Yes — and no (unless you worry about Iraq, Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda, in which case, yes, you should worry that Jones might be talking his eye off the proverbial bomb ball).

The WashPost reported Sunday:

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The interview, not with Dobbs himself, is on the absurd FutureGen earmark in the Senate stimulus bill.

The coal industry needs to get its story straight. Is the Futuregen “zero-emissions” coal technology now in the stimulus bill “shovel ready”? If so, the industry shouldn’t oppose greenhouse gas regulations or even an emissions standard that blocks coal without CCS (see “The Path to Carbon Capture and Storage).”

If the technology does not exist, if as the industry claims we are many years away from demonstrating commercial viability for capturing and storing CO2 from coal, then there won’t be bloody many jobs created over the next two years by this $2 billion (see “Is coal with carbon capture and storage a core climate solution?“).

Despite Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-NE) claim that he, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and other centrists “trimmed the fat, fried the bacon, and milked the sacred cows” to deliver a shrunken economic recovery package, they kept in a $50 billion dollar nuclear boondoggle:

Subject to section 502 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, commitments to guarantee loans under section 1702(b)(2) of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, shall not exceed a total principal amount of $50,000,000,000 for eligible projects, to remain available until committed: Provided, That these amounts are in addition to any authority provided elsewhere in this Act and this and previous fiscal years . . .

As the Wonk Room has previously written, the line item inserted by Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) for $50 billion in misleadingly named “clean energy” loan guarantees will go primarily to the nuclear industry, generating few jobs and little economic growth.

Furthermore, the Senate watered down a new program intended to spur the widespread commercial deployment of renewable electricity. The new program, Section 1705, is exclusively for loan guarantees for renewable energy and electric power transmission systems that will be completed by September 30, 2012. The House of Representatives appropriated $8 billion exclusively to this program. Nelson-Collins instead allocates $8.5 billion to both Section 1705 as well as the broad “clean energy” loan guarantee program, thwarting the goals of President Obama.

The Senate package also ups the cash for coal companies at the behest of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), more than doubling the House’s allocation for fossil energy programs that capture carbon emissions to $4.6 billion. There is even a loophole that allows coal plants that do not make any attempt to capture emissions to qualify, by allowing that “awards for such projects may include plant efficiency improvements for integration with carbon capture technology.”

In sum, Sens. Bennett and Byrd, Nelson and Collins “trimmed the fat” by keeping $50 billion in pork for the nuclear and coal industry — while cutting billions in funds for science, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and green jobs programs.

I’d be interested in hearing your answer to this question in the comments.

How desperate is the conservative pollster Rasmussen to glom onto the climate issue and both trivialize and confuse the debate with hyperbole, unscientific polls, and inane, vaguely worded questions? Pretty damn desperate, to judge by their headline poll last Thursday:

23% Fear Global Warming Will End World – Soon

Nearly one-out-of-four voters (23%) say it is at least somewhat likely that global warming will destroy human civilization within the next century. Five percent (5%) say it’s very likely.

Uhh, what does this polling question mean anyway:

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The House-passed stimulus bill included $400 million for ARPA-E. That money is nowhere to be found in the Senate stimulus. Hurray!

I’m happy to be quoted on why ARPA-E is more pointless bureaucracy. As I wrote 18 months ago when the law authorizing it passed:

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You might think that the recent collapse in oil demand would put off the peak. But the price collapse and global credit crunch mean the reverse is true:

Non-OPEC crude oil production may have already peaked and international oil companies faced the prospect of both younger and older oil fields declining steeply, the firm said in the report released on Wednesday.

Merrill said “the cumulative decline of global oil production from today could amount to 30 million barrels per day by 2015.” What does world need to do going forward?

Steep falls in oil production means the world now needed to replace an amount of oil output equivalent to Saudi Arabia’s production every two years, Merrill Lynch said in a research report.

This matches what the normally conservative and staid International Energy Agency has been saying in recent months (see “Science/IEA: World oil crunch looming? Not if we can find six Saudi Arabias!” and “IEA says oil will peak in 2020“).

The global economic recession has cut funding for investment in oil production around the globe. Ironically — or tragically — the only thing that can save the world from a return to soaring oil prices by 2010 or 2011 is if economic slowdown turns into “a multi-year event where global oil demand was pushed down structurally for the next five years.”

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I think Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Waxman (D-CA) may be making both a strategic and a tactical mistake in pushing to get a climate bill out of committee by Memorial Day. I say this as someone who was delighted Waxman defeated Dingell for the chairmanship.

Strategically, as an extended must-read analysis in E&E Daily (subs. req’d, reprinted below) explains:

… in the Energy and Commerce Committee, it is often stated that a legislative victory there foretells success when the bill reaches the entire House. “If you do it in committee, I think you do a huge amount of what you need to do for the floor,” said Manik Roy, vice president of federal outreach at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Obama isn’t going to see a climate bill on his desk this year (see “Sen. Boxer makes clear U.S. won’t pass a climate bill this year“). Even Speaker Pelosi was originally skeptical the House would pass cap and trade this year.

Obama certainly isn’t going to devote a lot of time and political effort to raising the issue’s profile in the next three months — nor should he (“Obama can get a better climate bill in 2010. Here’s how“).

So why push such an important and difficult vote before the ground has been laid for it, when you will be operating with one hand tied behind your back — at a time when the Administration, public, and media are focused squarely on the greatest economic mess since the Depresssion? Even if Waxman succeeds under such circumstances, he may be stuck with a weaker bill than he otherwise could have gotten.

I will explore what I see as Waxman’s tactical mistake — trying to put energy legislation into his climate bill — in a later post.

Here is the full E&E Daily story:

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I previously blogged on the blunt LAT interview that Energy Secretary Steven Chu gave last week (see Chu: “Wake up,” America, “we’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California”).

Now the reporter, Jim Tankersley, has posted online (here) virtually the entire 40-minute interview, Chu’s first since being confirmed as secretary. Tankersley notes that:

Chu isn’t a climate scientist — he’s a Nobel-winning physicist — but he’s served on several climate-change commissions, and in his position, will be one of President Obama’s point men on the climate issue.

Chu has studied the climate science issue for years and talked to many of the leading climate scientists in coming to his conclusions. His full remarks are well worth reading, as a preview of what to come from team Obama and as an extended breath of fresh air after eight long years of high-level Bush Administration denial and muzzling of U.S. climate scientists:

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