production in corn in the past few years by a greater margin than we've been diverting it for ethanol production.

Also, as Zubrin points out in Energy Victory, enhanced world-wide markets for crops that can be used for biofuels (which, as the research rolls along, will be darn near anything, including a lot of material that grows well in the developing world) will lift a lot of people out of poverty, because if ethanol use goes up, the richer countries can lift that tariffs that keep poor countries poor.

But let's look back at Brazil for a moment, and remember that part of the reason they are energy-independent is that their consumers have a choice in which types of fuels they use: because most of their vehicles are flex-fuel, their petrochemical companies have to compete with their biofuels. Service stations are required to have pumps that dispense both types of gas.

How to give ourselves the same flexibility? (And I'm still borrowing from Zubrin, here.) Well, we could impose huge overhead costs on gas stations, by requiring each one to add an ethanol pump or two (for thousands of dollars), or we could impose a miniscule cost on the car companies by requiring that new cars be flex-fuel (which adds $100-$500) to the cost of each vehicle, and would lead the market to get ethanol—and methanol—pumps into our filling stations. (Yes: our cars must be able to take all three kinds of fuel: ethanol, methanol, and gasoline. And that goes for hybrids, too. Even the electric type. As the power grid expands to accommodate plug-in "mostly electric" hybrids, those "backup" internal combustion engines shouldn't be handcuffed to petroleum. After all, we don't want motorists stranded as we continue to work on those nuclear power plants, wind farms, and solar panels.)

I mean, I like a laissez faire policy as much as the next girl. But that isn't what we have now anyway, and energy is ultimately a national defense issue as much as anything else. We do much worse when we pay farmers not to grow anything than we do when we pay them to grow corn so we can continue to research biofuels.

I don't think the future of biofuels lies in corn or soy, but we have to start somewhere while we drill for more oil, work on methanol, and get algae to yield ethanol in a cost-effective way.

The trick is—for the next two decades, at least—to make our vehicles into energy sluts.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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. . . . or something like that The "Don't Go" movement responds to the speculation that Nancy Pelosi's antics are designed to provide political cover to vulnerable Democrats who are feigning an interest in domestic energy production:

This weekend, the Politico reported that Nancy Pelosi has released vulnerable Democrats to pay lip service to domestic drilling and ‘all of the above’ solutions. The Democrats are intending to divert the ire of the American people towards Speaker Pelosi and away from weak Democratic members who are enabling her inaction on energy. The Democratic leadership thinks vulnerable Democrats can get away with nothing but talk and decieve their constituents because Speaker Pelosi refuses to schedule a vote on the issue. We need to act now to stop the Democratic/Moveon.org ‘diversion and deception’ strategy from preventing the passage of a comprehensive solution to the energy crisis.

The American Energy Act, HR 6566, is precisely the kind of comprehensive, ‘all of the above’ solution that the American people have shown themselves to support in recent polls. According to Zogby International, 74% of Americans support offshore oil drilling in US coastal waters and 69% favor building new nuclear power plants in the US. According to a July 31st USA Today poll, Americans support tax incentives for conservation, eased restrictions on offshore drilling, and building more nuclear power plants by 49 percent, 26 percent and 6 percent margins. All of these real solutions to either conserve or produce energy are included in the American Energy Act.

. . . . . . . .

We need you to call the offices of vulnerable Democratic House members while they take their five week vacation and ask that they sign the petition to call Congress back into session and to sign the forthcoming discharge petition for HR 6566, the American Energy Act. If a majority of the House of Representatives signs the discharge position, the Speaker will be forced to allow a vote. We are confident that the House will respect the wishes of the American people and a majority will vote to approve the ‘all of the above’ energy legislation their constituents support. We also want to put the spotlight on their decision by encouraging those of you represented by these members to contact the local press and make them aware of what’s going on.

The following are conservative Democratic members with close races and their home office numbers:

Joe Donnelly (IN-2) 574 288-2780

Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-0 520 881-3588

Tim Mahoney (FL-16) 941 627-9100

John Barrow (GA-12) 706 722-4494

Melissa Bean (IL-0 847 925-0265

Brad Ellsworth (IN-0 812 465-6484

Baron Hill (IN-09) 812 288-3999

Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20) 518 581-8247

Mike Arcuri (NY-24) 800 235-2525

Zack Space (OH-1 866 910-7577

Chris Carney (PA-10) 866 846-8124

Nick Lampson (TX-22) 281 240-3700

1. Ask these members to sign the petition at www.callcongressback.com and respectfully ask Speaker Pelosi to bring the House back to work now.

2. Ask these members to sign the discharge petition to HR 6566, the American Energy Act, when it is introduced after the House returns to work.

3. If you are represented by any of these members, call local newspapers, tell them about the #dontgo Movement, the Call Congress Back petition and the American Energy Act, and refer them to this site and the Politico article about the Pelosi distraction strategy.

We cannot stress this strongly enough: The Democrats' willingness to sign the petition that would call the House back into session and get them back to work on this issue is where the rubber meets the road. Anything less than a signature on the discharge petition is just talk.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Keep going, Babe; we need your voice.

And I shall see you at the clubs, Doll. And I'll explain why you're so great. Syllable by syllable.

UPDATE: I got enough complaints to break through my denial that the slightly larger-than-usual format of the video was messing up the look of my page on most browsers (even though my version of Safari handled it just fine).

So since my video-fu isn't good enough for me to figure out how to downsize the way the "Paris for President" displays, I'm sending your over to the AltHouse. I kind of like her dissection of it anyway: Of course it's a pro-McCain ad, even though I'm sure my lib-Dem friends will get a giggle out of it. Althouse is absolutely right on that.

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It's poetry pornography. It is an anthem for Free Genitalia Everywhere.

If I hadn't already had a pash on Gerard, this would have taken care of the matter, but as it happens I'm stalking him hard.

(Naturally, I'm looking for the rough equivalent in a treastise on the American Clitoris. But that might be a while in coming, and be a bit labor-intensive to produce. You know how that goes . . .)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:22 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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So if we add significant numbers of electric vehicles--plug-in models in particular--how do we buff up our electrical grid to keep up with the demand? Especially in California?

Insty's got a great discussion on that going on here.

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"#DontGo Is About Way More Than Drilling"

While Democrats are flying off on a five-week vacation without allowing a vote on domestic drilling, members the House GOP are staying behind to offer a comprehensive solution that puts everything on the table.

Wind power alone wonÂ’t solve the problem. Solar alone wonÂ’t solve the problem. Nuclear plants, increased efficiency and natural gas alone wonÂ’t do it either. Not even domestic drilling by itself is enough to end the energy crisis. However, if we act on everything option our disposal, we can make a difference over the short, intermediate and long term to lower energy prices and ease pains at the pump.

The American Energy Act takes this ‘all of the above’ solution and puts it into legislation. The bill will help increase efficiency, encourage wind, hydrogen and solar power development, and open up American petroleum resources and expand American nuclear power production. Read more about the ‘all of the above’ solution < href=http://www.gop.gov/energy/americanenergyact/>here.

While Republicans are willing to put everything on the table, Democrats are unwilling to consider domestic drilling and expanded nuclear power, [therefore] sending more money to foreign sheikhs and preventing new jobs in American energy production from being developed. This is about way more than domestic drilling. This is about creating a real plan that holds nothing back in the pursuit of affordable American energy.

My emphasis; RTWT.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 06:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If you really want to increase domestic oil production, put your money where your mouth is.

Sign the discharge petitions to force a vote on a comprehensive energy plan. Otherwise, shut up and stop hiding behind Pelosi's skirts.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Please call and do the same: 202-225-0100.

Via TechRepublican, via a nice summary of the story at American Thinker, via The American Mind.

Update: Oh, gee, I forgot: Pelosi isn't in D.C. right now. Well, leave her a voice mail, or leave a message with the House switchboard. Or send her a note. I know she'd appreciate being reminded that there was something she forgot to do ("water the plants, shut off the utilities, have the newspaper suspended, and call for a vote on domestic energy production").

Or if you run into her, you could remind her. ("Madam Speaker, you forgot to call for an up-or-down vote on off-shore drilling, and I think you left the coffee maker on.")

8/5/2008

Free Library of Philadelphia (Central Library)

Montgomery Auditorium 1901 Vine St.

Philadelphia, PA 19103

215-567-4341 7 pm

8/6/2008
Temple Judea
5500 Granada Blvd.
Miami, FL 33146
305-442-4408 7:30 pm

8/7/2008
Borders Books
612 East Liberty St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734-668-7652 7 pm

8/11/2008
American Jewish University
Gindi Auditorium 15600 Mulholland Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90077
310-659-3110 7 pm

8/12/2008
Dominican University
Angelico Hall 50 Acacia Avenue
San Rafael, CA 94901
415-927-0960 7 pm

8/13/2008 Forum for Women Entrepreneurs
Oracle Corporation 500 Oracle Pkwy.
Redwood City, CA 94065
415-382-6022 7 pm

8/14/2008 Cowell Theater
Fort Mason Center, Pier 2
San Francisco, CA 94123
415-643-3400×11 7 pm

8/20/2008
Tattered Cover Bookstore
1628 16th Street
Denver, CO 80202
303-436-1070 5:30 pm

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:17 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A bit more quiet than Friday's, perhaps, according to The Politico.

While FridayÂ’s impromptu House session featured members jumping off airplanes and rushing back to the House floor in shorts and sandals to thunderous applause from the visitorsÂ’ galleries, it was a more subdued affair on Monday. Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-S.C.) opened with a prayer, and Republicans recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Then it was open season on PelosiÂ’s policies.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) delivered a speech next to a giant photo of Pelosi, with the words “I am trying to save the planet” underneath, tweaking the speaker for a comment she made in an interview with Politico. By refusing to hold a vote on domestic drilling because of environmental concerns, King said Pelosi has decided that “saving the planet is worth more than saving the Homo sapiens.”

“On Friday, Speaker Pelosi turned out the lights in the people’s House,” Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) told reporters. “Now we’re in the midst of the ‘Pelosi Shutdown.’ She’s shutting down the people’s House, and if we’re not careful, her energy policies will shut down the economic engine of America. Republicans are saying we will not allow that to happen.”

Price said Republicans “demand a vote on American energy for Americans,” a slogan he repeated over and over on the House floor as he acted as the unofficial master of ceremonies, introducing each member who rose to speak.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) railed about the fact that the Cuban government “has given a lease to the Chinese” to conduct offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Wolf pointed out that the Chinese have provided economic and military support to the government of Sudan . . . .

As they did on Friday, GOP members repeatedly encouraged the stray tourists brought onto the House floor to call Pelosi and demand a vote. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) told the crowd. “It is time for you all to squeak.”

There were also some humorous moments. When the lights were turned up at 10:35 a.m. in the dimly lit chamber, about 30 minutes into the session, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who was speaking at the time, joked, “Someone must be drilling somewhere in America.” That remark brought laughs from the crowd and his colleagues.

By midday, House Republicans were vowing to continue their talkathon on the floor “as long as it takes,” claiming they would continue their protest indefinitely if Pelosi does not allow a vote soon.

“There are plans underway to be here into next week,” said Pence, one of the organizers of the protest. By noon Monday, 24 members were already back in Washington, and lawmakers said reinforcements were on the way.

Republican Rep. Peter J. Roskam of Illinois said he got the call on Sunday afternoon and drove through the night, pulling into the Capitol just before daybreak. “We loaded up the minivan just like the Griswolds,” said Roskam, referencing the classic Chevy Chase movie “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”

The floor protests did not originate with GOP leaders, but they have quickly jumped on the bandwagon. Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, neither of whom is expected in Washington until Wednesday at least, used the episode to strengthen their standing among conservatives. Boehner, Blunt and other GOP leaders sent an “open letter” to Pelosi asking that she reconvene the House immediately for a vote.

Pelosi on Sunday dismissed the GOP floor protests as “the war dance of the handmaidens of the oil companies,” and senior Democratic aides repeatedly circulated charts showing that the Republicans on the floor had received millions of dollars in contributions from oil companies, their employees and lobbyists during their congressional careers.

“This Republican hoax is unworthy of the serious debate we must have to relieve the pain of consumers at the pump and to promote energy independence,” Pelosi said in a statement after she stepped out of the huge jet she had acquired use of when she began her stint as Speaker--the one big enough that it doesn't have to stop for refueling on its way back to the Golden State, and can carry more staffers than the little one she was originally offered.

I might have gotten that last paragraph slightly wrong; what can I say? It's late over here.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 03:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, they have to keep smuggling video out, so we can all see the guerilla sessions.

But maybe the way to keep the energy high is to coax more tourists to the Capitol, according to Jonathan Klingler:

Right now, the MSM is dismissing the Guerilla Congress as a GOP stunt, but that will be much harder to do if there are long lines of excited and angry people waiting to get into the chamber specifically to take part in the phantom sessions. I know from experience that constituents are usually bored and disappointed when visiting the House gallery—if they are engaged and excited, that is a news story in itself.

We can make this happen. During the summer, a flood of people drive to Washington for vacation and take exhausted kids around the Mall in the humidity and heat, trying to show them the monuments and teach them about American democracy. They have just driven hundreds of miles and spent large amounts of money on gas - more than most other Americans would. They are almost the ideal target audience for the shadow sessions, and they have every right to be mad that the Dems skipped town for a vacation of their own when their vacations are cut short or made less enjoyable because of the price of gas.

If we build on this foundation, and add in the opportunity to spend time inside with the AC and let their kids go on the House floor while it is in a pseudo-session to interact with 20-30 members, we can probably draw people in.

Now that's my idea of giving your kid a civics lesson: If the House is rockin', don't bother knockin'.

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