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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Independence Day Requires Clean Energy -- Get to Work, Senate!

My friends Matt McGovern and Rick Hauffe from Repower South Dakota swung through Madison Monday to talk energy policy. We talked lots of details—last year's House bill, the Bingaman bill, the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham bill, the Lugar bill, and Krugman's Third Depression.

But here are the big things we need to understand as the Senate gears up to rock and roll on some sort of climate change and energy security legislation this summer.

The biggest: Passing a sensible energy policy now does not revolutionize the economy overnight... but it lays the groundwork for a long-term econoic revolution. Pass the strongest possible combination of the above proposals, and we'll still be burning coal and oil tomorrow and for years to come. But we start the long process of shifting our reliance to more domestic renewable sources, like the wind on our prairies, the geothermal heat beneath our feet, and the sun that shines on every American's roof. We start the process of using all energy sources more efficiently, so that every drop of oil and turn of the wind turbine pushes our cars and computers farther.

The sooner we get serious about basing our economy on clean domestic renewable energy, the less need there will be for us to go after the hard oil. The easy oil is gone: we're going to extremes like drilling 30,000 feet below the sea floor and squeezing oil from sand and shale. The price of extracting those fossil fuels will only go up; the price of processing the wind that keeps blowing and the sun that keeps shining will only go down. The sensible course is to start using those renewable sources now and engineer a smooth, long-term energy transition, while we still have some fossil-fuel wiggle room, rather than trying to manage a crash-course conversion to new energy sources when our fossil-fuel tank really is on E.

Some things can happen quickly. McGovern tells me that last summer's House bill targeted a 17% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020. He says just a couple years of recession has already gotten us halfway to that goal.

Of course, buying less, doing less, and leaving millions of Americans out of work aren't the most favorable options for energy conservation. Repower South Dakota would rather see us pass clean energy legislation now to unleash the industrial oomph that's just waiting for Washington to finally set the rules for the new energy economy and say Go! Pass legislation now, and the utilities will get busy with those transmission lines we need for the South Dakota wind industry. Utilities and big industry will start trading happily under a cap-and-trade system (just as they did, successfully, in the 1990s under the Clean Air Act). Energy projects would take off, bringing jobs and economic activity just when we need another big push to get the economy out of its rut.

Oh yeah: and strong clean energy legislation will cut pollution, save lives, and keep our kids from having to evolve gills and webbed feet.

Legislators will be home over the Fourth of July to help us blow things up in celebration of our independence. This patriotic holiday would be the perfect time to remind them we could boost American independence and blow fewer things up in the Gulf of Mexico and the Middle East if we pass serious climate change and energy security legislation.

14 comments:

  1. All the oil exploding out of the blown pipe shows how much oil there is in the Gulf.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Liberty, not central planners6/30/2010 8:33 AM

    Cory,

    Central planning of the economy is the anti-thesis to liberty and not what we should be advocating on Independence Day.

    You should be ashamed.

    Steve Sibson

    ReplyDelete
  3. Think, Sibby: the Clean Air Act worked. It was market-based. That beats EPA regs, doesn't it? Or would you rather let the world cling to an unsustainable economic model and Ahmadinejad oil just to validate your dying worldview?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yeah Steve! And while we're at it let's get rid of the government backed firefighters! We all know that anyone who can't put out their own burning house or property isn't bootstrappy enough to deserve to own property at all!

    I bet that you're soooo bootstrappy that if you ever have your house start on fire you'll turn the firefighters away when they get to your house! Damn government safety nets.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wake up call6/30/2010 12:35 PM

    Cory,

    I am done thinking:

    The Clean Air Act increased the cost of autos with regulations that made it more difficult, or impossible, for others to enter the automobile market. Today we have the auto industry taken over by government. That is not market-based. That is how government regulations destroy markets and create monopolies that end up being taken over by government...the road to serfdom.

    Steve Sibson

    ReplyDelete
  6. Destructing red herrings6/30/2010 12:39 PM

    Tony,

    Why do you confuse a government service that benefits all citizens to a government that forces all citizens to use the same product via monopolistic crony socialism?

    Steve Sibson

    ReplyDelete
  7. H'mmm ... Never heard the term "crony socialism" before.

    I wonder how it differs from "crony capitalism"? ...

    ... Or do we merely witness PeePee McPoo hanging out in one dark corner and PooPoo McPee in another?

    I reckon we'd do well to tell them both where they can leak and dump in November.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I see nothing wrong with working to move the economy away from a finite, polluting resource to cleaner, sustainable energy sources. That's not socialism or a plot against liberty; that's planning ahead to preserve America's liberty and independence. And Steve, your assertion that the Clean Air Act destroyed the auto industry is simply wrong. You are working far too hard to turn every statement into reinforcement for your worldview. Can we just be rational and agree that oil pollutes and will run out (even faster, thanks to BP wasting a bunch in the Gulf), and that it's a good idea to work up other energy technology so our grandchildren have more energy options?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Cory talks common sense, but most probably nothing real will happen until the market makes it happen, and by the market I mean $150 a barrel oil. Unfortunately by then we will have redistributed more of the wealth of the US to the likes of Hugo Chavez and similar characters.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Truth to Cory6/30/2010 10:52 PM

    Cory,

    The government owning car companies is socialism and is the anti-thesis to individual liberty. Again, this is some very simple concepts. If you don't want to buy gasoline, then stop buying it. Forcing your desires onto the rest of society through arbitrary executive power is tyranny (google EPA).

    Steve Sibson

    ReplyDelete
  11. Economic realities 1016/30/2010 10:56 PM

    Stan,

    When the government interferes with the economy and reduces competition, that is not capitalism. It is a move toward government controlled monopolies. And teh cronies who control teh government, thus control teh economy.

    Free market capitalism encourages competetion.

    Steve Sibson

    ReplyDelete
  12. "arbitrary executive power"—in his haste to compose more comment spam and compose more cutesy slogans for his name, Mr. Sibson misses the fact that I'm advocating passage of energy security legislation by the Legislative branch instead of regulation by the Executive branch via the EPA.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Liberty, not Tyranny7/05/2010 9:01 PM

    Cory,

    In case you have not studied American history, the separation of powers have been nearly destroyed. That is how Obamacare got passed, and that is how they plan to pass Cap and Tax. The author of the Declaration was very fond of the separation of powers. Legislation should be passed to stop the EPA, if you are truly against tyranny. Instead you are for legislation that enhances the executive's agenda. The wording of your headline is the "cutesy slogan" that misses the facts regarding the Declaration's legal philosophy.

    Steve Sibson

    ReplyDelete
  14. Sibson embarassingly misuses the wrod tyranny. Cap and trade is laughably far removed from real tyranny.

    ReplyDelete

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