Wake up Americans!
How amazingly crazy is this picture! When are we the uninformed American people going to say enough is enough and hold this sorry excuse for the leader of the free world accountable?
The insane reporting this morning through various media outlets should have headlines, “Obama blaming Republicans for his own sequestration idea”—but I don’t believe that I have seen this yet. Obama after his boondogles three day golf extravaganza in Florida this past weekend, has returned to Washington in full campaign mode. Instead of dealing and working with Congress over the sequestration which again was his idea (and this was not denied but confirmed by Jay Carney), he is in campaign mode and is taking the case to the American people.
Let me understand this—the sequestration idea was proposed by the White house because during the debt crisis negotiations at the end of the year, the democrats and White house could not and were not willing to deal with a spending problem resulting in our country spending over a trillion dollars more than we are taking in. It was a tactic that the White House came up with for “kicking the proverbial can down the road.” It was putting a plan into place that they simply could not come to grips with last year—and now they are blaming the Republicans! This is craziness.
Just yesterday, Obama stated “If Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place, it will jeopardize our military readiness; it will eviscerate job creating investments in education and energy and medical research.” What? Mr. O—this was your plan—why are you blaming the Congress! American people wake up—call his bluff! Americans need to understand that he is threatening that if can’t get what he wants, he will inflict pain on everybody else. Insane! Furthermore, the sequestration represents only a 2.3% reduction in spending of the now $3.6 trillion that they are spending.
Are you telling me that our government and it’s wastefulness can’t cut 5% of their budget—my friends—I have been in business for more than 40 years, I have cut my budgets in the past in given years by 10%—again, this rhetoric and logic is simply BS on a plate! Wake up America—hold this guy responsible! This is not rocket science stuff—this is very simple—responsible actions that we the people must insist our government take now to reverse this crazy drunken sailor spending agenda of this administration. Tea Party hold your ground! Fiscal responsibility is your tenant and we the American people are simply asking our government to be fiscally responsible.
MVW
A testimonial from a young American on Gun control!
This young lady hits the nail on the head, telling a side of the gun control issue that most have never thought about.
Take a couple minutes to listen to what a very bright young black woman has learned…
Forward on because everyone needs to hear this.
Ben Carson for President
Obama Oil Lies by Mark Wohlschlegel
I have about had it in listening to Obama state that his policies have resulted in the largest production of oil in the past few years. The statement is true, that is our production rates of oil in the aggregate were higher in 2011 than in 2010—what is the lie is that Obama and his administration has had nothing to do with this—in fact, had he opened up lands back when he took office that are owned by the federal government, and issued leases to production companies, the total production today would be much higher than it is—and gasoline and natural gas pricing, as commodities, behave in a very simple supply and demand dynamic. The more the supply, the lower the price given a demand for the product.
I did some research and here are the facts as best I can determine. The fact is—Obama is the anti-energy policy President and his agenda is to make existing fuel sources which happen to be significantly fossil fuels, as expensive as possible. This policy has been stated by Obama’s DOE cabinet head Steven Chu on numerous occasions. It is not a secret. This is asinine—as I have previously written, renewables at best will only supplement our base fuels and will never be a substitute for current fossil fuel technology—at least for the foreseeable future, and nothing the government does will change this—the market forces is the only way a change in mix of fuels will change. The federal government by sticking its hands in the decision, can only do what it always does, screw things up.
Most of the data comes from the EIA (Energy Information Administration). The fact is, Obama cannot and should not take credit for that fact that net oil production this year is slightly higher than last. The vast majority of America’s new oil and gas production is happening on private lands in states like North Dakota, Alaska, and Texas. When measuring oil and gas production in areas under Obama’s jurisdiction, the numbers tell a significantly different story.
The House Natural Resources Committee noted these facts:
1) Oil and natural gas production on federal lands is down by more than 40 percent compared to 10 years ago.
2) Under the Obama administration, 2010 had the lowest number of onshore leases issued since 1984
3) The Obama administration held only one offshore lease sale in 2011.
North Dakota has been the poster child for what can happen when we unleash free enterprise and allow states to develop and commercialize their resources. The result, North Dakota’s unemployment rate is 3.4 percent, the lowest in the country. According to a report from HIS Global Insight, North Dakota already returned to pre-recession employment along with energy-rich Alaska. Texas is expected to do so in the first quarter of 2012.
Industry analysts say production is rising—not because of President Obama’s policies, but in spite of him. Production in the Gulf of Mexico is down 30%. Lease sales in Rocky Mountains on federal lands are down 70 percent. President Obama and his administration has put 85 percent of the outer continental shelf off limits and overall, is only making 3 percent of the areas under his control available for development. He stated just this week, “You know there are no quick fixes to this problem, and you know we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices.” What I say to this is you know, we have heard this from democrats going back to the early 90’s from Clinton—and we hear it all of the time from democrats in the house and senate. They conveniently say even if we start drilling now, it will be years before we will see production increase. Yep that is probably right—but what if we had started back in the early 90s and continued expanding our production and our refineries (for which none have been built in over 30 years and many have been retired). Would we not have a much larger supply of oil and gas today? Damn right we would! So when are we going to start? This is a lame excuse and has been a major contributor of why we are where we are today—still hugely dependent on imported oil that drives prices up and jeopardizes our national security not to mention the billions of dollars that we are exporting to foreign oil producing nations.
One other fact—the production numbers are up last year due significantly to leases used by George Bush during his presidency. The fact is if we had the commitment to “drill baby drill” we could be 100% energy independent within 12 years—and I am not even including the building of nuclear power plants—if this occurred now—we could shorten the time whereby we could be in 100% of our energy sources. But to do this—we need someone other than a gutless president that is hell bent on forcing is green agenda on our country.
Treasury Secretary Geithner and others are now talking about releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserves. This at least shows that the administration at least recognizes that there is a relationship between supply and pricing of gasoline. But the fact is, we have a huge reserve right under our feet, if we would only be allowed to develop it!
Energy and Climate Realities by Mark Wohlschlegel
In my 40 year career involved in working in the energy business, I can’t recall a time when the facts about energy and climate are so tortured with contradictions, bad math, and just plain lies. And now with the Supreme Court ruling that CO2, one of the lower constituents of “green house” gases should in fact be regulated by the US EPA! That’s right; CO2 constitutes a very small percentage of all greenhouse gases which by the way, are absolutely essential to sustain human life on our planet! How many times have you heard that statement made in the media? Actually, the highest percentage of what constitutes greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is water vapor. Why doesn’t the Supreme Court mandate that the EPA regulate water vapor?
My intentions in writing this article are to try to have an honest factual discussion about energy policy, global warming, and how devastating an impact that a cap and trade regulation would have on America. My goal is to appeal to your common sense with easily verifiable facts—not hype and propaganda.
A little background and facts. Our atmosphere consists of 75% nitrogen, 22% oxygen, 1% argon, and .0001% neon, helium, and krypton. These are constant gases. Variable gases which are greenhouse gases consist of water vapor 4%, and CO2 at .038% plus four other gases that are consider trace in concentration, methane, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and nitrogen oxide. So one can see greenhouse gases represent a very, very small amount of what composes our atmosphere, however, greenhouse gases perform an important and critical function that allows us to sustain life on our planet. Greenhouse gases serve as a blanket over our earth that keeps our planet from cooling. Our planet without the presence of greenhouse gases would on average be 33 degrees F cooler than at present. Greenhouse gases are fundamental to all known forms of life and in fact studies show that the gases are very beneficial for crop production, i.e. sources of food for people on our planet.
Carbon dioxide is NOT a toxin, is not directly harmful to human health, and is not projected to become so even without legislative or regulatory action. If we look at the percentages closer isolating just greenhouse gases, water vapor is the largest component—between 36-72% and when we consider clouds 66-85% and by the way, water vapor, clearly the most significant component of greenhouse gases is NOT affected by humans. CO2 represents from between 9-26% of greenhouse gases—the variations are as a result of photosynthesis, ocean and crop absorption. Methane is between 4-9% and nitrous oxides, ozone, chlorofluorocarbons constitute the balance.
There are few greater challenges facing mankind today than to figure out how we are going to meet the energy needs of a planet that is projected to have 9 billion people living here by the year 2050. The magnitude of this challenge becomes even more daunting when you consider that of the 6.5 billion people on the planet today, more than 1.6 billion don’t even have electricity—that’s a fact—25% of the people living on this earth today do not have electricity—have never flipped on a light switch.
The media long ago along with the politicians declared that CO2 greenhouse gases produced by man are creating a “global emergency” and that we must take immediate action to reduce the man-made concentrations of CO2. Scientists by the way are hugely divided on this debate. Recently, an article appearing in the Wall Street Journal, January 27th edition, opinion section signed by 16 scientists, summarized the situation as follows:
The article states “a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.” This is based on the inconvenient fat that “there is a lack of global warming documentation for well over 10 years.” This was actually substantiated by the “2009 Climategate” email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth-stating the fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” Lastly, the WSJ article states, “The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller than predicted warming over the 22 years since the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change began issuing projections-suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional man made CO2 can cause.” “Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.”
I would encourage you to read this article in the WSJ.
My further research of fact suggests that yes; we have been in a cycle of incremental warming, but not by an unusual and not so alarming amount. Over the past 250 years since the end of the Little Ice Age, CO2 levels in the upper atmosphere have increased by about 280 parts per million to about 380 parts per million today—that’s .00038. What this tells us is that CO2, the gas we all exhale, the gas in a Diet Coke, the gas that plants need to grow—is in fact a trace gas, comprising just four out of every 10,000 molecules in the atmosphere. Allow me to put this into an example that we can all appreciate. Imagine a football stadium with 40,000 people in it. 380 parts per million CO2 is analogous to just 16 people in a stadium of 40,000. Bottom line—CO2 is a vital trace gas—there would be no earth without it.
Contrary to what you hear in the media and through politicians, no one knows how much warming will occur in the future if any at all. That is fact. No one knows or can predict if any warming will occur due to man, or due to nature. When someone tries to convince you otherwise, recall Mark Twain’s advice: respect those who seek the truth, be wary of those who claim to have found it!
The scientist’s computer models, as complex as they are, simply do not accurately predict future warming. If the only variable driving global average temperatures were CO2, man-made CO2, then the math would be simple. Global average temperatures would increase 1 degree over the next 100 years. But the earth’s climate is what engineers and scientists call a non-linear, dynamic system and thus impossible to model. The most sophisticated models depend on man’s multiple inputs which are the “opinions and assumptions” of the modelers. As an example, scientists assume that clouds and water vapor’s (the highest percentage of greenhouse gases) net effect is to cool the earth by reflecting radiant heat from the sun back into space. But it’s an assumption, one that some well-qualified scientists doubt. The point is if you don’t have consensus on how to model clouds, you don’t have consensus on the significance of human CO2 emissions.
There are other inconvenient facts that are seldom communicated to us by the media and politicians. We all know that the sun is by far the biggest driver of the earth’s climate. Over the past 50 years, global-temperatures have shown a higher correlation with solar radiation from the sun than from atmospheric CO2 levels. In fact, data over millions of years shows no cause-effect relationship between CO2 levels in the atmosphere and global-average temperatures. The warmest year in the US in the last century was 1934—75 years ago, when human CO2 emissions were far less than they are today. Global-average temperatures have been essentially flat for the past 11 years, despite continued increases in manmade CO2. None of the models predict this reality. Atmospheric CO2 levels have been much higher in the past and somehow the planet has survived. This simply proves one thing—the climate is always changing!
So with the above facts, can anyone explain to me how Congress can for example pass the Waxman-Market bill containing 1,428 pages with a House vote of 219-212 to pass it followed by similar legislation in the Senate sponsored by Sens. Barbara Boxer and John Kerry?
The fact is W-M is arguably one of the most asinine pieces of legislation passed by our Congress in the century. It is government at its worst. The W-M bill has promulgated over 1,500 new regulations and mandates involving 21 federal agencies. It has essentially engaged our federal government to micromanage energy choices.
Briefly, to translate W-M into common language, the requirement which is now law is to reduce emissions by 83% from a 2005 baseline by 2050! Americans emitted about 5.8 billion tons of CO2 in 2005. Divide 5.8 billion by the US population of roughly 300 million and you get America’s carbon footprint—about 20 tons of CO2 per person in 2005. Under W-M, by 2050, we’d have to cut US CO2 emissions by 83% to just 1 billion tons per year. The Census Bureau projects that by 2050, the US population will reach 430 million people. Divide one billion by 420 million people and you get 2.4 tons per person per year.
When was the last time America’s carbon footprint was as low as 2.4 tons per person per year? The answer is in the 1800’s when Thomas Edison taught us how to use electricity, before cars, trucks, and planes. 2.4 tons is roughly the per-capita carbon footprint of Bangladesh, Cuba, and North Korea. Tell me folks—does this make sense to you? How is this great country going to wean ourselves of fossil fuels in just four decades? It is simply impossible to get there from here.
The reality is that government through their deliberate actions and complete disregard for “facts” is completely incapable of reconciling our prosperity and our way of life with our environmental ideals which are based on fiction—not facts. Who of us is willing to make this sacrifice? We all aspire to our way of life, and to an improvement of our way of life. We like our computers, our flat screen TV’s, our air conditioning, our plastic things and clothes—all of these depend on abundant, affordable, and growing supplies of energy. And guess what, as stated above, we share this planet with 6.2 billion other people who all want the same things!
The U.S’s energy demand has been growing by about 1% per year, driven by prosperity and population growth. But while our way of life is directly affected by increasing amounts of energy, we are “crazy” when it comes to the things that energy companies must do to deliver the energy the makes modern life possible. We want energy security—we don’t like being dependent on foreign oil. But we don’t like drilling in the US million of acres of onshore lands plus the entire east and west coasts of the US. We hate paying $4.00/gallon for gasoline—but not as much as we hate the refineries that turn crude oil into gasoline. We have not built a refinery in this country for over 30 years. We expect the lights to come on when we turn them on, but we don’t like coal which produces 50% of our electricity today very efficiently with our own abundant in the ground resources. We don’t like and will not expand nuclear energy (100 plants) which produces 20% of our energy and is clean. Hydro power is also clean and inexpensive and renewable but it has been black listed—dams hurt fish.
We don’t want pollution of any kind, in any amount, but we also refuse to ask and answer the question, “How much are we willing to pay for environmental perfection?”
Reduction of CO2 and the commensurate value of doing so based on the above discussion is a real questionable objective. But let’s say just for argument sake, that there is a solid correlation between the production of man-made CO2 and climate change. There are some significant facts that we must consider in proposing a “solution” to reduce future levels.
1) Worldwide demand for energy will grow by 30-50% over the next few decades. Simply put, America and the world will need all the energy that the markets can deliver.
2) There are no near-term alternatives to oil, natural gas, and coal. Folks may not like to hear this but this is fact. Not only is there no alternatives now, but their frankly are no alternatives for decades to follow. Projections by IEA on World Energy Outlook forecasts that fossil fuels will supply about 80% of the world’s energy demand in 2030—which is roughly the same as today. Someday at least part of this need can be supplied by renewable but that is still a long way off. This is not about who is in the White House, or who is in Congress, or who is in power positions in other OECD countries. It’s about thermodynamics and economics.
Renewables such as wind and solar are NOT alternatives to fossil fuels, at best they are and will always be only supplements. Taken together, in spite of huge government subsidies over the past decade in the US, wind and solar are still less than 1% of the generation in the US. The reason for arguing supplements is very simple. Electricity in bulk cannot be stored—it must be produced when consumers use it. With wind and solar, that translates into the fact that when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, these technologies cannot produce electricity—and therefore they must have fossil fuel or nuclear backups. There is a metric in the power industry called capacity factor. Capacity factor simply stated is the ratio of the availability of a generator to produce electricity when it is needed. For wind and solar, at best this ratio is 30%. Translated, this means that 70% of the time, when you need electricity to be produced by a solar plant or a wind plant, it will not be available! So our politicians who continue to subsidize and make statements like we will eventually get to a solar and wind generation based asset in our country are either stupid, or grossly gullible, or they are lying to us.
Why are the subsidies for wind and solar power materially failed? The answer to that question has nothing to do with politicians or environmentalists, but is has everything to do with the laws of thermodynamics. Turning diffused sources of energy such as photons in sunlight or the kinetic energy in wind requires massive investment to concentrate that energy into a form that’s usable on any meaningful scale. The technologies will never compete with conventional sources of power generation—just can’t happen based on facts.
It is impossible to safely or reliably operate the power grid with more than just a few percentage of electricity coming from intermittent sources like wind and solar. Until there is a major breakthrough in high-density electricity bulk storage (and it has been worked on for more than 100 years)—wind and solar cannot be relied upon for base-load power.
Besides thermodynamics, there is a second and large factor which makes these technologies impractical—economics. The US has invested trillions of dollars in electricity infrastructure over the past 150 years. Changing these systems based on a renewable energy will require massive new investment for many, many decades.
In summary, please understand that solar and wind will never be alternatives for fossil and nuclear plants—at best supplements and most likely for a long time—very small supplements.
3) Cap and trade has not been recently discussed but rest assured, it is on the hearts and minds of the EPA and environmental groups. It is a disaster as has been clearly demonstrated in Europe. It will drive the cost of electricity painfully higher which by the way is the whole objective of a cap and trade strategy—to drive up the cost of fossil energy so that otherwise uneconomical alternatives can compete because they cannot compete on a level playing field. The price tag for cap and trade to US consumers and industry will be in the trillions of dollars. This is not a strategy to re-tool our manufacturing and create jobs! Furthermore, higher electricity costs will hurt low-income Americans very hard.
What we as citizens must demand of our administration and Congressman is how much future warming will be avoided for all of this sacrifice? The answer to this question is probably none.
This brings me to the next topic. Global warming is not a US problem presuming it is happening, it is a world problem. A pound of CO2 emissions in Houston is the same as a pound of emissions in Beijing. What this says, is that even if the US severely reduces its CO2, unless you have 100% participation throughout the world, it simply will do no good. China today for example, is commercializing one large coal fired power plant each week! In the US, we essentially have stopped all new coal power plant additions as they are virtually impossible to get permitted. India is right behind China in building out new coal fired power plants. Our own government’s forecasts show that by 2050, 70% of global manmade CO2 emissions will be coming from China, India, and non-OECD countries (developing countries). Our Congressman cannot (or maybe they are) so naive to believe if we jump off the cliff, that the rest of the world will do the same. China and India will not—it has been publicly stated by their politicians. There is no way these countries will sacrifice economic growth in a futile attempt to sever the link between prosperity and fossil fuels.
So what are we to do? Perhaps we should consider given the sketchy scientific facts, an alternative strategy. Let’s call it adaptation. Even if we believe there is some very small incremental warming of the planet (and many of your older folks remember in the late sixties and early seventies that pundits were arguing that the planet was cooling and that we were going into an ice age), maybe we should adapt to this small warming. Many scientists believe that added CO2 in the atmosphere may be good for the planet because CO2 helps plants grow. How many times have you heard this opinion in the media or from a politician? There also is a theory touted by some scientists that we are about to go into a global cooling cycle!
There are some that say we are not sure of the facts but we should take heed and employ a precautionary principle. There are at least three major problems with employing this strategy.
1) No one in our daily lives live according to the precautionary principle. Example-around the world there are about 1.2 million people who die each year in automobile accidents—about 3,200 deaths a day. If we impose a 5 mph speed reduction, we could reduce a substantial percentage of these fatalities. How many of us are willing to do that? Answer—none. We all accept trade-offs in life and many of us do a cost-benefit analysis and conclude that we will not do without our cars, or we will not drive slower to save a percentage of these fatalities.
2) The politicians and media dwell on the potential harm from global warming but never balance this against the fact that the costs to reduce CO2 will also do substantial harm. We have hunger, poverty, malaria, dirty water, and many other social problems that kill millions each year. The world has finite wealth. By taking huge amounts of this wealth and investing it in the reduction of CO2 that otherwise could be spent addressing these other problems to save lives should be evaluated and considered. When was the last time you heard a media person ask the EPA or the administration, what if we took the billions of dollars that we are spending in subsidizing renewable technologies and move that instead into bolster our inner cities, or creating jobs—now wouldn’t that be a worthy question to ask?
3) The consequences of regulation that force shifts to inefficient and otherwise uneconomic forms of energy will be slower economic growth. Slower growth, compounded over decades means we leave future generations with less wealth to deal with the effects of global warming whatever they may be. The impact will hit poor and the disadvantages proportionally more. When again have you heard the media or a politician discuss this issue?
In conclusion, let’s look at history. We have learned over the past 30 or more years that energy choices favored by politicians but not confirmed by markets are destined to fail. We must insist that politicians do not substitute their judgments for the markets, and let the markets determine how much energy get used, what types of energy get used, where, how, and by whom energy gets used. The fact is no energy source is perfect, thus only markets can weigh the pros and cons of each source. Government’s role is to set reasonable standards for environmental performance, and allow the markets to work. This is not happening in our current political environment today. We must all look at this situation and elect officials that will truly reverse our craziness.
EPA and Administration Again Out of Control
The administration and the EPA are in the process of promulgating two job killing bills that will result in much higher electricity costs in our nation, drive existing manufacturing jobs overseas, and create disincentives for foreign entities to invest in manufacturing in this country.
The first is the Mercury & Air Toxics Standards (known also as the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology or MACT rule), and the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, CSAPR. Both stem from the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments.
Legislatures in Washington, including the democratic controlled house and Senate previously tried to issue similar rules, however, these were thrown out by the courts during the Bush administration. This left both rewrites to the Obama administration and his EPA and they are pushing these onerous regulations forward.
The rules of the CSAPR ratchets down the permitted sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions in 27 upwind states, to limit harm to air in downwind states. Some 45 plaintiffs—mainly upwind state governments and power companies—allege irreparable harm if the rule takes effect when proposed January 1, 2012. A recent court ordered a stay which in fact will delay this implementation date. If in fact these rules are promulgated and compliance will be required in 2012, utilities have gone on record saying they will have to shut down existing coal facilities (coal generates 50% of the energy in the US), and inevitable power shortages will result with rotating brown outs and black outs.
The utility MACT rule responds to a court decision that mercury emissions cannot be traded like pollutants covered by CSAPR. So the Utility MACT rule sets standards that every generating site must meet, in effect ending, the “grandfathering” of old coal and oil plants enable by pollutant trading systems.
The Utility MACT rule was due to be final in November but the court gave EPA a one-month extension to consider final comments. It is now under Office of management & Budget review, and is due out shortly. If promulgated, it will take effect in 2015, giving utilities three years to ready their facilities.
There’s no debate that the MACT rules would mean shutdown of many smaller, older coal plants that can’t be upgraded economically, and expensive upgrades to many other coal facilities. Shutdown predictions run somewhere between 30 and 70 gigawatts (this represents approximately 300 plants or more). EPA estimates this rule will cost $10.9 billion annually in the next decade, for retrofits and replacements. As is always the case, when a governmental entitity estimates cost, you can pretty much expect that in the end, these costs will be between 5 times and 10 times their estimates. These costs therefore can be expect to be $100 billion or more. These costs incurred by the utilities will flow directly to ratepayers as the utility industry is a regulated industry—that’s you and me. Putting these controls into place with these associated costs does not produce one single kwh of electricity. If fact, the systems to be installed actually consume large amounts of power, so in effect, we are paying huge dollars for less power.
The costs, like those for CSAPR, are unevenly distributed, affecting coal-dependent utilities and regions more heavily. Most of the heavy manufacturing in this country are in fact in states where there is a higher concentration of coal plants. The reason of course for this is that coal power other than nuclear is the cheapest power—cheap power—results in competitive products. Competitive products result in companies growing and increasing jobs. These higher costs will result in these businesses being less competitive in world markets. Result—shutdowns—less jobs.
The good news is that just a few days ago, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit temporarily blocked the Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) just two days before it was set to go into effect. The federal court ordered the EPA to continue administering the previously promulgated Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) until a final decision can be made on the merits of the rule, likely this summer or fall. Pundits believe that this is only a delay and later this year, the courts will rule in EPA’s favor.
House Republicans have made repeated attempts this year to stop EPA, but none of those efforts are even getting to a vote in Harry Reid’s obstructionist Senate.
It is a well known and proven fact that low cost electricity directly correlates with GDP growth and prosperity of citizens within one’s country. We have been blessed as many other countries have not, with plentiful natural resources, coal ,natural gas, rivers and streams for hydro, and geothermal. Yet, this administration consistently places barriers in our ability to utilize these God given resources. It simply makes no sense.
Look at the average cost of electricity among many OECD nations. The reason why their costs of electricity are higher is real simple. They simply do not have the natural resources in their country to use in power plants. They must import—therefore, the costs are significantly higher. But we all know, the Obama administration wants to level the playing field—that’s right—they clearly do not want the US to have a competitive advantage. Look at the costs measured in cents per kwh.
Australia 19.7 cents/kwh
Denmark 39.3 cents/kwh
France 18.6 cents/kwh (they are 50% nuclear and why they are less than their fellow Europeans)
Germany 35.6 cents/kwh
Ireland 27.3 cents/kwh
Italy 27.2 cents/kwh
Spain 26.3 cents/kwh
Sweden 26.2 cents/kwh
USA 11.6 cents/kwh
China 5.1 cents
India ` Unknown but heavily subsidized by the government—estimated to be less than 5 cents/kwh
kwh
In China, 77% of current power generation is coal—China is rich in indigenous coal resources, and China is in fact the largest energy producer in the world. They are building coal plants at a significant rate per year. The last time I checked, their added generation per year is more than 20 times that of the US-almost all of which is fossil fuel production—coal. China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal. Their own supply and purchases 2010 rose 25 percent from a year earlier. This is why their cost per kwh is so low—coal produces cheap power!
In India, thermal plants account for over 65% of generation—that is almost all coal- AND 14.1 GW of new thermal mostly coal is under construction and expected to be put into use by December of 2012—2.1GW of hydro, and 1 GW of nuclear. Just to give you a feel, in the US—we have about 6 GW under construction, much of which is gas fired combined cycles to replace retired coal plants. It is literally impossible to permit a new coal plant in the US today.
We also know that the Europeans previously implemented very onerous emissions limits requiring huge investments in back end equipment—thus also contributing to their high costs of electricity. Once again, this administration is exercising a policy of “let’s follow the European model”.
One thing for sure, the court’s stay decision will contribute to regulatory uncertainty for power companies and power markets in a time of significant EPC rulemaking activity. The order suggests that litigation will remain a wild card for compliance and market planning.
This regulatory uncertainty along with this administration’s onerous rule making and over regulation continues to dampen any recovery in our country. They simply don’t understand the concept that the private sector can deal with bad news, but they cannot deal with uncertainty—so when companies are faced with huge uncertainty, they don’t expand, they don’t invest, and they don’t create jobs. I guess we shouldn’t expect anything else from a President who has never held a real job, who surrounds himself with advisors, 80% or more of which also never had a job in the private sector. They simply are incapable of understand the capitalist business model since they have never done it!
America’s air is markedly cleaner than it was 40 years ago when the Clean Air Act was passed. Just a few stats, between 1980 and 2010, carbon monoxide has been reduced 82%; Lead by 90%; nitrogen oxide by 52%, and sulfur dioxide by 76% without any significant change in the fuel mix of our generation assets in the US. That means the industry has heavily invested in cleaning up coal and gas plants so that today they are extremely clean. The mission, however, of the EPA is to incrementalize and tighten down any pollutants without regard to cost impact and will not be satisfied until these fossil assets are shut down completely. The economic costs due to the rule of diminishing returns, simply is not practical. Costs to the EPA of implementation mean nothing—they are out of balance with reality and until we get an administration that can “balance” them, we will continue to threaten our nation, our way of living, and our economic prosperity and most importantly, our national security.
Change in Direction Needed by Mark Wohlschlegel
I am by nature an optimist—I have all my life looked at the glass and concluded that it was half full not half empty. I am an engineer and technologist by profession—so I question things and therefore classify myself as a realist as well. Through some research that I have recently done and through my good friend Tom Boyton, who is owner and President of WJTW radio Jupiter, Florida who I thank for many of the statistics that follow, I would like to make a case for the fact that our current direction in our country is wrong, and that we must make some significant re-direction of priorities and fix what is clearly broken. Solving problems requires first understanding the problem. What concerns me most is that our leaders and elected representative don’t seem to get it and we the people, simply are not elevating our voices to put sufficient pressure on these elected officials to change course. Therefore, I feel that we all have a personal obligation to educate and present facts to as many people as we can to engage them in this debate and generate interest and involvement. This is our country—and there are no guarantees for continued prosperity. We can through action and inaction, destroy what our forefathers have handed to us.
I also love history and know that great nations and nation states that once found themselves “on top of the world” and enjoyed great prosperity through conscious decision destroyed wealth and their positions in the world. I am a believer in the fact that basic beliefs lead to decisions, and decision then lead to consequences. If one’s basic beliefs are not sound, then bad decisions follow and in turn bad consequences and outcomes will result. I grew up under the guidance that solid values and hard work will result in prosperity. I was blessed to have been born in the USA—and to have lived under a government for the most part that adhered to basic principals set forth by our founders. Our leaders practiced what our founders had framed for us. Unfortunately, we have significantly drifted from these principals, and unless we can change our current course, we are destined to some pretty bad outcomes. I believe we have already strayed from what has made our country great, and the outcomes are pretty apparent by the stats I present below. So I ask the question, do you think we are headed in the right direction as a country? If the answer to this is no—then get involved—make your voices heard. It is only through the voices of the people that things will be set back on course.
1. Today, a staggering 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty
2. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the US are living in homes that are either considered to be “low income” or impoverished.
3. If the number of Americans that “wanted jobs” was the same today as it was back in 2007, the “official” unemployment rate put out by the US government would be up to 11 percent or higher.
4. The average amount of time that a worker stays unemployed in the US is now over 40 weeks.
5. A recent survey found that 77 percent of all US small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers and we all know that the engine that drives employment in the US is not large corporations it is small businesses.
6. There are fewer payroll jobs in the US today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.
7. Since December 2007, median household income in the US has declined by a total of 6.8% accounting for inflation.
8. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006. Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million
9. A recent Gallup poll found that approximately one out of every five Americans that do have a job consider themselves to be underemployed
10. According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all US adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.
11. Back in 1980, less than 30 percent of all jobs in the US were low income jobs. Today, more than 40 percent of all jobs in the US are low income jobs.
12. Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July of this year, only 81.2% of men in that age group had a job.
13. One recent survey found that one out of every three Americans would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.
14. The Federal Reserve recently announced that the total net worth of US households declined by 4.1 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2011 alone.
15. According to a recent study conducted by the BlackRock Investment institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the US is now 154 percent.
16. As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all US adults were married.
17. The US Postal service has lost more than 5 billion dollars over the past year
18. In Stockton, CA home prices have declined 64 percent from where they were in 2005-2006
19. Nevada has had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation for 59 months in a row
20. The median price of a home in Detroit is now $6,000
21. According to the US Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That figure is 63 percent larger than it was 10 years ago.
22. New home construction in the US is on pace to set a brand new all-time record low in 2011
23. 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 are now living with their parents.
24. Electricity bills in the US have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
25. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5 percent of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today, they account for approximately 16.3 percent.
26. A recent study found that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
27. One out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.
28. The US spends about 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the US.
29. Projections for the US trade deficit for 2011 will be $558.2 billion.
30. The retirement crisis in the US just continues to get worse. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46 percent of all Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.
31. Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below federal poverty line.
32. According to an analysis by the Census Bureau data done by the Pew Research Center, the median net worth for households led by someone 65 years of age or older is 47 times greater than the median net worth for households led by someone under the age of 55.
33. 37 percent of all US households that are led by someone under the age of 35 have a net worth of zero or less than zero.
34. A higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty (6.7 percent) than has ever been measured before.
35. Child homelessness in the US is now 33 percent higher than it was back in 2007
36. . Sadly, child poverty is absolutely exploding all over America. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4 percent of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty. 40.1 percent of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty. 52.6% of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty. 53.6 percent of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.
37. Today, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.
38. . In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7 percent of all income. Today, government transfer programs account for more than 18 percent of all income.
39. A staggering 48.5%of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits. Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.
40. Right now, spending by the federal government accounts for about 24 percent of GDP. Back in 2001, it accounted for just 18 percent.
41. For fiscal year 2011, the US federal government had a budget deficit of nearly 1.3 trillion dollars; that was the third year in a row that our budget deficit has topped a trillion dollars. Translated, we are spending over a trillion dollars more than we are taking in.
42. . If Bill Gates one of the wealthiest people in the world gave every single penny of his fortune to the US government, it would only cover the US budget deficit for about 15 days.
43. The US government has now accumulated a total debt of 15 trillion dollars. When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was 10.6 trillion dollars.
44. . If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the US national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.
45. . The US national debt has been increasing by an average of more than 4 billion dollars per day since the beginning of the Obama administration.
46. During the Obama administration, the US government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.
A trend that must be broken—
An article that appeared in the Bangor Daily News stated that in the state of Maine, “445,074 Mainers paid state income tax while 453,194 received some sort of state aid. In Maine, Medicaid, welfare, food stamps and subsidies for education have a combined enrollment of 660,000.”
Nationally, only 53% of all Americans living in households pay income taxes. Translated—47% or nearly half of all Americans don’t pay any federal income taxes.
We are continuing to depend on fewer and fewer wealth producers to pay for those who are on the take. This is re-distribution—this is socialism—which has proven to fail over and over again. This trend must be reversed—socialism works always for a while—until you run out of other people’s money!
We now have 92 million people on public assistance in one form or another. This includes 33 million children or 45% of all the people under the age of 18. Medicaid is the largest of all government programs and covers 74 million people—translated—one in four Americans. Food stamps now cover 34 million Americans or one in nine people! Almost 20 million people live on cash welfare and 11 million people live in public housing. Our federal policies do in fact incentivize people to depend on federal government programs and discourage job creation. Allowed to continue, this truly is a formula for disaster.
Understand our direction, and understand it is unsustainable. Have the guts to get involved and make your voices heard. Engage people, friends, acquaintances, young people, we are entering one of the most significant political elections in the history of our country. If we do not change the direction that our country is headed, it will be destroyed.
Why Do You Continue to Lie to the People Mr. President?
There is in Washington an ideological riff between the socialist/progressive party and the conservative party. The socialist/progressive party with their titular head, Mr. Obama believe that we have a tax problem—that is we must tax the rich to solve our debt problem. The conservatives clearly understand that we have only one problem in Washington—a spending problem.
I have collected some “facts” on what is happening with taxes in spite of Obama’s continual reminder that we must tax the rich folks not the middle class. My question is once again, he is either stupid or he is lying and I don’t believe he is stupid. He claims to be targeting the rich but in the example below, I certainly would not call this family “rich”.
If the President and Congress do not proactively work to keep the Bush tax breaks, we are going to have a significant tax jump for a very large part of our population come 2013.
The fact is, if nothing is done in terms of putting into place long term “permanent” set of tax laws, many average American families will get whacked. See the article by Bob Jennings on Fox Business: Why Your Tax Bill Might Surge Next Year
With our economy in such poor shape, why would anyone in their right minds want to put this additional burden on the American people? The above represents one of the biggest tax increases on our citizens in the history of our country.
Once again, millions of small business owners had better enjoy the next 16 months, because come January 2013, they are going to get whacked with a giant tax bill.
Oh, I forgot one other tax not mentioned above. See: The 2013 Tax Cliff in the Wall Street Journal.
Ladies and gentlemen, get out and vote these people out in November of 2012!
Are You Really Interested in Creating Jobs Mr. President? Part II by Mark Wohlschlegel
Obama once again talks about creating jobs but his actions simply don’t show it! Once again, he is either stupid or lying! He is not stupid. Just a week ago, the Obama administration announced it would delay the construction of the $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline that would bring in more than 700,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada to the Texas Gulf coast.
The transparency of what is behind this decision is so obvious. Obama has delayed this project solely for his political benefit ignoring what this project would mean in terms of jobs and national security resulting from moving away from the importation of oil from hostile sources. Specifically, Obama’s two large constituents, the labor unions and the environmentalists, are split on this issue. The tactic that Obama has used is to delay this decision until after the November 2012 elections, thereby not alienating either of these groups and not costing him votes! At stake are hundreds of thousands of jobs, and the generation of revenues for the states where the pipelines passes. These states include Montana, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Texas who have projected $5.2 billion in property tax revenue.
The environmentalists are behaving like this is the first pipeline to be built in the US. In fact, there is over 50,000 miles of oil pipeline in this country that have been operating for years without any mishaps. Even the Obama administration determined it to be safe with the completion of the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) found that the pipeline posed no danger to the environment.
The risk now is that by delaying this decision, Canada may chose to export the oil to markets other than the US like China. So what is at risk in delaying this decision driven by Obama’s decision are precious new jobs and new sources of oil supply away from hostile nations who wish to do harm to the US.
To make matters worse, just on the coattails of this decision, the Obama administration has delayed shale gas drilling in Ohio for up to six months by cancelling a mineral lease auction. The move was done to appease environmentalist on the pretext of studying the effects of hydraulic fracturing, a technique used to extract shale gas. The US conservatively with the fracking techniques has identified over 150 years of natural gas reserves within the contiguous United States. The delay is estimated to cost the US 200,000 jobs! Once again, national security is further jeopardized by this administration’s persistent intentions to not develop and explore our own God given energy supplies.
Federal Government’s Continued Medling in the Private Sector Will Make It Impossible For US Industry to Recover
The oppressiveness of our federal government continues to constrain any real recovery in our economy and until we can get them off the private sectors back, economic stagnation will continue in the US making us more and more non-competitive in both our own markets and overseas markets.
Take the example that I am pointing out in only a single industry and multiply the same kind of behavior across many industries including the power sector, the energy sector, and others. It is no wonder we can’t snap out of this recession that we find ourselves in today.
The airline industry in the US is a significant “driver” of our economic engine. Yet our federal government continues to use the industry and their investors as a piggy bank to fund their outrageous, undisciplined, and out of control spending. The airlines today and we the passengers currently pay 17 different federal aviation taxes and fees which totaled last year $16.5 billion. Federal taxes have increased from 7 percent of the price of a ticket in 1972 to 20 percent in 2011. By the way, this excludes income taxes paid by the airline companies! When is this going to end? Just imagine if you started a business and the federal government took 20% off the top before you saw any money coming into your business operations. Airlines are now taxed higher than the so-called “sin” taxes which are applied to alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.
The airline industry is a significant driving force to the US’s economic activity and employs millions of Americans. They also are involved in creating lots of jobs at hub cities and reaching out to small and medium-sized communities. Why do they deserve to be taxed as they are today? When will it stop?
Guess what, the federal government is not stopping here. Obama administration is now proposing under the American Jobs Act a new $100 per flight tax that would cost $11 billion over the next 10 years. The proposal also seeks increase the passenger security tax from today’s minimum of $2.50 per customer per flight segment to $7.50! This is outrageous—a 3x increase! This proposed increase would cost nearly $25 billion over 10 years. More than half of that would be not to improve security but instead applied to paying down our federal government’s debt. Why should the airline industry be singled out to pay for Washington’s irresponsible spending?
If these major tax increases get put into place, not only will we as consumers be saddled with them but airlines themselves being increasingly squeezed, will be forced to pull out of serving smaller communities. The airlines then will be forced to lay off more employees as it downsizes to eliminate routes and service that become unprofitable. It is a death spiral.
Our airlines also compete against foreign airline companies whose government in many cases have enlightened aviation policies.
Again, just multiply these oppressive government taxes and tariffs across many other industries and it does not take a rocket scientist to understanding how damaging the current federal government is to industry and job creation.
