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Posts tagged ‘Energy’

California’s Income-Based Electric Bills Show It Cares More About Control Than Climate

BY: CHUCK DEVORE | APRIL 20, 2023

solar panels generate energy in California — The electrical pricing scheme may work as income redistribution social policy, but it fails the test of reducing energy consumption.

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CHUCK DEVORE

What’s behind California’s shift to paying for electricity based on income? In a few words, it’s the consequence of California’s futile fight against climate change.

California’s quixotic pursuit to save the planet by reducing greenhouse emissions has had three broad and irrefutable consequences. It has made energy more expensive; costlier energy has accelerated the deindustrialization of the state; and, the best irony of all, the offshored manufacturing has increased greenhouse gas emissions by pushing production to dirty, coal-fired China, with goods then shipped back to California for consumption.

The latest twist in California’s arrogant tale of energy virtue signaling is playing out with a major restructuring in how Californians are charged for their electricity. For decades, consumers paid for electricity — as well as other utilities such as water and natural gas — with a tiered system that charged more for resources used above a baseline amount. For electricity, the baseline was determined by three things: the consumer’s use of electricity, the region, and the season.

This system meant consumers who used a lot of electricity would pay far more for each kilowatt hour of that additional electricity than they would for their baseline allocation.

This tended to hit lower-income consumers who ran their air conditioning too much, though the Golden State also has a separate program to reduce costs for low-income residents known as California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE).

But with California’s electric prices pushing from where they’ve traditionally been — about sixth-highest among the contiguous 48 states, behind New York and New England — to the second-highest in the nation after Hawaii last year, costs on the working poor were rising too much. To paraphrase a colorful politician, “The electric bill is too damn high.”

Thus, the California legislature last year passed Assembly Bill 205, which mandated an end to the tiered system of electric rates and instituted in its place a system where each would pay according to his ability to help those in need. (Of course, it sounds better in the original German, “Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen.”) The bill goes into effect no later than July 1, 2024, with the stated aim that “low-income ratepayers in each baseline territory would realize a lower average monthly bill without making any changes in usage.”

One unintended consequence of ditching the old baseline allocation scheme is all ratepayers, regardless of income, will now have far less incentive to conserve electricity, since each additional unit of electricity used will be priced the same, with overall prices reduced.

Higher Income Will Pay More

In preparation for the rollout of the new electric charges, California’s big, regulated utilities have proposed their new rate plans to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Depending on the provider, ratepayers would pay a fixed fee based on three household income tiers, plus charges for electricity use. Household income would be validated by a third party, likely the agency that collects the state income tax, the California Franchise Tax Board. The three proposed household income tiers and their fixed rates are: $28,000 to $69,000 — $20 to $34 a month, depending on the provider; $69,000 to $180,000 — $51 to $73 a month; and more than $180,000 — $85 to $128 a month.

Median household income in California in the years 2017-2021 was $84,097, meaning that an average California family could, under the proposed rate structure, pay a flat fee of $876 per year for their electricity while charges for kilowatt hours used would decline by 33-42 percent depending on the provider. The net effect would be an increase of about $90 a year for the average household and up to $750 more annually for higher-income households. Ironically, households living in homes with rooftop solar would see some of the highest increases in electrical costs under the new rate structure. Lower-income households are expected to see savings of up to $300 per year.

Increasing Fees Rather Than Taxes

One big advantage to California policymakers of heavily regulating public utilities is the ability to use these energy and water corporations as de facto arms of the welfare state.

California’s Constitution requires a two-thirds majority to increase taxes, but a simple majority to increase fees. The CPUC’s total control over California’s utilities means state lawmakers can direct the CPUC to change its rate structures to take more from those earning more and give to those earning less — all without a penny flowing into or out of the state treasury — something that’s particularly attractive today in a state that went from an almost $100 billion surplus last year to an expected $30 billion deficit this year.

And in that, the CPUC commissioners, appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, are willing accomplices in the class struggle for fair electricity bills and energy justice. Of the five commissioners, four are attorneys, with backgrounds in “environmental justice,” air quality, low-income assistance, and climate change — electricity generation, not so much. Though the CPUC’s mission is to ensure “that consumers have safe, reliable utility service at reasonable rates, protecting against fraud, and promoting the health of California’s economy,” it’s clear now that all that really matters is figuring out how to shield low-income voters from the costly consequences of California’s green energy crusade.

Moreover, while the electrical pricing scheme may work as income redistribution social policy, it fails the test of reducing energy consumption — laying bare the fact that California policymakers care more about control than they do the climate.

Chuck DeVore is chief national initiatives officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, vice chairman of the Golden State Policy Council, a former California legislator, and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. He’s the author of “The Crisis of the House Never United—A Novel of Early America.”

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Here’s How to Survive Biden’s State of The Union

BY: EDDIE SCARRY | FEBRUARY 07, 2023

Such a smash success has Joe Biden’s presidency been so far that even the Chinese are sending up balloons. That’s more or less what Biden will say, over and over, during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The economy is humming. Inflation is cooling. Electric vehicle sales are raging. There has never been a more orderly southern border.

It will all sound very scary to viewers who will rightly begin to question their own sanity. Or perhaps it will make you feel like everyone else is getting ahead while you’re inexplicably falling behind.

Don’t panic. When confronted with these anxieties, there are steps you can take to re-ground yourself in reality. For instance, when Biden says something confusing — something like, “Folks! Energy costs are down, folks!” — remember to yourself that this is a lie. As of Monday, national gas prices averaged higher per gallon than a year before. It’s more than a dollar per gallon higher than it was in January 2021, the month Biden was inaugurated.

Biden will likely also mention “steps” he has taken to control the unabated flow of hundreds of thousands of destitute migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. In that stupefying moment, take a deep breath and refer to this chart maintained by Biden’s own administration, showing that December had the highest number of illegal aliens encountered by border agents — ever. That month, there were more than 250,000 migrants who unlawfully crossed into the U.S. The month before, almost 235,000. That’s nearly half a million migrants throwing themselves into the care of the American taxpayer in just two months’ time. They openly say they’re here because of Biden.

Democrat congressmen will leap to their feet and clap with ferocity when Biden says inflation is down. (Or even that higher prices are actually a great thing!) He might even say costs increased less than 6 percent from this time last year. If you feel a spinning sensation, close your eyes, count to 10, then look at this data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The less-than-6 stat is if you exclude food and energy prices.

In other words, if you don’t account for the things you depend on to survive, inflation really isn’t that bad! By itself, food cost is actually up more than 10 percent. It’s probably close to 12 — and maybe much more. Energy is up more than 7 percent. Mind you, this has been a year of rising costs, where each month it’s been more expensive to simply live than it was the same time a year before.

Biden’s vertigo-inducing speech will surely go on for what feels like an eternity, earning applause for assertions that are the exact opposite of reality. But remember, this too shall pass.

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

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EDDIE SCARRY

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Energy Inflation Isn’t An Accident, It’s A Planned Demolition

BY: RUPERT DARWALL | OCTOBER 10, 2022

RUPERT DARWALL

The West is experiencing its third energy crisis. The first, in 1973, was caused by the near-quintupling of the price of crude oil by Gulf oil producers in response to America’s support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war. Their action brought an end to what the French call the trente glorieuses — the unprecedented post–World War II economic expansion.

The second occurred at the end of the 1970s, when Iran’s Islamic revolution led to a more than doubling of oil prices. This again inflicted great economic hardship, but the policy response was far better. Inflation was purged at the cost of deep recession. Energy markets were permitted to function. High oil prices induced substitution effects, particularly in the power sector, and stimulated increased supply.

In the space of nine months, the oil price cratered from $30 a barrel in November 1985 to $10 a barrel in July 1986. It’s no wonder that the economic expansion that started under Ronald Reagan had such long legs.

This time is different. The third energy crisis was not sparked by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies or by Iranian ayatollahs. It was self-inflicted, a foreseeable outcome of policy choices made by the West: Germany’s disastrous Energiewende that empowered Vladimir Putin to launch an energy war against Europe; Britain’s self-regarding and self-destructive policy of “powering past coal” and its decision to ban fracking; and, as Joseph Toomey shows in a recent powerful essay, President Biden’s war on the American oil and gas industry.

Hostilities were declared during Joe Biden’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. “I guarantee you. We’re going to end fossil fuel,” candidate Biden told a climate activist in September 2019, words that the White House surely hopes get lost down a memory hole. Toomey’s paper has all the receipts, so there’s no danger of that.

As he observes, Biden’s position in 2022 resembles Barack Obama’s in 2012, when rising gas prices threatened to sink his reelection. Obama responded with a ruthlessness that his erstwhile running mate lacks. He simply stopped talking about climate and switched to an all-of-the-above energy policy, shamelessly claiming credit for the fracking revolution that his own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tried to strangle at birth.

Passage of the comically mistitled Inflation Reduction Act places this option beyond Biden’s reach, even if he were so inclined. Democrats are hardly going to take a vow of climate omertà when they’ve achieved a political triumph of pushing through Congress what they regard as the most significant climate legislation to date.

Although the price of oil has slipped back from recent highs, the factors behind high gasoline prices remain in place. Foremost among these is the steep decline in U.S. oil refinery capacity triggered when Covid lockdowns crushed demand but continued after the economy reopened. There has never been such a large fall in operable refinery capacity. Moreover, Gulf Coast refineries were operating at 97 percent of their operating capacity in June 2022. As Toomey remarks, “There isn’t any more blood to be squeezed out of this turnip.”

Toomey identifies five factors driving this decline in refinery capacity. EPA biofuel blending mandates impose crippling costs on smaller refineries. When conventional refineries are converted to processing biofuels, up to 90 percent of their capacity is lost.

Biofuel mandates cost consumers far more than federal excise taxes. Toomey demonstrates that the Biden administration’s claim that biofuel mandates protect consumers from oil-price volatility is totally false; biofuel prices, he writes, “are essentially indexed to the price of crude oil.”

Biden could order the reversal of the EPA’s retroactive biofuel threshold rules. That he has not done so demonstrates that the administration isn’t serious about making energy affordable again. High prices for fossil fuel energy are an intended part of the plan.

Corporate and Wall Street ESG policies are another factor driving refinery closures, especially of facilities owned by European oil companies to meet punishing decarbonization targets that will effectively end up sunsetting them as oil companies. If finalized as proposed, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed climate disclosure rules, with the strong support of the Biden administration, will heighten the vulnerability of U.S. oil and gas companies to climate activists and woke investors to force them to progressively divest their carbon-intensive activities, such as refining crude oil, and eventually out of the oil and gas sector altogether.

To these should be added aggressive federal policies aimed at phasing out gasoline-powered vehicles in favor of electric vehicles (EVs); an administration staffed from top to bottom by militants who believe that climate is the only thing that matters in politics; and an increasingly hostile political climate (“You know the deal,” Biden said of oil executives when campaigning for the presidency. “When they don’t deliver, put them in jail”).

These policies, argues Toomey, will see China become the world’s leading oil refiner for years to come. Will Biden find himself asking China for supplies of refined gasoline? He might well find himself being saved from such an unfortunate position, made more so by Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent trip to Taiwan, by help from the other side of the southern border.

Mexico is constructing a $12 billion refinery, due to start producing gasoline next year. Perhaps President Biden’s next foreign trip should be to Mexico City.

This article is republished from RealClearEnergy, with permission.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Silent Voter

A.F. BRANCO | on September 21, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-silent-voter/

Inflation weary disgruntled Democrats may turn out to be silent voters for Republicans in this 2022 election.

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Germany’s Green Energy Follies Are A Warning To The United States

BY: HELEN RALEIGH | SEPTEMBER 14, 2022

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HELEN RALEIGH

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Germany is reportedly working on reducing the nation’s economic dependency on Communist China due to concerns about “human rights abuses and the risks of being beholden to an increasingly assertive authoritarian state,” Reuters reports. Berlin finally learned one lesson from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: it’s dangerous to economically rely on authoritarian regimes.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policies — building an economy based on Russia’s energy supply and China’s market demand — were primarily responsible for German’s economic predicament today. Zealous in fighting climate change, Merkel shut down coal mines and retired the majority of nuclear power plants in Germany while relying on Russia for energy and raw materials, despite repeated warnings from the Trump administration. By 2020, Russia supplied more than half of Germany’s natural gas and about a third of all the oil that Germans burned to heat homes, power factories, and fuel vehicles.

While paying Russia billions of euros for energy supply (the money no doubt helped finance Putin’s war chest), Merkel neglected to invest in German’s armed forces, even after Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. She outsourced Germans’ and, to a larger extent, Europe’s security to the United States and simply hoped for the best. When Merkel retired in 2021, after being in office for 16 years, German’s military was left “in a weak position and require years of renewal to become a credible deterrent to Russian aggression,” according to The American Institute for Contemporary German Studies.

Strengthened China Ties

Besides empowering and enriching Russia, Merkel was keen on strengthening Germany’s economic ties with China while in office. No other leaders from Western democracies had visited China more often than Merkel (she had 11 state visits to China).

To promote Germany’s export-oriented economy, Merkel was indifferent to China’s aggression in the South China Sea, its geopolitical expansion through the “Belt and Road” infrastructure project, and its increasingly assertive foreign policies. In addition, she avoided criticizing China’s mishandling of Covid-19 in the early days of 2020 and turned a blind eye to many human rights abuses in China, especially the genocide of Uyghur Muslims and suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

Under Merkel, China became Germany’s largest trading partner in 2016. German’s auto industry especially relies on China — about 50 percent of German car maker Volkswagen’s profit comes from China. Merkel’s China policy has made Germany’s economy vulnerable and helped speed up the Chinese military’s modernization.

Beijing reportedly focused on investments in Germany to obtain critical technologies, especially those with dual-use, meaning both civilian and military applications. For example, engines made by German companies have powered several types of Chinese navy warships, Deutsche Welle found.

Although Merkel retired in 2021, the effects of her economic policies continued. According to a German Economic Institute (IW) study, Germany’s economic dependency on China has continued to grow in 2022. “China’s share of German imports rose to 12.4 percent in the first half of 2022, compared with only 3.4 percent in 2000. German imports of Chinese goods… have surged by 45.7 percent year-on-year in the comparable period of the first six months. Germany’s trade deficit with the country had leapt to almost EUR 41 bn by mid-2022.”

A Wake-Up Call

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Germany joined other EU nations in imposing punitive economic sanctions on Russia. Putin retaliated by weaponizing his energy supply to Europe, sending energy prices soaring and dealing a blow to the German economy.

Inflation in Germany has reached a 40-year high. Suppose Putin shut off the natural gas supply to Europe, as he threatened. In that case, many predict an energy-induced recession in Europe is inevitable, and Germany could lose close to $240 billion in economic output over the next two years.

The grim economic outlook, and the fact that Beijing refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and helped Russia evade the West’s economic sanctions by purchasing Russian energy and agriculture products, have become a wake-up call for Germany. Additionally, Beijing’s “zero-Covid” policy that has kept dozens of cities and millions of Chinese people in lockdown means German businesses have had limited access to the Chinese market, and the trend will continue in the foreseeable future.

The German Economic Institute called for the government to change its economic policy, “specifically a reduction in incentives for doing business with China and a shift towards more trade with other emerging markets.” It also warned German businesses to “curb their dependency on China.” Otherwise, companies may expose themselves to bankruptcy due to Western sanctions imposed on China in the event of the People’s Liberation Army’s invading Taiwan.

Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing also warned, “When it comes to dependencies, we also have to face the awkward question of how to deal with China.” He appealed to the German government to decouple economically from China and acknowledged such a move would “require a change no less fundamental than decoupling from Russian energy.”

Germany Stepping Back

These calls for action have reached their desired audience. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock acknowledged Germany couldn’t afford to “just behave following the motto ‘business first,’ without taking into account the long-term risks and dependencies.”

Reuters reports that Germany’s economic ministry is considering several actions to cut Germany’s reliance on China, including reducing or scrapping investment and export guarantees for China and no longer promoting trade fairs and manager training there. It is also contemplating screening not just Chinese investments in Germany but also German investments in China. It also might submit a complaint to the World Trade Organization about unfair Chinese trade practices, together with the Group of Seven, an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

While Germany is waking up to the risks of economic dependency on authoritarian regimes, the Biden administration has deepened our nation’s economic reliance on China with a green revolution that centers around replacing fossil fuels with solar and wind, and gas-powered cars with electric vehicles (EVs). China dominates the global supply chain of raw materials and parts for EV batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines. The nation has been able to keep the manufacturing cost low by burning coal and employing forced labor from Uyghur and other ethnic minorities.

Even Politico has had to admit the dirty truth: “The U.S path to clean energy goes straight through China.” Germany’s economic woes should serve as a timely warning to the Biden administration that relying on an authoritarian regime is both dangerous and foolish.

Helen Raleigh, CFA, is an American entrepreneur, writer, and speaker. She’s a senior contributor at The Federalist. Her writings appear in other national media, including The Wall Street Journal and Fox News. Helen is the author of several books, including “Confucius Never Said” and “Backlash: How Communist China’s Aggression Has Backfired.” Follow her on Parler and Twitter: @HRaleighspeaks.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Gold Hard Reality

A.F. BRANCO | on September 1, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-gold-hard-reality/

The radical left-wing Greenies are determined to take Europe and the world back to the Stone Age.

Europe in the Stone Ages — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022**

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Proof is in the Pudding

A.F. BRANCO | on July 9, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-proof-is-in-the-pudding/

The results are in, and Biden and the Democrat policy disasters aren’t smelling too good these days.

Biden Policy Results — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022.**

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Putin’s Useful Idiots: How U.S. Climate Extremists Are Funding Russia’s Agenda

REPORTED BY: VICTORIA COATES AND JENNIFER STEFANO | MAY 19, 2022

The desolation of U.S. energy security has bolstered Vladimir Putin’s dangerous geopolitical aims.

VICTORIA COATES AND JENNIFER STEFANO

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is illuminating an ugly truth: the anti-fracking war on America’s energy security is being waged by well-funded, radical U.S. environmental groups, as well as interests tied directly to Vladimir Putin. For years, the U.S. government has investigated Russian financial ties to environmental groups that push for ending U.S. fossil fuel production and have successfully shut down fracking sites and pipelines, to the detriment of U.S. workers and consumers. Who benefits? Putin, because the desolation of U.S. energy security has bolstered state-owned Gazprom and his dangerous geopolitical aims.

Before the war on Ukraine, the U.S. Congress began exposing connections between Russia and little-known foundations that donate to major environmental groups such as Sierra Club and National Resource Defense Council (NRDC). The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works released a 2014 report noting a small group of rich Americans was controlling environmental groups and collaborating with questionable offshore funders to maximize support. In 2017, two congressmen called for further investigation of the connection between these funders and Russia. These suspicious donations to radical environmental groups could be part of the larger geopolitical strategy Putin used to execute greater control over Europe before his invasion of Ukraine. For instance, if the United States had ramped up natural gas production, Putin could not today be blackmailing Poland and Bulgaria by cutting off their energy supply. Had America allowed more investment in fracking and other energy production, Putin would not have strategic leverage over Europe.

Most Americans know Putin does not want to see the United States succeed. What they may not know is these anti-energy groups acting under the guise of “environmental justice” are funded by a handful of wealthy Americans who are either blindingly naïve to the role they have played in supporting Putin’s agenda or willfully complicit.

There is no more notorious example than the Heinz Endowment, led by Teresa Heinz, wife of U.S. climate envoy John Kerry. Under her watch, the endowment has deployed at least $13 million toward anti-shale activism since 2008, killing jobs and prosperity in their own Pennsylvania backyard and unnecessarily forcing America to give up market share to tyrants like Putin. The Heinz fortune funds dozens of Pennsylvania groups engaged in killing pipelines and natural gas production. One of their beneficiaries, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, is successfully fighting to keep a ban on natural gas production in the Delaware River Basin that is preventing access to vast new reserves. In fact, Pennsylvania, where the Heinz family made their fortune and is still based, is bearing the brunt of this campaign. The latest example is the Keystone State’s addition to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Sierra Club and NRDC lobbied in favor of expanding the interstate compact to tax carbon emissions to include Pennsylvania, even though scientists at Penn State found 86 percent of carbon emissions will simply move to nearby states.

Killing pipelines, banning fracking, and implementing RGGI mean more energy will be produced in other countries with more emissions. Russian gas emits 40 percent more emissions over its lifecycle than U.S. natural gas; meanwhile, U.S. LNG is improving air quality in China. At the same time, Pennsylvanians could lose 22,000 jobs and consumers will face a 30 percent increase in their electricity bills.

We’re already seeing the unfortunate effects of these harmful policies elsewhere throughout the U.S. Under pressure from these same environmental groups, President Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline, eliminating the projected 60,000 indirect jobs, 11,000 direct jobs, and $800 million in wages, that would have resulted from this important project.

As Putin now leverages his energy dominance as a tool of coercion and his geopolitical strategy is brutally playing out for all the world to see, Heinz and other radical environmental groups can no longer claim they are innocent arbiters of environmental justice when their actions have, intentionally or not, aided and abetted him.

Isn’t it time for these Americans to focus on policies that protect the earth, advance American energy security, and counter America’s enemies?

Victoria Coates, a distinguished fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, served as senior policy adviser to the secretary of energy in the Trump administration. Jennifer Stefano is executive vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation and an Independent Women’s Forum visiting fellow.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Mission Accomplished

A.F. BRANCO | on March 21, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-mission-accomplished/

Joe Bien, a one-man wrecking ball, and the Democrats have a new scapegoat besides Trump, Putin.

Biden, An American Disaster — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022**

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Word Masters of Disasters

A.F. BRANCO | on March 15, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-word-masters-of-disasters/

Biden is blaming everything but himself for the disaster and damage his policies are causing nationally and internationally.

Biden Spin Machine — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.**

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‘Aren’t We Financing the War?’: Fox News Reporter Confronts Jen Psaki on US Oil Policy

Reported by BRYAN BABB, CONTRIBUTOR | March 03, 2022

fox-news-jen-psaki-jacqui-heinrich-domestic-energy — **Screenshot/YouTube/Forbes Breaking News**

Fox News’s Jacqui Heinrich grilled White House press secretary Jen Psaki on the state of domestic energy production, leading to a terse exchange between the two at a press briefing on Thursday.

WATCH:

Heinrich asked Psaki if there was anything President Joe Biden’s administration was capable of doing that would get domestic oil providers “back to pre-pandemic levels.”

“Do you think the oil companies don’t have enough money to drill on the places that have been pre-approved?” Psaki responded.
“I’m just asking,” Heinrich replied.
“I would point that question to them, and we can talk about it more tomorrow when you learn more,” Psaki said.

Heinrich continued to press Psaki, bringing up the possibility of opening the Keystone XL Pipeline, as well as asking if the Biden administration could attempt more “energy-friendly policies.”

Psaki responded by saying that Keystone “has never been operational,” and that it would “take years for that to have any impact.” Psaki continued, stating that opening Keystone is a “proposed solution” that would have “no impact.”
“During those years it would take to bring down prices as you’re saying,” Heinrich said, “Do you think we should just continued to buy Russian oil?” (RELATED: Nancy Pelosi Echoes Republicans’ Calls For Russian Oil Import Ban)
Psaki replied, stating that Heinrich was “familiar with a number of steps we have taken,” including a “historic release from the strategic petroleum reserve.” When Heinrich attempted to interject, Psaki told her to “let me finish.”
Psaki continued, saying the U.S. and Europe should, over time, focus on reducing its “reliance on oil” and invest in “clean energy.”
“As long as we’re buying Russian oil, aren’t we financing the war?” Heinrich asked.
Psaki said that the oil from Russia was “only about 10% of what we’re importing,” and that any move the Biden administration makes is designed to have the maximum impact on Russian President Vladimir Putin and minimum impact on Americans.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Glory to The Heroes

A.F. BRANCO | on March 4, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-glory-to-the-heroes/

The Goliath (Russia) may win against Ukraine (David) in the end but not without a fight and not nearly as soon as they hoped.

Ukrainian Tough — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022.**

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – One Big-Gas Mistake

A.F. BRANCO | on March 3, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-one-big-gas-mistake/

Biden says he stands with Ukraine while paying Russia money for oil that funds the war against them.

Biden, One Big-Gas Mistake — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022**

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – New Green Steal

A.F. BRANCO on December 7, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-new-green-steal/

Biden and his policies are the Grinch who is stealing a Merry Christmas from millions of Americans.

Biden The Christmas Grinch — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.**

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Today’s THREE Politically INCORRECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Overwhelmed

A.F. BRANCO on November 17, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-overwhelmed/

Illegal immigrants along with MS-13, Drugs, crime, Human trafficking, and Covid pouring across the border have Biden building a wall around his house.

Biden Border Disaster — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.**

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Stranded

A.F. BRANCO on November 18, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-stranded-2/

Biden’s energy plan isn’t worth a crap, going from Trump’s energy independence to Biden begging OPEC for oil.

Biden Energy Plan — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.**

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Burning Man

A.F. BRANCO on November 19, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-burning-man-2/

Biden’s Spending bill will increase the already, Biden caused inflation substantially.

Biden Spending Bill — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.**

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Plugs

A.F. BRANCO on November 10, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-plugs/

As heating bills rise, Biden continues to close down pipelines, drilling, and fracking, while begging OPEC to drill more.

Biden Closing Oil Piplines — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.**

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Friendly Fire

A.F. BRANCO on November 9, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-friendly-fire/

AOC believes the democrat electoral disaster in Virginia is due to Dems being too moderate, ditto her feelings towards Biden.

AOC and Biden — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.**

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – New Teacher

A.F. BRANCO on October 17, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-new-teacher/

The Left wants to indoctrinate our kids with radical Ideas about sex and pornography.

03 Sex Ed Teach AN 1080 — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.**

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Stupid Policy Tricks

A.F. BRANCO on October 18, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-stupid-policy-tricks/

Biden and his administration’s policies are turning America into one big Dumpster fire.

03 Dumb ster LI 1080 — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.**

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Life In A Bubble

A.F. BRANCO on September 7, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-life-in-a-bubble/

It’s a shame when President Biden places a higher Priority on ice cream than the death and destruction of his policies.

Joe Biden Failing Mentaly — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.**

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AFL-CIO Union Turns on AOC as Blue Collar Workers Realize She’s Targeting Them

Reported By Ben Marquis | Published March 13, 2019 at 2:10pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/afl-cio-union-turns-aoc-blue-collar-workers-realize-targeting/

When Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez first introduced the costly socialist power grab known as the Green New Deal — with a matching resolution in the Senate by Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey — it was widely criticized and mocked as absurd and unconstitutional by the right.

Even some on the left expressed misgivings about the proposal to fundamentally transform the entirety of the United States’ energy sector, economy and much of society in general, ostensibly to combat climate change but in reality to centralize more power and control with the federal government.

Now the Democrats who support the measure put forward by Ocasio-Cortez are facing an incredible predicament as a major force for fundraising and voter support on the left — organized labor unions, especially the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO — have come out firmly against the Green New Deal.

That will force some Democrats to choose between placating their typically moderate liberal union worker voters or appeasing the increasingly rabid and radical far-left base of the party that demands significant action on environmental concerns.

Republican Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso tweeted out a copy of a letter sent from leaders of the AFL-CIO labor union conglomerate to Markey and Ocasio-Cortez,. It expressed how the labor unions simply couldn’t support the Green New Deal proposal that would “cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their families,” a message with which the Republican senator agreed.

The letter, dated March 8, began by noting that union workers weren’t consulted on the ideas put forward in the proposal, even as those workers stood most at risk of facing severe economic disruptions and potential job loss because of the proposed policies. The unions agreed that some action was required to address the eventual impact of man-made climate change, and even expressed support for investment in new technologies to produce clean and carbon-free energy. However, they seemed to balk at some of the proposals — such aiming to do away with the current national dependence on fossil fuels like oil and natural gas within 10 years — as being non-specific and threatening toward the survival of their jobs and various sectors of the industrial economy.

The AFL-CIO letter stated that the Green New Deal is “not rooted in an engineering-based approach and makes promises that are not achievable or realistic.”

“We will not accept proposals that could cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their families,” the letter proclaimed. “We will not stand by and allow threats to our members’ jobs and their families’ standard of living go unanswered.”

The letter closed by reiterating that something needed to be done, but suggested that discussions be held about “responsible” solutions that would not utterly destroy the energy and industrial sectors of the economy and the livelihoods of those who work in those and related areas.

The letter was signed by Cecil Roberts, international president of the United Mine Workers of America, and Lonnie Stephenson, international president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, as well as eight other major labor unions under the AFL-CIO banner.

The Washington Post reported that the criticisms in the letter seemed to echo comments made to the media just days prior by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka while he was on Capitol Hill to speak with lawmakers.

Trumka said, “Look, we need to address the environment. We need to do it quickly. But we need to do it in a way that doesn’t put these communities behind, and leave segments of the economy behind.

“So we’ll be working to make sure that we do two things: that by fixing one thing we don’t create a problem somewhere else,” he added.

Labor unions have long been relied upon by the Democratic Party for considerable support in elections, but that support has been wavering in recent years, given the increasingly leftward lurch of the party’s base and elected officials who stand fundamentally at odds with the more moderate and conservative-leaning rank-and-file workers who make up private-sector unions.

President Donald Trump siphoned off quite a few of those typically Democrat-voting union workers in the 2016 election.

If Democrats continue to press forward with their proposal to wreck the economy and energy/industrial sectors as we currently know them, that problematic trend for Democrats will likely continue and grow devastatingly larger in the 2020 election.

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Environmentalist Tells Tucker that Shifting Country’s Grid to Renewable Energy Isn’t Possible

Reported By Jason Hopkins | Published March 1, 2019 at 7:43am Modified March 1, 2019 at 11:43am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/environmentalist-tells-tucker-carlson-renewables-cant-save-planet/

Environmental activist Michael Shellenberger explained to Fox News host Tucker Carlson that it’s not possible to shift the country’s grid completely to renewable energy.

“I was one of the founders of – sort of – the first Green New Deal back in 2003, 2007,” Shellenberger, the founder of Environmental Progress, began. “People don’t remember President Obama – we spent about $150 billion on renewables between 2009 and 2015, and we just kept encountering the same kind of problems.”

Shellenberger laid out the two main problems that plague wind turbines and solar panels: unreliability and low energy density.

“They just depend on when the sun is shining and when the wind is blowing, which is 10 to 40 percent of the year,” he said, demonstrating how the intermittent energy production of wind and solar makes them unreliable sources of power. “Something people are not as aware of, the low energy density of sunlight and wind. Basically what we’ve been finding is that the lower the energy density of the fuel … the bigger the environmental impact.”

Because solar and wind produce such small amounts of energy, according to Shellenberger, they require a much larger amount of land to generate electricity.

Instead, the Environmental Progress founder touted the benefits of nuclear energy — a source of power that can generate large amounts of reliable energy while emitting zero carbon emissions. However, Shellenberger said the public has yet to fully embrace nuclear energy because they associate it with nuclear bombs, past nuclear accidents and a desire to use energy that harmonizes with the natural world.

“That turns out to be a bad idea because the more natural resources we use, the worse it is for the natural environment,” he said.

As environmental activists become more alarmed about the threat of climate change, many are reevaluating how they perceive nuclear. The U.S. nuclear industry currently supplies about 20 percent of the country’s total electricity, but it provides roughly 60 percent of its zero-carbon electricity. A growing number of climate change-oriented lawmakers are now passing subsidies and support programs to keep nuclear plants in operation.

Shellenberger went on to say it was “very disappointing” that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s widely publicized Green New Deal does not include provisions for nuclear energy. Ocasio-Cortez’s original FAQ document on the Green New Deal, in fact, called for a phase out of nuclear power. However, following the botched roll out of the Green New Deal, her team took the anti-nuclear language off their website.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

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Antarctic Sea Ice Extent Similar To What It Was 100 Years Ago

Authored by Michael Bastasch / 11/25/2016

URL of the original posting site: http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/25/antarctic-sea-ice-extent-similar-to-what-it-was-100-years-ago/

The MV Akademik Shokalskiy is pictured stranded in ice in Antarctica, December 29, 2013. An Antarctic blizzard has halted an Australian icebreaker’s bid to reach a Russian ship trapped for a week with 74 people onboard, rescuers said on Monday. The Aurora Australis had to return to open waters about 18 nautical miles from the stranded Akademik Shokalskiy because of poor visibility, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), which is co-ordinating the rescue, told Reuters. Picture taken December 29, 2013. REUTERS/Andrew Peacock ∧

Scientists were shocked by what they found while pouring over accounts by famous South Pole explorers from about a century ago — findings that could change the way experts think about Antarctica and global warming. Researchers found that Antarctic sea ice extent has barely changed since Ernest Shackleton’s botched expedition to map out the South Pole in 1917. Antarctic sea ice conditions in Shackleton’s day mirrored those of today, according to a new study using logs compiled by Shackleton, in addition to data from other noteworthy Antarctic forays during the early 20th Century.

Lead researcher Dr. Jonathan Day and his team were the first to calculate Antarctic sea ice conditions prior to the 1930s. Day estimates sea ice extent ranged from 3.3 and 4.3 million square miles and continued to grow into the 1950s.

Scientists have only really looked at Antarctic sea ice levels from the 1950s onward, which shows a relative decline in sea ice. But Day’s study shows current Antarctic sea ice “is just 14 per cent smaller than at the highest point of the 1900s and 12 per cent bigger than than the lowest point.”

Why is that significant? It means Antarctic sea ice has fluctuated throughout the 20th Century due to natural climatic shifts, and not man-made warming.

“We know that sea ice in the Antarctic has increased slightly over the past 30 years, since satellite observations began,” Day said, according to The Telegraph. “Scientists have been grappling to understand this trend in the context of global warming, but these new findings suggest it may not be anything new.”

“If ice levels were as low a century ago as estimated in this research, then a similar increase may have occurred between then and the middle of the century, when previous studies suggest ice levels were far higher,” he added.

It’s more evidence Antarctic sea ice is less influenced by man-made warming than Arctic sea ice.

Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk more than 7 percent per decade since 1979 while Antarctic sea ice has actually grown about one percent per decade — despite what most climate models predicted.

A 2015 NASA study found Antarctica’s ice sheet increased in mass from 1992 to 2008. The study found ice gains in Eastern Antarctica more than offset ice loss from melting glaciers in the west.

Day’s study comes just after the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) found the collapse of a major South Pole was sparked by an El Nino during the 1940s, not man-made climate change.

The Pine Island Glacier began melting about 30 years before the modern warming trend of global average temperature that began in the late 1970s.

“A significant implication of our findings is that once an ice sheet retreat is set in motion it can continue for decades, even if what started gets no worse,” NASA’s Bob Bindschadler, a co-author of the report, said in a statement.

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Scientist Predicts ‘Little Ice Age,’ Gets Icy Reception From Colleagues

Authored by Michael Bastasch 08/09/2016

URL of the original posting site: http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/09/scientist-predicts-little-ice-age-gets-icey-reception-from-colleagues/

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory image in extreme ultraviolet light shows an active region of the sun’s coronal loops taken over about a two-day period, from February 8 – 10, 2014 and released on February 18, 2014. Coronal loops are found around sunspots and in active regions. These structures are associated with the closed magnetic field lines that connect magnetic regions on the solar surface. Many coronal loops last for days or weeks, but most change quite rapidly. REUTERS/Solar Dynamics Observatory/NASA/Handout via Reuters ∧

Professor Valentina Zharkova at Northumbria University is being attacked by climate change proponents for publishing research suggesting there could be a 35-year period of low solar activity that could usher in an “ice age.”

Zharkova and her team of researchers released a study on sunspot modeling, finding that solar activity could fall to levels not seen since the so-called “Little Ice Age” of the 1600s. Zharkova’s conclusions may have huge implications for global temperature modeling, but her analysis is not accepted by some climate scientists.

“Some of them were welcoming and discussing. But some of them were quite — I would say — pushy,” she told The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) in an interview on her solar study.

In fact, Zharkova said some scientists even tried to have her research suppressed.

“They were trying to actually silence us,” she said. “Some of them contacted the Royal Astronomical Society, demanding, behind our back, that they withdraw our press release.”

Zharkova found that solar activity is driven by two magnetic waves from within the sun that can either dampen or amplify solar activity. Solar activity is believed to play a role in warming and cooling average global temperature. Zharkova’s team incorporated solar data into predictive models and found that the sun is heading into a period of low solar activity similar to the Maunder Minimum of the late 1600s. During this time, scientists believe low solar activity contributed to cooler average global temperature.

“Whatever we do to the planet, if everything is done only by the sun, then the temperature should drop similar like it was in the Maunder Minimum,” she said. “At least in the Northern hemisphere, where this temperature is well protocoled and written. We didn’t have many measurements in the Southern hemisphere, we don’t know what will happen with that, but in the Northern hemisphere, we know it’s very well protocoled.”

“The rivers are frozen,” she added. “There are winters and no summers, and so on.”

The so-called “Little Ice Age” is a controversial topic among scientists. Some argue low solar activity contributed to cooler temperatures over Europe and North America, but others argue volcanic activity drove temperatures lower since the trend began before solar activity fell. Climate scientists were quick to ask the U.K.’s Royal Astronomical Society to suppress Zharkova’s findings.

“The Royal Astronomical Society replied to them and CCed to us and said, ‘Look, this is the work by the scientists who we support, please discuss this with them,’” Zharkova told the GWPF.

“We had about 8 or 10 exchanges by email, when I tried to prove my point, and I’m saying, I’m willing to look at what you do, I’m willing to see how our results we produced and what the sun has explained to us,” she said. “So how this is transformed into climate we do not produce; we can only assume it should be. So we’re happy to work with you, and add to your data our results.

“So don’t take the sunspots which you get, we can give you our curve. Work with our curve. So they didn’t want to,” she said.

Zharkova isn’t the first to suggest a period of low solar activity is on the way that could cause a cooling trend. Solar activity was reportedly at a 200-year low in February.

A July 2015 study by Jorge Sanchez-Sesma at the Mexican Institute of Water Technology found the oscillations in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth could have a much bigger cooling impact on the climate than previous estimates by climate scientists.

Sanchez-Sesma examined solar cycle data going back 100,000 years and compared them to about 25,000 years of surface air temperature data in the Congo River Basin and found that “information from reconstructions and models indicates a potential continental tropical temperature cooling of around 0.5oC for the rest of the 21st century.”

Shrinivas Aundhkar, director of India’s Mahatma Gandhi Mission at the Centre for Astronomy and Space Technology, said in 2015 that declining solar activity could mean a “mini ice age-like situation” is on the way.

In 2013, Professor Cliff Olliert the University of Western Australia posited low solar activity could bring cool the planet.

“There is a very good correlation of sunspots and climate,” Ollier wrote. “Solar cycles provide a basis for prediction.”

“Solar Cycle 24 has started and we can expect serious cooling. Many think that political decisions about climate are based on scientific predictions but what politicians get are projections based on computer models,” he wrote.

Russian scientists argued in 2012 the world could expect the start of the another Little Ice Age starting in 2014.

“After the maximum of solar cycle 24, from approximately 2014 we can expect the start of deep cooling with a Little Ice Age in 2055,” wrote Habibullo Abdussamatov of the Russian Academy of Science.

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The Pipeline We Know Little About

July 29, 2016, By the Common Constitutionalist

URL of the original posting site: http://commonconstitutionalist.com/current-events/the-pipeline-we-know-little-about/

Remember the Keystone XL Pipeline project? Remember what a cause célèbre it was for both the left and right? What the heck ever happened to it? Have you wondered that?

Well, in short it was killed pretty much for good, or at least the foreseeable future – both here in the USSA and now in Canada. As you are no doubt aware, it was Obama who, with the left in the federal and various state legislatures – and with some help from Choo-choo Warren Buffet who owns most of the rail cars now hauling crude down south, vetoed the pipeline. And don’t forget all the gobs of leftist activist money thrown at killing the project.

You may also recall that Canada threatened to build their own pipeline to their west coast and ship the oil to Asia if the U.S. did not acquiesce. That was when the “conservatives” ran Canada. But with the election of lefty socialist (like there’s another kind) Justin Trudeau in Canada, the entire XL project, above and below the border, was pronounced dead.

And that was the end of any talk of long distance oil pipelines. Or is it?

There is another long distance oil pipeline which will span 1,172 miles – from North Dakota’s famous Bakken and Three Forks oil production zones all the way to Pakota, Illinois. The 30 inch pipeline will be capable of transporting an average of 450,000 barrels of crude per day, but have a capacity of 570,000 barrels – possibly more. With this pipeline, the oil will be available to the Midwest, East Coast and Gulf Coast.

This is way it is supposed work – domestically produced crude, shipped throughout the United States for domestic consumption. No foreign entanglements whatsoever – not even friendly.

I know – you’re waiting for a shoe to drop – right? Well, so far there have been no shoes. On July 27, just two ago the Indian Country Media Network reported that “Despite the strong opposition of several tribes, the Army Corps of Engineers has approved nearly all permits to build the Dakota Access Pipeline project. Construction has already begun in all four states along its pipeline-full-map path.”

May I digress for just a moment? Why is it that we whiteys must call American Indians “Indigenous Peoples,” but their own media outlet can be the “Indian Country network?” I guess it’s the same reason blacks can call each other the “n” word, but we would be jailed for it. Oh well.

This time, the Injuns seem to be the only ones making a fuss (not quite) – claiming that a pipeline break could contaminate entire water supplies, destroy land and create public health hazards for reservations – but a train derailment, which are a lot more common, would never.

The only other organization to raise hell over it is of course Think Progress – the ultra-ultra left advocacy organization. If it has anything to do with actual progress, you can bet they will be firmly against it.

Their big beef, other than a pipeline which transports dirty oil and not rainbows and Unicorn farts, is that the feds are virtually shut out of the process. Other than the Army Corps of Engineers permitting process, the pipeline runs almost entirely through State and private land, so there is not much Obama can do – which is probably why we haven’t heard much about it.

Also there is the presidential election, coupled with almost daily terrorist updates worldwide – and the Olympics. These “hot” topics are sucking virtually all the oxygen out of other news.

Then there is the investment being made – all the equipment, pipes, machinery, etc. All cost loads of money, which means an uptick in those manufacturing sectors – none of which the left can tout because of the source. And of course there are all the jobs, which again cannot be discussed by the left.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a $3.7 billion investment and will create (actually has already begun) anywhere from 8,000 to 12,000 jobs for area residents – maybe more. All trades are needed – from welders to mechanics, electricians, pipefitters, heavy equipment operators and others within the heavy construction industry. Then is the boon to the hospitality industries such as hotels, motels, restaurants, etc. along the route – none of which the press will report on.

Finally there is the increased tax revenue for the four states involved – North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. The pipeline will generate an estimated $50 million annually in property taxes and nearly $74 million in sales taxes to these states.

So hooray for real progress and the relatively quiet production of a much needed domestic pipeline. It’s about time I get a chance to report some good news.

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Progressive Outlet Accidentally Proves Blue States Have 42 Percent More Mass Shootings

Written by Andrew Follett, Energy and Environmental Reporter, 06/20/2016

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Blue states have 42 percent more mass shootings than red states after adjusting for population, according to data published by Vox, a progressive media outlet, and examined by The Daily Caller News Foundation. Vox published its data after the Orlando terror attack last Sunday, and it suggests that blue states, which tend to have extremely strict gun laws, are ironically much more likely to have mass shootings than red states with less strict gun laws.

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TheDCNF’s analysis found that 543 of the mass shootings listed by Vox occurred in blue states while only 330 occurred in red states. If adjusted to account for differences in the size of population, blue states have .381 mass shootings per 100,000 people, while red states have a mere .267.Places where Democrats controlled the state legislature were even more likely to have mass shootings than the average blue state. This means that a mass shooting, as defined by Vox, is 42 percent more likely to occur in a blue state after accounting for population differences.

The deep blue areas of Washington, D.C. and Maryland led the nation with 2.38 and .998 mass shootings per 100,000 people. Illinois, Delaware, Michigan Rhode Island, and California were relatively close behind and had more mass shootings than the blue state average, according to Vox’s data.

Gun laws are generally drafted by state legislatures — Democrats control both branches of the state legislature in Maryland, Illinois, Delaware, Rhode Island, and California. Washington, D.C., which had the worst per capita mass shootings, does not have a state legislature, but every member of the current city council is a Democrat and the city has never elected a Republican mayor. This correlation between mass shootings and Democratic control of state legislature is especially striking as Democrats are currently in full control of just 11 state legislatures while the GOP is in full control of 30 state legislatures.

The typical liberal explanation for this is that mass shooters go to red states to buy guns, which they use in blue states. Even progressive Politifact finds these claims “misleading for a varied number of reasons.” This also ignores the fact that there are already roughly 360 million firearms in America, or more guns than people.

Republicans currently control the state legislature and the governor’s office of Michigan, but the state has consistently voted for Democrats in the last six presidential elections. During the last six years, the GOP has won governorships in purple and even deep blue states: Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, New Mexico.

Of the top ten states by mass shootings per capita, TheDCNF’s analysis found that six of them were deep blue states. Several red states such as Idaho, North Dakota, and Wyoming did not have a single mass shooting.

TheDCNF concluded that a state was blue or red based on how it voted in each of the last four presidential elections. This methodology only factored in America’s 22 red states and 18 blue states. This means that if everything else was even, statistically, red states should be over-represented as there are more of them. This methodology excluded large swings states like Ohio and Florida and states, which leaned red or blue.

TheDCNF previously found that of the 998 “mass shootings” noted by Vox only 86, or roughly eight percent, meet the threshold of a “mass murder,” as defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and academics. Vox’s data claimed America had 11.6 times more mass shootings than actually occurred. This lack of “mass murder” didn’t stop Vox founder Ezra Klein from tweeting out an updated map of 998 “mass shootings,” which was retweeted almost 25,000 times and favorited more than 22,000 times.

Vox’s definition of a “mass shooting” isn’t an official one taken from law enforcement or academia, but appears to be originally created by anti-gun activists from the website Reddit. Vox defined a mass shooting as any shooting where four or more people are injured or killed, not counting the shooter. Criminologists and law enforcement, however define it as four or more people killed, not counting the shooter.

Daily Caller interns Dan Chaison, Josh Hamburger, Ford Springer and Jacqueline Thomas contributed to the analysis of Vox’s data that went into this report.

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The Supreme Court Just Delivered A Crippling Blow To Obama’s Global Warming Agenda

Reported by Michael Bastasch; 02/09/2016

URL of the original posting site: http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/09/the-supreme-court-just-delivered-a-crippling-blow-to-obamas-global-warming-agenda/#ixzz3znzusaLZ

The U.S. Supreme Court just delivered a major blow to President Barack Obama’s global warming agenda by halting the implementation of a key Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation on carbon dioxide emissions. The court won’t allow the EPA to implement its so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP), which aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants 32 percent by 2030. This is a big win for the 29 states suing the federal government to stop a rule expected to cripple the coal industry.

“Five justices of the Supreme Court agreed with North Dakota and other parties that EPA’s regulation would impose massive irreparable harms on North Dakota and the rest of the country and that there was a substantial likelihood EPA was acting unlawfully,” Paul Seby, an attorney with law firm Greenberg Traurig representing the state of North Dakota, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

States asked the Supreme Court to halt implementation of the CPP after a lower court rejected their appeal in January. Now, Morrisey and the Obama administration will make their oral arguments on the merits of the law in front of federal judges in June.

“Make no mistake – this is a great victory for West Virginia,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who’s leading the states against the EPA, in a statement on the announcement.

Morrisey argues the CPP amounts to “double regulating” by the EPA, since coal-fired power plants — the main target of the rule — are already being regulated under another provision of the Clean Air Act. States also argue the CPP is in effect a federal takeover of their energy policies.

“We are thrilled that the Supreme Court realized the rule’s immediate impact and froze its implementation, protecting workers and saving countless dollars as our fight against its legality continues,” Morrisey said.

This is the second major EPA regulation to be held up by the courts in recent months. Last year, federal judges issued a stay on an agency rule redefining “waters of the United States” — this sparked backlash from nearly every industry from farmers to energy producers.

But defeating the CPP in court may not be as easy as states think, since the Obama administration will likely argue striking down these rules would go against international commitments made by the U.S. in Paris last year. In December, the U.S. joined nearly 200 countries in pledging to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to fight global warming. Obama promised to cut emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025. Solid-Foundation-600-wLogo

The Obama administration, however, may have problems of its own because it has not gotten the agreement ratified by the Senate — a key requirement for a legally binding treaty. This has only added to the confusion of whether or not the United Nations Paris deal is legally a treaty or not.

“This will be a fatal blow to the president’s climate agenda,” Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, told TheDCNF.

“This shows just how far the Obama administration has gone — they went too far,” Pyle said.

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A Tale Of Two Rivers: Obama Condemns Flint Disaster After Ignoring Colorado Mine Spill

Reported by Michael Bastasch, 01/26/2016

URL of the original posting site: http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/26/obama-ignores-colorado-spill-but-pitties-flint-crisis

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in Washington January 12, 2016. REUTERS/Evan Vucci/Pool

President Barack Obama was quick to condemn Michigan officials for letting high levels of lead contaminate Flint’s drinking water and promised millions of dollars in aid and justice for the city. The same cannot be said for his reaction to the thousands of people who had their drinking water tainted by the Gold King Mine spill in August — a spill caused by his own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

It’s a tale of two rivers, both contaminated by government mismanagement, but only one provoked moral outrage from Obama. While Obama said Michigan’s government shouldn’t “shortchange basic services that we provide to our people,” he was virtually silent when his own administration polluted rivers flowing through western states and Indian territory.

Flint’s water is full of lead

“If I was a parent in Flint, I’d be beside myself over my kids’ health,” Obama told auto workers during a visit to Detroit, Mich., Wednesday. Obama had met the day before with Flint Mayor Karen Weaver where he “heard firsthand how the residents of Flint are dealing with the ongoing public health crisis,” according to the White House.

Obama declared a federal emergency and initially gave Michigan $5 million in aid for Flint. That was followed up by a promise of $80 million from the White House to help solve Flint’s water problems.

Obama’s outrage comes after news his own administration knew about lead in Flint’s water for months and did nothing about it. The head of EPA’s regional office resigned over the disaster, and the agency and the White House have launched investigations into the matter.

The White House appointed “a Health and Human Services Department official to lead federal efforts to help the city” last week, according to The Associated Press. EPA’s inspector general opened up its own inquiry into the agency’s handling of the water crisis. “EPA did its job but clearly the outcome was not what anyone would have wanted,” Gina McCarthy told reporters while at an event at a D.C. soup kitchen earlier this month. Leftist Propagandist

“So we’re going to work with the state, we’re going to work with Flint,” McCarthy said. “We’re going to take care of the problem. We know Flint is a situation that never should have happened.”

Flint’s water crisis began in 2014 when the city switched its water supply over from Lake Huron to the Flint River. It was a money-saving effort proposed by state managers while the city was going through massive financial troubles because of its public employee pensions.

The Flint River’s water is more corrosive than Lake Huron’s, meaning treatments were required to keep the water from corroding lead pipes. But Michigan regulators applied the wrong standards, and Flint’s water became contaminated with high levels of lead.

Susan Hedman was made aware of the problems in April after a draft report on the issues was released. Flint’s mayor became aware of the draft report, but Hedman downplayed concerns while she waited for a “legal opinion” on how to proceed.

“The preliminary draft report should not have been released outside the agency,” Hedman wrote to Flint’s former mayor Dayne Walling in a July email. “When the report has been revised and fully vetted by EPA management, the findings and recommendations will be shared with the city and DEQ will be responsible for following up with the city.”

In October 2015, state officials finally admitted to applying the wrong water treatments to Flint’s drinking water. By January, Hedman had resigned and the Obama administration was moving quickly to give Flint money and investigate the situation.

EPA literally contaminated drinking water in three states

Compare the Obama administration’s response to Flint with its response to a disaster it actually caused.

In August 2015, EPA workers looking to stop mine wastewater leaks from abandoned mines near Silverton, Colo., accidentally ended up unleashing three million gallons of wastewater into the Animas River. The huge orange plume got into the San Juan River and made its way through three states and tribal territory, contaminating drinking water for thousands of people.

EPA did move to work with state officials to combat the spill, but the agency would not tell state and local officials information on how the spill happened or the federal contractors who caused it. The agency also did not notify affected communities for more than 24 hours after the spill happened.

Obama, however, did not issue an emergency declaration, even though Colorado’s governor did. The president also did not make a speech expressing moral outrage at the fact his own administration polluted drinking water for thousands of people with heavy metals — which could stick around in the water for decades.

In August, Obama issued four other disaster declarations for areas hit with heavy flooding and wildfires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) even rejected pleas from Navajo Nation to help mitigate the damage from the mine blowout — tribal members along the San Juan River are heavily reliant on river water.

The Wall Street Journal eventually broke news on who the federal contractor was onsite when the mine blew out in August. To date, EPA has still been silent on the contractors involved in the spill, citing a nondisclosure agreement. In fact, EPA paid the contracting company, Environmental Restoration LLC, nearly $2.7 million after it caused the massive mine blowout, according to reporting from The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Ethan Barton.

EPA released an internal review of the mine blowout in August claiming the incident was “likely inevitable” despite admitting agency workers ignored “expensive and technically challenging” procedures that could have prevented workers from blowing out the mine that day.

The finding was seen as an attempt by the agency to downplay its role in spilling millions of gallons of mine waste into people’s drinking water. EPA’s report was contradicted by an Department of the Interior technical review of incident, which found the blowout was completely preventable.

What’s more interesting is that, to date, no EPA employee or contractor has been punished or fired for the incident, despite the fact the agency took responsibility for the incident in August. No criminal investigations have been launched by the government into the incident. Instead, EPA officials have been accused of trying to undermine their own inspector general’s investigation into the spill. The nature of the IG’s investigation is unknown, as they don’t comment on details in ongoing investigations.

“[T]he Committee on Natural Resources is troubled by the EPA’s disclosure last week that it had recently interviewed two material witnesses to the EPA’s activities at Gold King Mine,” Republican Reps. Rob Bishop (R) of Utah and Louie Gohmert (TX) – R wrote to EPA’s inspector general.

“Specifically, the Committee is concerned that the EPA’s interview did not follow best investigative practices and may have interfered with the OIG’s ongoing investigation,” the lawmakers wrote to the agency.

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Climate Models Have Been Wrong About Global Warming For Six Decades

Reported by Michael Bastasch, 12/28/2015

URL of the original posting site: http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/28/climate-models-have-been-wrong-about-global-warming-for-six-decades/#ixzz3vfiiCZFb

Former Vice President Al Gore speaks during the Center for American Progress 10th Anniversary Conference in Washington, D.C., Oct. 24, 2013. (JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Climate models used by scientists to predict how much human activities will warm the planet have been over-predicting global warming for the last six decades, according to a recent working paper by climate scientists. “Everyone by now is familiar with the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in the rate of global warming that has taken place over the past 20 years of so, but few realize is that the observed warming rate has been beneath the model mean expectation for periods extending back to the mid-20th century—60+ years,” Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger, climate scientists at the libertarian Cato Institute, write in a working paper released in December.

Michaels and Knappenberger compared observed global surface temperature warming rates since 1950 to what was predicted by 108 climate models used by government climate scientists to predict how much carbon dioxide emissions will warm the planet. What they found was the models projected much higher warming rates than actually occurred.

“During all periods from 10 years (2006-2015) to 65 (1951-2015) years in length, the observed temperature trend lies in the lower half of the collection of climate model simulations,” Michaels and Knappenberger write, “and for several periods it lies very close (or even below) the 2.5th percentile of all the model runs.”

Source: The Cato Institute

To further bolster their case that climate models are over-predicting warming rates, Michaels and Knappenberger looked at how climate models fared against satellite and weather balloon data from the mid-troposphere. The result is the same, and climate models predicted way more warming than actually occurred.

Source: The Cato Institute

“This is a devastating indictment of climate model performance,” Michaels and Knappenberger write. “For periods of time longer than about 20 years, the observed trends from all data sources fall beneath the lower bound which contains 95 percent of all model trends and in the majority of cases, falls beneath even the absolute smallest trend found in any of the 102 climate model runs.”“The amount of that over-prediction comports well with a growing body of scientific findings and growing understanding that the sensitivity of the earth’s surface temperature to rising atmospheric greenhouse gas levels… lies towards (and yet within) the low end of the mainstream assessed likely range.”

Satellite temperatures, which measure the lowest few miles of the Earth’s atmosphere, show there’s been no significant global warming for the last two decades despite rapidly rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The so-called “hiatus” in warming has sparked an intense debate among climate scientists over what’s caused warming to disappear. Dozens of theories have been put forward as to why global warming has stalled, but no one has cracked the case. Solid-Foundation-600-wLogo

Michaels and Knappenberger, however, suggest the “hiatus” and the previous decades of overblown temperature predictions point to a huge flaw in climate science: the climate isn’t as sensitive to CO2 as previously thought.

The Cato scientists argue “climate sensitivity” estimates are too high and are causing climate models to over-predict how much warming will happen with increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Climate sensitivity refers to how much warming would occur with a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

Climate scientists typically put climate sensitivity at 3 degrees Celsius, but a slew of new studies suggest that’s way too high an estimate based on how much warming has been observed in recent decades. One estimate put together by the U.K.-based Global Warming Policy Foundation last year found climate sensitivity may be as low as 1.75 degrees Celsius — almost half what mainstream climate models use.

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Putin’s plan to defy world

Has tools needed to avoid more sanctions

Published: 20 hours ago

F. Michael Maloof staff writer forWND andG2Bulletin, is a former senior security policy analyst in the office of the secretary of defense.

Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.

WASHINGTON – Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to disdain international pressure and continue extending Russian influence into eastern Ukraine, while creating a buffer zone against the Western-influenced portion controlled by Kiev, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Regional analysts say Putin’s tough stance is due to his increasing concern over Western encroachment into Russia’s sphere of influence and that he seeks to maintain another buffer zone, one between the Russian heartland and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

For those reasons, analysts expect Putin to continue to resist calls by the United States and some European countries to increase sanctions on Russia for its support of the rising insurrection in eastern Ukraine.

The U.S. recently decided to send military advisers to the Ukrainian government. Their duties are said to include assisting Ukrainian military forces with strategy and well as intelligence sharing, which appears to have been effective in directing land forces as well as the Ukrainian air force.

However, the Ukrainian rebels are maintaining strongholds in two principal cities, Donetsk and Luhansk, which are near the border with Russia. And Russia is expected to continue providing military supplies to the rebels.

Demand for increased sanctions intensified after the recent shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers on board the Boeing 777.

All sides acknowledge it was downed by a surface-to-air missile, probably the Russian Buk, or SA 11 Gadfly.

Both the Ukrainian government and the rebels had the missile, although the one in hands of the rebels was reportedly rolled back to Russia secretly, after indications that two of its missiles on a launcher of four were missing.

Amid U.S. demands for harsher sanctions, Putin knows the Europeans are hesitant to appear to be too strident against his country because of their dependency on Russian energy.

Additionally, Europeans, especially the Germans, are under increasing pressure from their industries to ignore Washington.

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The Germans also remain agitated with Washington over revelations that the National Security Agency spied on German citizens, including the mobile phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Sources say the episode will mean continued cold relations between Germany and the U.S. for some time.

And there are reports Washington is getting fed up with Europe because of a lack of strong sanctions designed to inflict economic pain on the Russian economy.

The U.S. wants an end to European Union weapons deliveries to Russia, such as the $1.6 billion Mistral-class amphibious assault ship deal with France. The French intend to continue with the sale, according to sources.

With the Europeans saying they can’t afford to isolate Russia for economic and energy policy reasons, public comments from U.S. officials have become more strident in recent days.

Putin, however, realizes U.S. and European options are limited.

He also sees divisions even within the Kiev government on how to proceed. The Ukrainian parliament remains split among its nine different factions as the country faces rising economic problems and increasing pressure from Russia on the price for natural gas. The Russians have threatened to cut off Ukraine’s flow of natural gas if it doesn’t pay at least a portion of its multi-billion dollar debt for Russian energy.

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Very Interesting Energy Discussion

Please take a look at the following presentation. I am asking why this discussion isn’t more prevalent?

Thorium. Who knew? See one of many articles about Thorium below video.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/09/11/is-thorium-the-biggest-energy-breakthrough-since-fire-possibly/

Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly.

Energy 9/11/2011 @ 6:29PM 318,274 views

William Pentland Contributor

CANDU Nuclear Power Plant at Qinshan, China

For the past several months, a friend of mine has been telling me about the potentially game-changing implications of an obscure (at least to me) metal named Thorium after the Norse god of thunder, Thor.

It seems like he is not the only person who believes thorium, a naturally-occurring, slightly radioactive metal discovered in 1828 by the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, could provide the world with an ultra-safe, ultra-cheap source of nuclear power.

Last week, scores of thorium boosters gathered in the United Kingdom to launch a new advocacy organization, the Weinberg Foundation, which plans to push the promise of thorium nuclear energy into the mainstream political discussion of clean energy and climate change. The message they’re sending is that thorium is the anti-dote to the world’s most pressing energy and environmental challenges.

So what is the big deal about thorium? In 2006, writing in the magazine Cosmos, Tim Dean summarized perhaps the most optimistic scenario for what a Thorium-powered nuclear world would be like:

What if we could build a nuclear reactor that offered no possibility of a meltdown, generated its power inexpensively, created no weapons-grade by-products, and burnt up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles? And what if the waste produced by such a reactor was radioactive for a mere few hundred years rather than tens of thousands? It may sound too good to be true, but such a reactor is indeed possible, and a number of teams around the world are now working to make it a reality. What makes this incredible reactor so different is its fuel source: thorium.

A clutch of companies and countries are aggressively pursuing Dean’s dream of a thorium-powered world.

Lightbridge Corporation, a pioneering nuclear-energy start-up company based in McLean, VA, is developing the Radkowsky Thorium Reactor in collaboration with Russian researchers. In 2009, Areva, the French nuclear engineering conglomerate, recruited Lightbridge for a project assessing the use of thorium fuel in Areva’s next-generation EPR reactor, advanced class of 1,600+ MW nuclear reactors being built in Olkiluoto, Finland and Flamanville, France.

In China, the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and a clutch of Chinese outfits began an effort in mid-2009 to use thorium as fuel in nuclear reactors in Qinshan, China.

Thorium is more abundant than uranium in the Earth’s crust. The world has an estimated 4.4 million tons of total known and estimated Thorium resources, according to the International Atomic Energy Association’s 2007 Red Book.

The most common source of thorium is the rare earth phosphate mineral, monazite. World monazite resources are estimated to be about 12 million tons, two-thirds of which are in India. Idaho also boasts a large vein deposit of thorium and rare earth metals.

Thorium can be used as a nuclear fuel through breeding to fissile uranium-233. For those technically-inclined readers, here is a geek-friendly explanation of what that means:

Although not fissile itself, Th-232 will absorb slow neutrons to produce uranium-233 (U-233)a, which is fissile (and long-lived). The irradiated fuel can then be unloaded from the reactor, the U-233 separated from the thorium, and fed back into another reactor as part of a closed fuel cycle. Alternatively, U-233 can be bred from thorium in a blanket, the U-233 separated, and then fed into the core.

In one significant respect U-233 is better than uranium-235 and plutonium-239, because of its higher neutron yield per neutron absorbed. Given a start with some other fissile material (U-233, U-235 or Pu-239) as a driver, a breeding cycle similar to but more efficient than that with U-238 and plutonium (in normal, slow neutron reactors) can be set up. (The driver fuels provide all the neutrons initially, but are progressively supplemented by U-233 as it forms from the thorium.) However, there are also features of the neutron economy which counter this advantage. In particular the intermediate product protactinium-233 (Pa-233) is a neutron absorber which diminishes U-233 yield.

I have no idea whether thorium is the panacea many people claims it is likely to be, but I believe we’ll be hearing more about it in the years to come.

UPDATE: If you want to know more about Thorium, the person to ask is my fellow Forbes contributor – and resident nuclear energy expert – Kirk Sorensen. Check out Sorensen’s work here: http://blogs.forbes.com/kirksorensen/

Sorensen: What do you think about Thorium? I am among the many Forbes readers I believe are eager to know what you think. So?

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Posts tagged ‘Energy’

BY: CHUCK DEVORE | APRIL 20, 2023

Higher Income Will Pay More

Increasing Fees Rather Than Taxes

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BY: EDDIE SCARRY | FEBRUARY 07, 2023

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

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BY: RUPERT DARWALL | OCTOBER 10, 2022

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Silent Voter

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BY: HELEN RALEIGH | SEPTEMBER 14, 2022

Strengthened China Ties

A Wake-Up Call

Germany Stepping Back

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REPORTED BY: VICTORIA COATES AND JENNIFER STEFANO | MAY 19, 2022

Victoria Coates, a distinguished fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, served as senior policy adviser to the secretary of energy in the Trump administration. Jennifer Stefano is executive vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation and an Independent Women’s Forum visiting fellow.

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Mission Accomplished

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Word Masters of Disasters

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Reported by BRYAN BABB, CONTRIBUTOR | March 03, 2022

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Glory to The Heroes

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Plugs

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Stupid Policy Tricks

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Life In A Bubble

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Reported By Ben Marquis | Published March 13, 2019 at 2:10pm

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Authored by Michael Bastasch / 11/25/2016

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Authored by Michael Bastasch 08/09/2016

Professor Valentina Zharkova at Northumbria University is being attacked by climate change proponents for publishing research suggesting there could be a 35-year period of low solar activity that could usher in an “ice age.”

Zharkova isn’t the first to suggest a period of low solar activity is on the way that could cause a cooling trend. Solar activity was reportedly at a 200-year low in February.