In a crass case of political opportunism, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) used the tragedy of the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma to push her carbon tax idea. As reported in the Daily Caller, Sen. Boxer blamed the tornado on global warming during a Senate floor speech Tuesday, using the opportunity to push her own plan to tax carbon dioxide emissions.

“This is climate change,” Boxer said. “This is climate change. We were warned about extreme weather: Not just hot weather, but extreme weather. When I had my hearings, when I had the gavel years ago — it’s been a while — the scientists all agreed that what we’d start to see was extreme weather.”

As reported by the American Enterprise Institute, the frequency of violent tornadoes has been decreasing, not increasing, in the US from 1954 to 2012 based on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center. There is a stronger statistical correlation between Ms. Boxer’s time as  Chair of Senate Environment and frequent tornadoes, as there is between greenhouse gas emissions and tornadoes.

Boxer is not the only partisan ideologue to blame the tornado on global warming.  Democrat Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse spent 15 minutes on the Senate floor ranting against Republicans for denying man-made global warming.

Putting aside the fact that most honest climatologists do not assign blame for individual occurrences, a carbon tax would actually do more harm than good. Imposing a carbon tax on U.S. producers is more likely to increase total global emissions of greenhouse gasses through a process called ‘economic leakage.’ In order to avoid a burdensome liability like a carbon tax, manufacturing and agriculture businesses, for example, will relocate elsewhere outside of the U.S.. Turns out that ‘elsewhere’ has higher emissions of greenhouse gasses per dollar of gross domestic product, termed ‘intensity.’ The more intense a place is, the more they emit in producing a given quantity of goods or service. For every basket of fruit, sweatshirt and electronic gadget we import rather than produce ourselves, we increase emissions.

Based on data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the Bureau of Economic Affairs, the U.S. is already outperforming other countries in terms of minimizing GHGs.  Every dollar we spend on imports (via purchases, outside manufacturing etc.) increases the amount of emissions in places with worse GHG performance records. Depending on where those dollars are spent, the increase in emissions can be anywhere from 2 to 9 times as much. China anyone?

In the most recent report from the EIA, after an increase in 2010 of 3.3 percent (as the recession waned), energy-related carbon dioxide emissions declined in 2011 by 2.4 percent and were 526 million metric tons (9 percent) below the 2005 level. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions have declined in the United States in four out of the last six years. In 2011, GDP grew by 1.8 percent, but emissions decreased by 2.4 percent (136 million metric tons). This indicates that the carbon intensity of the economy improved by about 4.2 percent. The 2011 decrease is only the fourth year since 1990 to experience a decline in carbon intensity of greater than 3.5 percent for the economy as a whole, but since 2000, intensity has improved by 18%.  Since 1990, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States have grown much more slowly than GDP – in 2007 emissions were 19 percent greater than their 1990 level, but by 2011 were only about 9 percent above the 1990 level. GDP has increased by 66 percent over that same period.

Ms. Boxer’s push for a carbon tax would harm our trade balance and be counterproductive in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If greenhouse gas emissions actually do cause climatic change, about which there remains significant scientific debate, a carbon tax applied unilaterally would just make matters worse. While the country can be proud of first responders in the tragedy of Moore, Oklahoma, Ms. Boxer’s first response is sadly just blatant ideological opportunism.

Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller, May 18, 2013

Republican lawmakers are launching an investigation into claims that the Environmental Protection Agency, while giving preferential treatment to environmental groups, made it harder for conservative groups to obtain government records.

Public record fees can be quite substantial, sometimes rising into six figures for larger document requests.  Therefore, making fee waiver decisions based on whether a particular group agrees with the EPA’s agenda or not is particularly egregious.

David Schnare, Director of ATI’s Environmental Law Center, commented, “I spent thirty-three years at the EPA, and I understand the culture and climate that exists inside this agency.”  He continued, “Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe is correct when he noted today that many involved in granting fee waivers are career employees not political appointments, and that’s a serious problem.  When you have career bureaucrats who cannot be replaced as elections come and go, and who have substituted their personal agenda for a commitment to public service and impartial implementation of the laws, you end up with exactly what we have at the EPA today – an unaccountable ideologically driven group who will do anything to promote their extreme environmental agenda.”

American Tradition Institute (ATI) is a public policy research and public interest litigation foundation advocating restoration of science and free-market principles on environmental issues, including air and water quality and regulation, responsible land use, natural resource management, energy development, property rights, and principles of stewardship.  All supporting documents and images regarding the above-referenced litigation and findings may be accessed at www.atinstitute.org.

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Michal Conger, Washington Examiner, May 16, 2013

Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Bob Perciasepe has asked the Inspector General for the EPA to investigate claims the agency hindered inquiries by conservative groups by charging fees routinely waived for watchdog and media groups.

Erica Martinson, Politico, May 16, 2013

Amid allegations from House Republicans that it showed a bias for liberal groups, the EPA will audit its fee-waiver process for Freedom of Information Act requests, acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe said Thursday.

John Hayward, Human Events, May 14, 2013

The Environmental Protection Agency would like you to know it can abuse its power to punish Barack Obama’s political enemies as well as the next agency, thank you very much.  In this case, it’s more a question of first-class seating and concierge service for Obama’s political allies, while those nasty conservatives get stuck in economy class, behind the jet engine, in the middle seat, right next to the screaming baby…

By Institute for Energy Research, May 7, 2013

Some lawmakers in Colorado want to increase the cost of electricity for all Coloradans, especially those in rural areas. Awaiting Gov. John Hickenlooper’s signature, SB 252would require rural electric cooperatives to dramatically increase the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources to 25 percent by 2020, up from the current mandate of 10 percent. This portends unambiguously higher electricity ratesfor Coloradans.

In his article, “Is Renewable Energy Compatible With a Reliable Electric Grid?,” Mr. Bredenberg refers to a recent study by electric-power research firm Synapse Energy Economics Inc., prepared for the Civil Society Institute(CSI).  The CSI study found that,  “the U.S. electricity grid could integrate and balance many times the current level of renewables with no additional reliability issues.”  The study is an attempt to dispel concerns regarding the variability of renewables, “especially wind and solar…solar panels only generate power when the sun is shining, and wind turbines only spin when the wind is blowing.”

Mr. Bredenberg then quotes me from my report, “Hidden Costs of Wind Electricity.” First, there are several technical problems with the Synapse study and some apparent confusion by Mr. Bredenberg about my report.

The “Hidden Cost of Electricity” is an analysis of the cost of wind generated electricity, taking into account various hidden costs and costs imposed on folks other than the wind generator themselves, due to the nature of wind generation. In essence my report doesn’t address the question of whether more wind or other renewables is conceivably and physically possible, but rather what is the total cost, including hidden and offloaded, of wind. It is conceptually possible to increase wind generation while maintaining grid reliability, as the Synapse Report shows. That would be very costly, however, requiring huge investments in energy storage, in massive amounts of ‘flexible’ generation, and the abandonment of well functioning existing power plants (not yet fully amortized), as noted by Synapse. In short, the study calls for the complete replacement of a working system.

Making it more difficult and complex to maintain power, frequency, and voltage will strain both the generation equipment and personnel, and that will increase the probability of a cascading failure.  It does not, as they claim, lead to more reliable service.

In all regions analyzed by Synapse, imports are required to maintain load (i.e. matching demand and supply).  In other words, load was not satisfied by the renewables scenario, but depended on imports from other regions and on increased “flexible generation.”  In a select few cases, wind generation is curtailed even when available, but the report does not make clear whether that is timely and available to other regions for use.  Curtailment means the wind is wasted. In other words, reliability requires resources beyond the renewables. The Synapse conclusion is at odds with the Synapse analysis.

The terms “backup” and “balancing” have different meanings. Backup generally refers to the requirement to provide power when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. That is a multiple-hours, or diurnal or longer phenomenon. Balancing refers to the instantaneous (less than 1/60 second) requirement to maintain harmony on the grid for power, voltage and frequency.  It can be threatened when the wind suddenly increases or decreases, like when it gusts.  Wind creates threats to the grid’s stability as much, if not more, when it’s is generating ‘full out’ than when it’s off due to lack of wind. It is that phenomenon to which I refer in the piece quoted by Mr. Bredenberg – operating flexible generation units in stop and go mode degrades their efficiency compared to ‘cruising.’ That has both capital recovery and fuel cost implications which are not considered in the Synapse report.

The terms ‘predictability’ and ‘stable’ are also confused when discussing wind forecasting done by regional grid operators. Having been involved with improvements to wind forecasting for twenty years, this is particularly disturbing.  Wind forecasting HAS improved greatly over that time, but being able to predict the wind for tomorrow as likely being ‘gusty’ is far different than being able to manage wind’s ‘instability.’ Remember, wind’s output is a cube function of the wind speed, so a gust at 20 mph produces eight times the electricity as does a 10 mph baseline wind.  If that’s happening every five minutes, for example, the grid operator will have a very serious challenge regardless of whether he anticipated it ahead of time or not. Knowing the wind will be gusty tomorrow does not mean anything can be done about it when it occurs.

Finally, the Synapse report acknowledges the need for increased Demand Side Management, which is just one way of saying electricity is turned off when supply is short of demand.  That can be voluntary through programs customers sign up for with incentives (they’re paid to not use electricity) or through involuntary central dispatch decisions.  Either way, load is not met if it is traditionally defined as meeting customer demand. Turning off customers’ lights is hardly maintaining reliable service.

The Synapse report addresses different issues than does Hidden Cost Of Wind Energy, and glosses over some significant cost items: huge additional transmission lines that are seldom used, untested and costly large amounts of energy storage, and the capital recovery and efficiency impacts of the ‘flexible generation’ required to maintain the grid. The report’s suggestion that the ‘all renewables’ scenario would result in cost savings of $83 billion compared to business as usual is unsupported.

Greg Walcher, Op-Ed, Denver Post, May 5, 2013

My generation now laughs at the fashions of the 1970s. I personally never liked bell bottoms, white belts, or double-knit polyester leisure suits. But they were all the rage; we wore them or risked appearing uncool.