18 May 2010
By Stephen Lendman On
June 26, 2009, HR 2454: American Clean Energy and
Security Act of 2009 (ACESA) passed, purportedly "To
create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence,
reduce global warming pollution and transition to a
clean energy economy." In
fact, it lets energy polluters raise prices for huge
windfall profits and gives Wall Street a bonanza
through carbon trading derivatives speculation.
Catherine Austin Fitts' Solari.com blog explained it
last July in her article titled, "The Next Really
Scary Bubble" is coming, saying: "If
you think the housing and credit bubble diminished
your financial security and your community, or the
bailouts, or the rising gas prices did as well, hold
on to your hat" for what's ahead. "Carbon trading is
gearing up to make the housing and derivative bubbles
look like target practice," or in other words, be the
mother of all scams, courtesy of administration, House
and Senate collaboration with Wall Street and the
energy giants. Now
the Senate version - a clean energy bill? Not
according to the Center for Biological Diversity (biologicaldiversity.org)
calling it: "a
disaster for our climate and planet. (The
Kerry-Lieberman) proposal moves us one baby step
forward and at least three giant steps back in any
rational effort to address the climate crisis. (Their
bill) would entrench our addiction to fossil fuels by
offering incentives for increased oil and gas drilling
just days after what appears to be the worst offshore
oil disaster in American history."
Their proposal includes "no safeguards....to make
offshore oil safe. (It) echoes greenhouse pollution
reduction targets that scientists recently called
'paltry' and inadequate to prevent the worst impacts
of climate change....The Kerry-Lieberman (bill) is not
the answer because it asks the wrong questions." New
climate legislation must: --
reduce "atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per
million....;" --
supplement "existing environmental laws - especially
the Clean Air Act - instead of gutting these
successful and proven environmental protections;" --
be "free of loopholes allowing polluters to delay or
avoid reducing their greenhouse gas emissions;" and --
avoid "habitat destruction and increased greenhouse
gas emissions through perverse subsidies."
House of Senate bills fail "these tests." They're "a
disaster for our climate and planet." The House bill
lets polluters "escape real emissions reductions." The
Senate bill: --
bans Clean Air Act provisions and "existing state and
local efforts to tackle climate change;" --
facilitates, subsidizes, and accelerates oil and gas
drilling, including offshore; -- "subsidize(s)
dangerous and costly nuclear energy; and --
incentivize(s) the destruction of forests for biomass
energy production;" this provision, however, appears
stalled. Last
June, Public Citizen called the House bill: "a
new legal right to pollute (that) gives away 85
percent of (its) credits to polluters. (It) will not
solve our climate crisis but will enrich already
powerful oil, coal and nuclear power companies" at the
expense of consumers stuck with higher than ever bills
to enrich them. This
writer's July 8 article titled, Obama's Cap and Trade
Carbon Emissions Bill: A Stealth Scheme to License
Pollution and Fraud explained it -
www.sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/07/obamas-cap-and-trade-carbon-emissions.html.
Hyperbolic Democrats praised it, Speaker Pelosi
calling it "transformational legislation which takes
us into the future" after taking congratulatory calls
from Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Al
Gore. The
former vice president has long-standing ties to
Goldman Sachs (GS), and in 2004, he and David Blood,
GS's former asset management division CEO, co-founded
Generation Investment Management LLC, a firm likely to
profit hugely from cap and trade schemes if enacted. So
will energy giants like Royal Dutch Shell (top-ranked
in 2009 on Fortune's Global 500) and Duke Energy that
helped write the bill, that according to Friends of
the Earth President Brent Blackwelder "fails to come
anywhere close to solving the climate crisis. Worse,
(it) eliminates preexisting EPA authority to address
global warming - that means it's actually a step
backward."
Greepeace agreed saying it "sets emission reduction
targets far lower than science demands, then
undermines even those targets with massive offsets.
The giveaways and preferences in the bill will
actually spur a new generation of nuclear and
coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real
energy solutions."
Energy companies praised it, and why not. Big Coal got
a waiver until 2025. Agribusiness was exempted
altogether even though it contributes up to one-fourth
of greenhouse gas emissions. The free allowances
provision benefits the nuclear industry hugely. The
nation's largest nuclear power company, Exelon, said
it would reap a $1 - 1.5 billion annual windfall from
subsidies and higher prices.
ACESA is a scam. It's about profits, not environmental
remediation. Its emissions reduction targets are so
weak, they effectively license polluters by giving
them a new profit center to exploit. As for Wall
Street, it offers greater than ever derivatives
trading profits - a new multi-trillion dollar market
to be "securitized, derivatized, and speculated,"
according to Clinton's former Commerce undersecretary,
Robert Shapiro. If cap and trade becomes law, the
market will explode in his judgment.
Others agree, seeing a speculative bonanza, why FIRE
sector (finance, insurance and real estate) lobbyists
spent a record $465 million in 2009 according to the
Center for Responsive Politics. Energy and natural
resources companies also, spending $409 million to
assure a plum this sweet becomes law. The
American Power Act (APC) - Unveiled on May 16 and now
available in Pdf form at: http://kerry.senate.gov/americanpoweract/intro.cfm. It's
as hyperbolic as the House version saying: It
"will transform our economy, set us on the path toward
energy independence and improve the quality of the air
we breathe. It will create millions of good jobs that
cannot be shipped abroad and it will launch America
into a position of leadership in the global clean
energy economy." It
claims not to be about enriching Wall Street, but to
reduce carbon pollution by "17 percent in 2020 and by
over 80 percent in 2050," so far ahead that who'll
remember unmet targets. It
says: --
"Consumers will come out on top. --
We need energy made in America. --
America needs to regain its competitive edge.... --
We need a new approach to reducing emissions (and) --
The system must be simple, stable and secure."
Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica debunked it,
saying:
"Without dramatic improvements, this bill should not
be passed, and senators should consider alternatives.
In the meantime, existing tools like the Clean Air Act
must be put to work. More broadly, we must end a
system in which polluter lobbyists exercise effective
veto power in Congress. Our economy, global security
and the health of the public are all at stake."
According to Public Citizen's Tyson Slocum in his May
13 analysis, APC fails across the board saying the
"Climate Bill Is a Misnomer: It's a Nuclear
Energy-Promoting, Oil-Drilling-Championing, Coal
Mining-Boosting Gift to Polluters....with a weak
carbon-pricing mechanism thrown in."
Worse still, it guts the EPA's authority to regulate
greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air
Act. It provides nuclear power incentives at taxpayers
expense. Under sections 1101 and 1105, citizens won't
have public hearings on nuclear power risks,
especially ones in their communities. Section 1102
"increases loan guarantees primarily for nuclear power
to a jaw-dropping $54 billion." Considering the
industry's high default risk, consumers will be stuck
with the bill the way they've paid trillions for Wall
Street bailouts. In
section 1103, 12 proposed nuclear plants will get $6
billion in taxpayer-subsidized risk insurance. Section
1121 lets nuclear power operators accelerate
depreciation. Section 1121 "provides a 10 percent
investment tax credit for new reactors." Under section
1123, the industry gets Advanced Energy Project
credits, and it "derives certain tax, bond and grant
benefits from investing in nuclear power" from
sections 1124, 5 and 6. More
than ever, Big Oil gets to "Drill Baby, Drill" (that
assures "Spill Baby, Spill"), including more of it
offshore, despite the spreading Gulf disaster, and
there's more. Under section 1202, states may keep 37.5
of oil and gas royalties. "That's like saying because
more rich people live in California and New York
compared to Mississippi and New Mexico, (they) should
be able to keep more federal dollars raised from
income taxes. Royalty revenue sharing is patently
unfair," especially since offshore spills respect no
state shorelines or inland areas if they spread. Big
coal will get generous loan guarantees and more.
"Section 1412 establishes a (utility-collected) carbon
tax paid by ratepayers....to fund carbon capture and
storage (CCS) - with no money allocated to rooftop
solar or energy efficiency investments." Under section
1431, coal companies are given (taxpayer subsidized)
emissions allowances - "an untested, risky strategy
that benefits (them) and is gobbling up a lion's share
of subsidies" that should go for renewable energy
development.
Merchant coal power plants (whose rates aren't
regulated) will get about 5% of the handouts, "which
will provide opportunities for them to gouge
consumers."
Section 1604 says because "voluntary" renewable energy
markets are efficient and effective programs, "the
policy of the United States is to continue to support"
them without the guarantees given fossil fuel and
nuclear industry giants. The
bill also promotes carbon offsets trading - a scam to
let polluters buy credits from countries or companies
whose greenhouse gas emissions fall below their
allowed quotas. However, shifting isn't reduction. It
simply transfers pollution from one place to another,
has no verification mechanism, creates a system wide
open to fraud and mismanagement, and allows the same
market manipulation shenanigans that created the
housing and toxic derivatives bubbles - precisely why
energy giants and Wall Street want it.
Utilities, not consumers, will benefit from free 2013
- 2029 allowances, "exclusively" for ratepayers
purportedly. But instead of remitting directly to
them, the Senate bill lets state utility commissions
decide. They, in turn, can be more or less consumer
friendly, but as their past history shows, ratepayers
will end up losers. As
for Wall Street, the Senate bill is marginally less
accommodative than the House version, but not enough
to matter. For example, a new Commodities Futures
Trading Commission (CFTC) Office of Carbon Market
Oversight is created, letting the corporate-run agency
regulate spot and futures emission markets. It
would require emissions traders to register, be
approved, and have their transactions cleared through
a CFTC-run Carbon Clearing Organization. It'll work
the same way the Federal Reserve regulates banks - by
letting the giants that own it make the rules.
Further, carbon trading lets Wall Street "control our
climate future" by "mak(ing) the housing and
derivatives bubbles look like target practice," as
Catherine Austin Fitts explained. If
cap and trade is enacted, polluters will win.
Consumers will lose, and Wall Street will get the
mother of all speculative bonanzas. No wonder, they
and the energy giants are lobbying ferociously for
passage.
Connection to
the Gulf Disaster On
May 9, Attorney General Eric Holder told ABC's This
Week that he sent Justice Department officials to the
Gulf to determine if any "misfeasance (or)
malfeasance" occurred. Is
the Senate climate bill perhaps connected to the Gulf
spill? - being used as a pretext to propose
"protections," including a provision saying:
"Mindful of the accident in the Gulf, we institute
important new protections for coastal states by
allowing them to opt out of drilling up to 75 miles
from their shores. In addition, directly impacted
states can veto drilling plans if they stand to suffer
significant adverse impacts in the event of an
accident."
Don't bet on it, as House and Senate bills, in fact,
assure more, not less, offshore drilling, thus far
prohibited in oil rich waters Big Oil companies covet.
But what they want, they generally get, free from
regulatory oversight or not enough to matter. That
won't change nor the chance for more spills, on or
offshore. As one expert explained: "As long as we keep
using this stuff, we're going to be spilling it. It
goes with the territory." Yet
if the Gulf incident was deliberate, why so? On
September 30, S. 1733: Clean Energy Jobs and American
Power Act was introduced, purportedly to "create clean
energy jobs, promote energy independence, reduce
global warming pollution, and transition to a clean
energy economy." On
November 5, it was reported to the Senate Environment
and Public Works Committee, remained stalled, and the
December Copenhagen climate summit (COP 15) failed.
Then after the April 20 Gulf incident, it was
reactivated to take advantage of a good crisis - what
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel once told the
Wall Street Journal saying: "You
never want to let a serious crisis go to waste. What I
mean by that is that it's an opportunity to do things
you thought you couldn't do before." And
a joint Kerry-Lieberman statement said ahead of the
bill's rollout: "We
are more encouraged today that we can secure the
necessary votes to pass this legislation this year in
part because the last weeks have given everyone with a
stake in this issue a heightened understanding that as
a nation, we can no longer wait to solve this problem
which threatens our economy, our security and our
environment."
White House climate advisor, Carol Browner, told
Bloomberg TV that:
"This accident, this tragedy, is actually heightening
people's interest in energy in this country and in
wanting a different energy plan."
Perhaps they, BP, Transocean and Halliburton know
something we don't. In this case a possible false flag
"accident" to jump-start passage of the Senate bill to
enrich polluters and Wall Street, the only way they
may have thought possible after Senate debate stalled. Of
course, to enlist enough public and congressional
support, a headline-making incident was needed, though
doubtful one this grave was intended - according to
some experts spewing from 40,000 - 100,000 gallons
daily to continue for months, even years given the
enormous underwater pressure at a one-mile depth -
40,000 pounds per square inch, the reason fixes so far
tried have failed, and no one's sure what'll work. The
latest BP tube insertion may be more a PR stunt than a
solution, but don't look for its officials or
Washington to explain it.
Extremely worrisome are the enormous deep water oil
plumes, one, for example, 16 km long, five km wide,
and 91 meters thick, suggesting permanent ecological
damage with untold consequences. Already, oxygen in
the Gulf is depleting, threatening sea life over a
vast area and the livelihoods of area fishermen. As
for the industry's likely cost, it's pocket change,
especially as others (including Washington and perhaps
the states), not the offenders, will pay the most.
Consider the Exxon Valdez disaster. It
occurred in March 1989. After years of litigation,
plaintiffs got $385 million in compensatory damages
and $5 billion in punitive ones. However, after
numerous appeals, the Supreme Court (in June 2008)
reduced the latter ones to $500 million - ten cents on
the dollar or the equivalent of about 1.5 days profit
from Exxon's Q 1 2008 operations, or hardly enough to
matter. As
for Prince William sound and its residents, its
beaches are still contaminated. The high-pressure
hoses did more harm than good. They destroyed
interlocking layers of gravel and flushed away fine
sediments that protect beach areas, clams and mussels
during storms. As many as 300,000 seabirds were killed
plus other wildlife. A
Trustee Council study found 17 of 27 monitored species
haven't recovered. Bio-accumulation of toxins affected
the killer whale population. Clams are inedible from
hydrocarbon poisoning. Shellfish damage slowed the
recovery of otters that feed on them. The herring
never returned. Salmon caught have abscesses and
tumors, and the lives of about 32,000 plaintiffs were
permanently disrupted economically, emotionally and
culturally by bankruptcies, alcoholism, suicides,
family violence, and divorces. And today the area
still smells like a gas station and perhaps will for
decades. As
for enacting Senate energy legislation, falsely called
a climate bill, the battle lines are now drawn,
including for offshore drilling, but given its
importance to Big Oil, expect heavy-lifting lobbying
for passage, whether or not this year. Whatever
happens, expect the public to lose out to powerful
corporate interests, especially energy and Wall Street
ones spending millions to assure it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site
at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge
discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio
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