Sense and Nonsense

Kirk on Cape Wind

The Globe is correct on this.  Obstructionism on Cape Wind is a bad legacy for Kirk.

Kennedy's Stooge

Temporary U.S. Senator Paul Kirk, flaccid and uninspiring to date in his stewardship of a Massachusetts seat in the Senate, has now sprung to life, revealing why members of the Kennedy family (and other wealthy denizens of the Cape and the Islands) were so keen to see him appointed as Ted Kennedy's interim replacement.  Kirk has embraced cowardice and self-interest by urging President Obama to delay federal approval of the Cape Wind project.  Like Kennedy before him, Kirk has now done the bidding of all his fellow wealthy elitists and NIMBYists.  They're no doubt delighted with him.   I say shame on him.  

As flawed as they may be in other ways, all four Democratic candidates vying for this Senate seat support the Cape Wind project.  They are on the right side of this issue.  

Get Yourself Some

Breath of Fresh Air

From the lead article in today's New York Times:

President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday.

The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp reversal of Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions would be one of the most emphatic actions Mr. Obama could take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

Mr. Obama’s presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision reversed, the agency’s regulators are now widely expected to do so after completing a formal review process.

Refreshing to have a President who wants to protect the broad public interest rather than the interests of big business.  Encouraging to have a President who frees government agencies to do the work for which they were created rather than hampering and blocking their pursuit of their missions.

Raise the Gas Tax

I meant to call attention several days ago to the excellent editorial in the New York Times, calling for a sharp increase in the gas tax as a way of curbing energy consumption and demand.  It's enlightened policy that would require members of Congress to display some political courage.

Thank God for the Coal Industry

From Think Progress:

Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection and the “Reality” coalition have a new ad out today on the myth of “clean coal.” The ad is part of a national grassroots effort to emphasize that there is no such thing as clean coal and features a “coal executive” saying, “Coal isn’t dirty. We think it’s clean. Smells good, too.” Watch it:

Science is Back! Smart is Back!

I wrote earlier in the week about how exciting it is that we will have a president who will value science and restore a role for scientists in national policymaking.  President-elect Obama's choice of Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy was such an encouraging sign.  Now, it appears that Obama is also appointing another scientist, Harvard's John Holdren -- an expert on energy policy, climate change, environmental policy, energy security, nuclear nonproliferation, etc.** -- to be his White House science advisor.   Very exciting.  Science is back.   The selection of Holdren is the strongest message yet that Obama intends to tackle the climate-change problem aggressively.

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** Holdren is incredibly smart, a Big Thinker.

Energy Policymakers

Here's Politico's take on the likely Obama choices.

U.S. Energy Policy: Grasshoppers' Crap

Remember the fable about the Grasshopper and the Ant?  Here's a good take on it, as it applies to Republican and Democratic approaches to our national energy policy.  The article is not long, and the whole thing is worth reading (it will remind you how wise Jimmy Carter was), but here are the parts I liked best:

You remember the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant? The grasshopper spends the warm months–when food is abundant–singing, dancing, and generally enjoying himself while the ant works hard to store up food for the colder months, which he knows are coming. And sure enough, when winter comes, the ant is prepared and the grasshopper starves.

Well in the world of politics–and particularly when it comes to energy policy–there are a lot of grasshoppers and very few ants, and unfortunately, the grasshoppers have been setting policy for a long time now.

. . .

Over the years, leaders of the Republican Party–like Dick Cheney–have been openly hostile to the very concept of conservation and have allowed lobbyists for the oil companies to literally write our nation’s energy policies. And during that time, almost three decades, we’ve become far more dependent on foreign oil, and our government has made little if any effort to encourage the development of alternative energy sources or even to take simple steps to improve energy efficiency (such as raising CAFE standards for automobile makers).

In short, for the last three decades, the Republican Party has been a party of grasshoppers, blissfully encouraging the consumption of ever greater amounts of oil while doing absolutely nothing to prepare for the winter ahead. Indeed, they’ve done everything in their power to marginalize those who have warned that the good times can’t last and that we need to embrace conservation initiatives and develop alternative energy sources.

And now that the long-awaited winter has finally come and we’re all suffering under the weight of sky-high oil prices, what is the Republican response? They seize upon an imaginary quick fix–off-shore oil drilling–and they all rally around it, accusing their opponents of being the obstacle to lower gas prices. They preen and pose, convening fake sessions of Congress to show that they are the ones who really care about gas prices. They ignore what their own government experts have acknowledged, that allowing further off-shore drilling won’t produce a drop of new oil for at least a decade and, even then, will do little if anything to reduce gas prices.

Apparently in the Republican version of the fable, rather than admitting that he’d been short-sighted and reckless in not preparing for the winter, the grasshopper pretends that there’s actually a winter’s worth of food located just beneath his feet and that the only thing keeping him from digging it up is that damn ant.

Oil Slime

Two oil-related items:

• Exxon Mobil spends 1 percent of its profits on alternative energy.  One percent!

• McCain has brought in almost a million dollars in donations from Big Oil since changing his position on offshore drilling.