Cantor's Loss to the Tea Party Kills Any Hope for Green Legislation

The defeat of Eric Cantor by Tea Party candidate David Brat in Virginia means that we can expect the deadlock in Congress to continue. This is particularly true with regard to energy, environment and climate legislation. While the GOP is well known for being anti-science and anti-environment, Tea Party Republicans are far more likely to be climate deniers than their mainstream Republican counterparts. Cantor is no friend of the environment but he has lost to someone that is far less likely to support even the most rudimentary green legislation.

When it comes to climate change there is a stark partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats, but the tendency towards denial is far more pronounced among Tea Party Republicans.

According to a 2013 Pew Research Center poll, 67 percent of Americans think climate change is real. Only 4 percent of Democrats think climate change is not happening and 13 percent of non-Tea Party Republicans share that view. Among supporters of the Tea Party the number who deny the veracity of climate change soars to 41 percent. To put it another way 61 percent of mainstream, non-Tea Party Republicans think there is solid evidence for global warming, while just 25 percent of Tea Party Republicans share that view.

Despite massively outspending his opponent ($5.2m compared to $120,000), Cantor suffered a humiliating loss. The results are a stunning upset as a House majority leader has not suffered a defeat in a primary in 115 years. Cantor was the second most senior Republican in the House and he was expected to replace John Boehner as the speaker. This loss represents a significant defeat for mainstream Republicans and a major victory for the climate denying fringe.
The grassroots movement that helped the GOP to gain ground has hijacked the Republican party and undermined national governance. Their extreme form of obstructionism has even succeeded in shutting down government.

Brat's campaign strategy focused on how Cantor had worked on bipartisan efforts including immigration reform and financial compromise efforts such as extending the debt ceiling and budget authority.

For the Tea Party, working in a bipartisan fashion is tantamount to selling your soul to the devil. This election result will no doubt send shock waves through the Republican party and push some to be even more obstructionist, anti-science, and anti-environment than they already were.

Brat's victory is an indication that Republicans have yet to cleanse their party of their Neanderthal brethren. While many had hoped that Republicans would succeed in ferreting out the anti-government Luddites that infect the party, the most recent results indicate that they are still alive and well. The net result is that no legislation will get through Congress in the foreseeable future, this is especially true for progressive energy and environment bills.

The Tea Party has broken the American legislative process and this definitively precludes all forms of green legislation. Unless Democrats can retain control of the Senate and take back the House in the 2014 midterms the legislative deadlock will continue.

© 2014, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Video - Senator Markey Calls out Republican Climate Deniers for their Fossil Fuel Advocacy and their Obstructionism on Climate Change

The Democratic Senator for Massachusetts Ed Markey laments the collapse of the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill. Had Republicans not opposed it, it would have cut carbon pollution and created jobs. He explains that the bill collapsed because Republicans tied the vote on Shaheen-Portman to three measures designed to support the fossil fuel industry:

1. Stop EPA rights to cut emissions form power plants
2. Increase exports of natural gas which will increase costs and therefore the use of coal
3. Prevent the Senate from considering global warming pollution controls

Antarctic Sea Ice

Markey referenced the studies which point to the unstoppable melting of the Antarctic sea ice and rising seas. This means cities like Boston, south Florida and New Orleans will be underwater. The world's ice is melting and Republicans are the cause. Markey suggests that the next piece of ice that breaks off of a glacier should be reserved as an island for climate deniers.

Production Tax Credit for the Wind Industry

He goes on to say that despite strong growth in the US wind industry, last year the sector lost 30,000 jobs because Republicans opposed the production tax credit (PTC). As explained by Markey if the oil and gas industry receive 7 billions of tax breaks per year than renewable technologies should as well.

He concluded his remarks by saying, "We need to be sure we are protecting generations to come"

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Video - Former Mexican President Blames Republicans for their resistance to Combating Climate Change

According to former President of Mexico Felipe Calderón, the GOP is a major impediment in the fight against climate change. Speaking at the Harvard Business school in April, Calderón said that Republicans in Congress are like Chinese coal plants in that they are both adversaries in the fight against climate change. He called Republicans, "The most serious problem is in the United States Congress." "If you are a Republican, it's like a formal requirement to be a nonbeliever in climate change. And that's bad," Calderón said.

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The US House of Representatives Anti-Environment Voting Record in 2013

A new report from Henry Waxman (D-CA), shows that the Republican controlled House of Representatives voted for anti-environment positions 109 times. The 113th Congress is almost as bad as the 112th Congress which was called "the most anti-environment House of Representatives in history" by Waxman and Ed Markey (D-MA).

The Waxman report shows that House members:

• Voted 51 times to to protect the interests of the oil and gas industry at the expense of the environment and human health
• Voted 20 times to weaken the Clean Air Act
• Voted 20 times to block or hinder federal carbon emissions regulations
• Voted 27 times to cut clean energy and energy efficiency funding and block clean energy policies,
• Voted 37 times to weaken the Clean Water Act and other regulatory efforts to improve water quality

The woeful voting record in the House should come as not surprise when you consider just how much money is being funneled to members of Congress from the fossil fuel industry. As reported by Think Progress, 160 representatives from the 113th Congress accepted more than $55.5 million from the fossil fuel industry, and 56 percent of the Republican caucus in 2013′s House of Representatives deny the reality of climate change.

© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Republicans Have Painted Themselves Into a Corner on Climate Change

The Republican position on climate change may drive party support to historic lows in the not too distant future. While most Americans (including supporters of the GOP) think that climate change is real and want the government to act, the majority of Republicans in Congress are science eschewing climate deniers. According to an analysis by the Center for American Progress, 58 percent of Republicans in the current Congress deny the existence of climate change or oppose action to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Congressman Joe Barton of Texas and Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma are poster boys for the flat earth/Luddites in Congress. They regularly dismiss climate change as a “hoax.” However a new analysis from a Stanford University Social Psychologists makes this position politically untenable. Americans, including Republicans think global warming is real and want the government to act.

“This new report is crystal clear,” said Waxman. “It shows that the vast majority of Americans – whether from red states or blue – understand that climate change is a growing danger. Americans recognize that we have a moral obligation to protect the environment and an economic opportunity to develop the clean energy technologies of the future. Americans are way ahead of Congress in listening to the scientists.”

While Democrats are known for their acknowledgement of a science based understanding of climate change Republicans have forcefully defined themselves as "skeptics." What is most striking about the research is the fact that members of the GOP in Congress are at odds with party supporters. 

According to the Stanford study, it is people's personal experience with extreme weather like heatwaves that is driving them to acknowledge the existence of man-made global warming and support government action to combat it. The GOP's recent hearings on global warming were little more than a climate denial sham, which suggests that many Republicans in the House have yet to feel the heat.

© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.


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Except for Republican Members of Congress Climate Deniers are a Rare Breed in America

According to the latest research, the vast majority of Americans both Democrat and Republican embrace the veracity of anthropogenic climate change and want the government to do something about it. However, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress, a solid majority (58 percent) of Republicans in the current Congress deny the existence of climate change or oppose action to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

John Krosniak is a social psychologist senior fellow and Stanford University Professor, his research (pdf) indicates that solid majorities in both blue and red states are worried about climate change. His analysis also says that majorities in both red and blue states want the government to act to reduce global warming causing emissions.

A vast majority of red-state Americans believe climate change is real and at least two-thirds of those want the government to cut greenhouse gases (GHGs). This holds true even in stridently red states like Texas and Oklahoma. More than 80 percent of Oklahomans and Texans accepted that climate change was occurring and 76 percent in both states want the government to act to limit GHGs

Krosnick's analysis comprises more than 10 years worth of poll results in 46 states. Climate deniers were not the majority in any of the states studied.

In every state surveyed for which sufficient data was available:

At least three-quarters of residents are aware that the climate is changing. At least two-thirds want the government to limit GHG emissions from businesses. At least 62 percent want regulations that cut carbon pollution from power plants. At least half want the U.S. to take action to fight climate change, even if other countries do not.

Click here for fact sheets

© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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House GOP's Climate Denial Circus of Lies

The Republicans in the House of Representatives staged a climate denial circus on Wednesday December 11. Their so-called “factual” hearing about climate change, invoked the testimony of skeptics concluded that half of scientists think that global warming is a hoax. The actual number in more like 97 percent. They also tried to dismiss any connection between climate change and extreme weather. The Subcommittee on Environment hearing was ironically titled “A Factual Look at the Relationship Between Climate and Weather.”

Much of the lies and misrepresentation came from John Christy, a climate denying professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. While the only scientifically factual part of the hearing came from Pennsylvania State University’s Dr. David Titley.

The Lies

As published in the Raw Story, Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) asked Professor Christy, if it was really true that “97 percent of climate scientist think that climate change is real.”

“No, not at all,” Christie replied. “The American Meteorological Society, by the way, did do a survey of its professional members and found only 52 percent said that climate change of the past 50 years was due mostly to human kind. So, 52 percent amount is quite small, I think, in terms of confidence.”

“You think the 52 percent is much more credible than the 97 percent?” Smith pressed.

“Oh, yes,” Christie insisted. “It included over a thousand respondents.”

“Fifty-two percent, I don’t think by anybody’s definition, is a consensus, by the way,” Smith noted. “So I would so say that there’s not necessarily a consensus.”

The Truth

Later in the hearing, Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) asked professor Titley, if he agreed with the witnesses who claimed there was no link between climate change and weather.

“You know, I was almost going to start nodding my head up and down with the other witnesses until I heard that there was no linkage,” Titley said. “I think the scientific consensus is not that there is no linkage, the scientific consensus is ‘we don’t know.’ What we do know, we have a warmer and more moister world.”

“Can you comment on the claim that there have been no increase in extreme weather events?” Takano wondered.

“Just take the basic data, we have had for the last 36 years, since President Ford was in office, above normal temperatures,” Titley observed. “That’s away from the center and they’re getting further and further away. Now if you take each year as kind of its own thing and imagine flipping a coin 36 times and getting heads. I mean, if that’s a fair coin, I want to go to Vegas with you.”

“The odds of that are about 1 in 68 billion,” he added. “To put it another way, there’s a 400 times greater chance that you’re going to win the Powerball [lottery] — which is $400 million, by the way, this week — than getting 36 coins to flip heads in a row.”

“So, I would say that is extreme. And the ice in the Arctic, that’s extreme. We’ve seen geologic changes in less than 10 years.”

A survey published earlier this year the journal Environmental Research Letters looked and the work of 29,000 climate scientists published in nearly 12,000 academic papers and found that 97.1% agreed that human activity was causing climate change.

© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Republican Controlled Subcommittee on Energy to Hold Hearings on Climate Change

The likelihood of House Republicans exploring the science of climate change is right up there with hell freezing over. However, this is precisely what is scheduled to take place, (no not hell freezing over Republicans investigating the science of climate change). Believe it or not House Republicans have summoned the leaders of 13 federal agencies to a hearing set to take place on September 18, 2013. These hearings will examine the sweeping climate change agenda proposed by US President Barack Obama in June.

Organized by the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, these hearing are asking relevant federal agencies about US climate change policies and the Obama administration's climate agenda. These hearings come in response to the President's request that Congress develop market-based legislation to reduce greenhouse gases.

This is a major step for House Republicans which up until this point have ignored all attempts to get them to examine the facts on global warming. Since 2011, subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (KY) has denied a total of 27 separate requests by Democrats to hold hearings on climate change. It will be fascinating to watch how House Republicans, a well known bastion of climate denial, deal with such a science based approach to the issues.

Whitfield has invited testimony from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Export-Import Bank of the U.S., the Office of Science and Technology, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

It should come as no surprise that this is in no way an endorsement of the President's climate agenda. The hearings are but the latest attempt by Republicans in Congress to diminish the administration’s climate change agenda.

The Climate Reality Project is encouraging legislators to support a scientific approach to managing climate change. Click hereto find out how.

© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Fiscal Cliff Deal Extends PTC and ITC for Wind Energy

On the cusp of the fiscal cliff the House voted to approve a sweeping tax deal that also extends the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for wind energy for one year. The wind industry has grown tremendously under the PTC and ITC and it can be expected that the year long extension will continue this growth into 2013. This is good news for America’s 75,000 workers in wind energy in 50 states. While the deal passed overwhelmingly in the Senate the House vote was much closer (257-167). Predictably many Republicans did not support the initiative and almost pushed the credits over the cliff.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that wind set a new record in 2012 by installing 44 percent of all new electrical generating capacity in America, leading the electric sector compared with 30 percent for natural gas.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said that the extension of the wind energy PTC and ITC will save up to 37,000 jobs and create far more over time, The extension will also revive business at nearly 500 manufacturing facilities across the country.

One study indicated that half the American jobs in wind energy—37,000 out of 75,000—and hundreds of U.S. factories in the supply chain would have been at stake had the PTC been allowed to expire.

Margie Alt, executive director of Environment America said that wind energy is a very significant front in efforts to diminish greenhouse gases.

“In powering nearly 13 million homes across the country already, wind energy avoids as much global warming pollution as taking 13 million cars off the road each year, according to a recent Environment America Research & Policy Center report. Our current wind energy capacity also reduces air pollution by avoiding 137,000 pounds of smog-forming emissions and 91,000 pounds of soot-forming emissions every year,” Alt said.

© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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The Implications of the Expiration of US Renewable Energy Subsidies

US Renewable energy subsidies expired in 2011 and this will slow the growth of renewables. There is already evidence that the expiration of the renewable energy cash grant programme under Section 1603 of the US Internal Revenue Code will reduce the volume of new renewable energy projects.

A significant volume of Q4 2011 transactions were driven by efforts to benefit from Section 1603. As a consequence the impact of renewable energy subsidies will not be immediately felt during the first six to nine months of 2012.

In 2011, although the debt market for renewable energy financing was strong, there was evidence that lenders became even more cautious. In 2012, different capital markets solutions will need to be considered.

To improve the outlook for renewable energy Congress can support President Obama's budget proposals to end oil subsidies and make renewable energy tax credits permanent.

© 2012, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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US Wind Energy Market Review and Forecasts for 2012

After decreasing by almost 50 percent in 2010 the US wind installations began to show signs of recovery in 2011. Wind farms have proliferated across the United States over the past decade, they now generate 3 percent of the nation's electricity. Wind power has installed 35 percent of all new American electric generation in the last five years. Wind energy is also one of the fastest growing new sources of US manufacturing jobs. American wind power accounts for 75,000 jobs today, and can grow to almost 100,000 jobs four years from now and according to a Bush Administration study, wind can support 500,000 American jobs less than 20 years from now. The U.S. now has over 400 manufacturing facilities in 43 states involved in wind turbine manufacturing. This represents a 12-fold growth in domestic manufacturing over the last six years.

Globally 2011 was a good year for wind installations in China, India and Canada and even Europe. Led by Brazil and Mexico, we are starting to see major growth in Latin America. The US market, although not up to the 10 GW installed in 2009, will be well ahead of 2010’s 5 GW market.

Increasing fossil fuel prices mean that as far as cost efficiency is concerned the wind power could achieve parity by 2016. The best wind farms in the world already produce power as economically as coal, gas and nuclear generators.

More than 7 GW of wind capacity is expected to be installed in the US in 2012, a 25% increase on 2011. The growth in wind is fueled by the proximate expiration of the Loan Guarantee programme, the production tax credit (PTC) and the investment tax credit (ITC), the main drivers for the wind market.

As developers of wind energy rush to complete projects before the expiration of the PTCs at the end of this year, the market will experience an acceleration of installations, especially during Q1 and Q2 of 2012. If the PTCs are not extended, a major halt throughout the entire US wind industry can be anticipated in the second half of 2012.

© 2012, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Renewable Energy in 2012: The Global Economic and Environmental Climate

Since 2009, lower fuel and energy prices created some tough uphill conditions for renewable energy. Despite these powerful headwinds renewable energy installations have increased over the last few years.

On the upside, the Latin American boom should continue to grow in 2012 led by countries like Brazil and Mexico, and new markets will emerge in countries like Kenya, South Africa and Mongolia.

However, the wider economic and political conditions are likely to worsen for renewable energy. One of the most difficult obstacles concerns the impact of the expiration of renewable energy subsidies in the US. Despite efforts from the solar industry, at the end of 2011 the Section 1603 Treasury Grants program came to an end. The wind industry faces a major obstacle with the expiration of the production tax credit (PTC), set for the end of this year.

Subsidies for renewable energy are being cut in the UK's solar and wind energy sectors. US renewable energy subsidies expired at the end of 2011 and Germany is planning to massively cut the Feed-in-Tariffs (FiTs) as of 9 March, 2012. The issue of Japanese FiTs is expected to be addressed by spring.

In the EU, the Eurozone crisis may result in a European recession. If the Eurozone crisis is brought under control, then it will benefit renewable energy markets in 2012, especially offshore.

In China we are seeing evidence of a slowdown and many are calling for major economic reforms. Economic growth in India slowed at the end of 2011.

The hope and promise of the ‘Arab Spring’ has given way to a winter of discontent as regimes in the Arab world are in turmoil.

In 2012, talk of war with Iran and instability in oil rich regions are creating uncertainty and driving up the price of oil. While this may help to create price parity for renewables, it also creates even greater economic pressures on the fragile global economies of nations that are still struggling to emerge from recession.

Amidst all this political and economic uncertainty, global warming continues unabated. NOAA said all 11 years of the 21st century rank among the 13 warmest. And NASA noted 9 of the top 10 warmest years in its record have occurred since 2000.

The La Nina effect was the warmest on record in 2011 according to data from NOAA and NASA. The increasing probality of melting Greenland and Antarctic icecaps are creating real concerns about the future of the planet.

The string of warm years in the last decade is linked to rapidly increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases NASA said. “Higher temperatures today are largely sustained by increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide,” NASA wrote in a press release. As the world's economies get stronger, energy demands will keep increasing and carbon emissions will keep rising.

The IEA’s chief economist has said that governments only have five years to avoid more than 2°C of global mean temperature rise.

These factors coalesce to create a troubling outlook. There is both an increased need for renewable energy and a decreased economic and political capacity to meet this need.

© 2012, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Private Sector Green Investment
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Investments from Corporate Sustainability is Driving Green Businesses in the UK
UK Government Investments in Efficiency and Renewable Energy
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Cleantech Partnerships and Collaborations
California and Other US Leaders in Cleantech Investments
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Resistance to Republican Efforts to Resurrect the Keystone XL Pipeline

Beginning at noon on Monday February 13, people are rallying in defense of President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline. The goal is to send a half a million emails to the Senate in 24 hours encouraging Democrats to back their President. This effort is designed to counter Congressional Republicans who are working hard to override President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL. In January Republicans forced the President to rule on the fate of the pipeline by holding America hostage over legislation extending the payroll tax holiday.

Although the president and Congress each has power under the Constitution to regulate foreign affairs, Congress has never before interfered when a president has used an executive order to grant a pipeline permit. If Republicans are successful it is likely to trigger a complex and protracted legal battle.

As stated by Bill McKibben, "Barack Obama did the brave thing. He stood up to the American Petroleum Institute (a.k.a. big oil) and their explicit threat to exact 'huge political consequences' unless he granted Keystone an immediate permit. And the GOP did the expected thing -- all along they've voted with near unanimity to speed up the pipeline. That's par for the course from a party awash in oily money -- a party whose leaders vie to denounce global warming as a hoax, and whose current frontrunner believes that thanks to the EPA Americans are living through 'a reign of environmental terror."

McKibben reports that some Democrats are also succumbing to oil money. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, has taken more money from the fossil fuel industry than any other Democrat in the chamber, so it should come as no surprise that he has said he'll vote for Keystone. Other Democrats are concerned that the oil industry will run ads against them at election time.

"This electronic blitz is an effort to show Congress that there's support out there for doing the right thing -- that the American people know the stakes and that they want to see a little bit of the president's courage on this issue reflected in the Senate." McKibben said. "This Congress is clearly not going to solve global warming -- no one expects Harry Reid to work miracles, converting implacable Republican opponents. But they can clearly hold the line if they want to. Maybe a letter or two -- or half a million all at once -- will nerve them up."

To resist Republican efforts to resurrect the Keystone XL pipeline click here.

© 2012, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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California's Proposition 23

On November 2nd, 2010, Californians will vote on Proposition 23, the ballot initiative that would suspend the state’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32).

AB 32 was signed into law by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, on September 27, 2006. The bill establishes a timetable to bring California into near compliance with the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol.

If passed, Prop 23 would put on hold a state renewable energy target, a market for rights to trade greenhouse gases and many other steps adopted under the state's AB 32. Put simply, the passage of Prop 23 would eliminate green jobs and increase pollution.

Supporters of Prop 23 have received contributions that top $9 million, led by oil companies including Tesoro Corp, Valero Energy Corp and Koch Industries' Flint Hills Resources.

According to a poll released today, Californians are leaning against the ballot to suspend the state's climate change law. The Public Policy Institute of California poll found 48 percent of likely voters oppose Prop 23 and 37 percent support it. However, 15 percent of those asked did not know.

The repeal of California's climate change law would be a major defeat for America's green economy. Although the polls indicate the proposition will be defeated, the undecided voters in combination with widespread frustration make the outcome less than certain.

The fact that this proposition is being voted on at all is an illustration of how the anti-incumbent mood imperils important environmental policy initiatives.

If big-oil-funded Prop 23 succeeds in repealing California's Global Warming Solutions Act, it will put aside a major bipartisan achievement. California's bipartisanship in the passage of AB 32 is all the more remarkable in light of the gridlock caused by Republican obstructionism in Washington.

Prop 23 is a referendum on the green economy. If the proposition passes, it would destroy much of the state's green industry, if it is defeated, California will be a model that other states will follow.


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