Science is the foundation of progress.

Rejecting science means in essence rejecting hope for Americans and indeed for all humankind:  We live in complex times fraught with dangers, many of which are human-made and can be solved only by the application of science backed by resources that, sometimes, only government can mobilize.   That is certainly the case with human-caused climate change.

Sadly, tragically even, the US House of Representatives today voted down 240-184 an amendment from Henry Waxman (D-CA) that stated:

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The series of votes this afternoon on four different anti-climate amendments uncovered 17 Democrats who are willing to support the polluter agenda of the 47 science-denying zombies of the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate. They voted today to hobble the EPA’s limited action to set standards for carbon pollution from the largest industrial sources, such as giant coal-fired power plants and oil refineries that already emit other pollution covered by the Clean Air Act. Here are the four amendments, none of which were adopted:

McConnell Amendment: Four pollution-fueled Democrats embraced the “Energy Tax Prevention Act” — the extremist legislation introduced by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to literally deny the science of global warming. The Democrats who voted for the McConnell amendment, which failed by a 50-50 vote, were Sen. Mary Landrieu (LA), Joe Manchin (WV), Ben Nelson (NE), and Mark Pryor (AR). In the 2010 cycle, Koch Industries contributed $39,500 to Landrieu, $36,500 to Nelson, and $30,000 to Pryor. Manchin’s 2010 election was fueled by over $500,000 from coal and oil interests.

Rockefeller Amendment: Nine Democrats voted for Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) amendment for a two-year moratorium on climate rules, which failed by a 12-88 vote: Sen. Kent Conrad (ND), Tim Johnson (SD), Landrieu, Manchin, Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Nelson, Pryor, Rockefeller, and Jim Webb (VA).

Stabenow-Brown Amendment: Seven Democrats voted for Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) amendment to suspend, for 2 years, any Environmental Protection Agency enforcement of greenhouse gas regulations, to exempt American agriculture from greenhouse gas regulations, and to increase the number of companies eligible to participate in the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit Program, which failed 7-93: Brown, Robert Casey (PA), Conrad, Amy Klobuchar (MN), Johnson, Pryor, and Stabenow.

Baucus Amendment: Seven Democrats voted for Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-MT) amendment to prohibit the regulation of greenhouse gases from certain sources, which also failed 7-93: Baucus, Mark Begich (AK), Kay Hagan (NC), Carl Levin (MI), Klobuchar, Conrad, and Johnson.

To review, the dirty seventeen are Baucus (MT), Begich (AK), Brown (OH), Casey (PA), Conrad (ND), Hagan (NC), Johnson (SD), Klobuchar (MN), Landrieu (LA), Levin (MI), Manchin (WV), McCaskill (MO), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), Rockefeller (WV), Stabenow (MI), and Webb (VA).

Only Sen. Susan Collins (ME) broke the Republican ranks to vote against the McConnell amendment, voting instead for Rockefeller’s two-year delay bill. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Scott Brown (R-MA) voted for both the Rockefeller and McConnell amendments.

If all 64 Senators were to vote for legislation to hobble climate action in the future, a filibuster would fall, and only a veto from President Obama could protect the Clean Air Act from the Koch and coal power grab.

As the budget standoff between the Republican controlled House of Representatives and the Democrats reaches a fever pitch, much of the media attention — and frustration — has been focused on reaching a solution to avert a government shutdown. But, under the radar, newly-elected Republicans across the country are proposing disastrous environmental legislation to achieve radical-right aims, such as opening state parks for fracking and exposing their citizens to industrial waste.

OHIO: At the behest of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, an exemption was inserted into a 2005 energy bill — dubbed the “Haliburton loophole” — which stripped the EPA of its power to regulate a natural gas drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing. This method, named fracking, entails drilling a L-shaped well deep into shale and pumping millions of gallons of water laced with industrial chemicals — chemicals which the energy companies are not legally bound to disclose. The poisonous fluid fractures the shale and releases natural gas deposits for collection. But the public health risk associated with fracking doesn’t seem to bother Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and state Republicans. The Ohio House introduced a bill early last month that would create a panel to open any state-owned land for oil and gas exploration to the highest bidder. Subsequently, in Kasich’s budget proposal, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources would be given authority to lease 200,000 acres of state park land for oil and gas exploration. Faced with a litany of problems related to fracking — even including a house exploding in Ohio — Kasich has fully endorsed drilling in Ohio state parks, saying, “Ohio is not going to walk away from a potential industry.” State Rep. John Adams (R), the House bill’s sponsor, said drilling in state parks can help erase a projected $8 billion budget deficit, and “keep our parks and our lakes up to the standards that the citizens of Ohio want.”

PENNSYLVANIA: After injecting fracking fluid deep into the earth to extract natural gas, the waste that returns becomes a nasty byproduct of saltwater mixed with radioactive materials. Most states require energy companies to inject the waste thousands of feet deep back into the earth — a technique that caused earthquakes in Arkansas. But Pennsylvania, one of the major states at the center of the natural gas boom, dumps the radioactive leftovers directly into rivers and streams, where communities get their drinking water. As a result of the atrocious practice, Pennsylvanians have gotten sick from drinking tap water. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) doesn’t seem to be bothered whatsoever by releasing radioactive waste into rivers, recently saying that he wants to make Pennsylvania “the Texas of the natural gas boom.” In fact, Corbett’s draconian budget cuts funding for environmental oversight, and contains no increases in fines for environmental damages related to fracking. Corbett has even said that the regulation of the natural gas industry has been too aggressive. Not surprisingly, an analysis of Corbett’s campaign contributions has found that he has accepted more money from the natural gas industry than all other Pennsylvania candidates combined.

NORTH CAROLINA: With moratoriums on fracking in Arkansas, New York, New Jersey, and potentially Maryland, state Rep. Mitch Gillespie (R) plans to introduce a bill that would permit fracking in North Carolina. Currently, dating back to rules and regulations put into law in the 1940s, fracking is illegal in North Carolina. But Gillespie wishes to change the law, saying to the House Environment Committee, “It’s my intention to move ahead” with legislation, and natural gas is “a resource” that “North Carolina should be compensated for.” Energy companies are seeking to drill in southern Granville County through Durham, Chatham and Lee counties. But Robin Smith, N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ assistant secretary, said that fracking will “endanger water sources in the area,” citing problems that have occurred in Pennsylvania.

TEXAS: Not only is Texas the biggest polluter in the country but it isn’t complying with federal air quality standards. Texas leads the nation in carbon dioxide emissions, and in 2008, Houston was ranked the fourth worst city for ozone. Texas has not been in compliance with federal air quality standards since 1994, when the state submitted a system of issuing flexible air pollution limits to the EPA — which allowed for a portion of a refinery or chemical plant to emit more pollutants than federal standards authorize as long as the total emissions did not infringe on federal air quality standards. In June 2010, the EPA published its “disapproval” of Texas’ air quality standards, stating that the Texas program “does not meet several national Clean Air Act requirements that help to assure the protection of health and the environment.” Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and state Republicans responded by filing a lawsuit that challenges the EPA’s ruling. Texas Department of Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples also pushed back against the EPA’s decision, saying, “[u]ltimately, in this process, it is the consumer, American families, that will be picking up the tab for” stronger air quality enforcement. Gina McCarthy, the EPA’s top air official, responded to the agency’s critics, citing that “enforcement of the Clean Air Act has saved lives and allowed the economy to grow.” In fact, the EPA just released a study which concluded that the Clean Air Act will “prevent 230,000 premature deaths and result in $2 trillion in economic benefits in 2020.”

MAINE: Newly elected Gov. Paul LePage (R) — who infamously told the NAACP to “kiss my butt” and that he would tell President Obama to “go to hell” — announced that he will be trimming dozens of environmental protections in order to make Maine more “business friendly.” LePage will be changing a minimum of 36 environmental laws, including opening up 10 million acres of northern Maine for business development, weakening a new law that that requires manufactures take back and recycle old products, relaxing air emission standards, and replacing the state Board of Environmental Protection with an appeals panel. In another remarkably atrocious move, LePage wants to reverse a ruling that the chemical BPA — which has been linked to learning disabilities in children, obesity, and cancer — should be phased out of children’s products. Thankfully, in a significant policy defeat for LePage, a Maine legislative committee unanimously ruled to ban BPA last week.

MONTANA: Instituted in 1971, the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) is a “look before you leap” policy, “requiring state agencies to consider the environmental, social, cultural and economic impacts of proposals like mines, power plants, [and] subdivisions.” Allowing for public input and deliberation when considering new industrial projects, MEPA is largely considered a success. But state Sen. Chas Vincent (R) has proposed a bill to gut the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), citing that it’s what “venture capitalists” need. Moreover, state Rep. Joe Read (R) has introduced a bill declaring global warming a “natural occurrence and human activity has not accelerated it,” and that “global warming is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana.” In an effort to help business projects tied up in lawsuits, state Republicans have even proposed amending the Montana Constitution’s guarantee of a “clean and healthful environment” to a “clean, healthful, and economically productive environment.”

MINNESOTA: State Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R) convinced a committee to amend the House outdoors bill to include a provision that allows the for-profit logging industry to cut trees in Minnesota’s Frontenac and Whitewater state parks. The provision was ultimately taken out of the outdoor spending bill, and Drazkowski expressed regret, saying that black walnut trees — worth up to $5,000 — will be left to “rot on the stump.” But the fate of 24 existing state parks and plans for the development of Lake Vermilion State Park are still on the cutting block as the House and Senate begin negotiating their outdoor spending bills.

These assaults on the environment have very little to do with budget shortfalls, but they do conveniently provide a platform of austerity where state Republicans can justify their ideological attacks on behalf of corporate polluters — who are not just stripping states’ natural resources but also the health and the jobs of their citizens. The Republican attacks on the environment are just the tip of the iceberg, though. Koch’s ALEC is underwriting radical-right legislation across the country, having major influence in efforts to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, helped draft Arizona’s controversial anti-immigration law, and is the major driving force behind anti-union bills in many states. In short, state Republicans have fallen ill to a larger pattern — carefully orchestrated and implemented by Koch’s ALEC and AFP — where the environment and the safety of their citizens are sacrificed, in favor of lining the pockets of the wealthy.

-Paul Breer

Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund urges a “no” vote on the efforts in the House and Senate to halt the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to clean up health-threatening carbon dioxide pollution under the Clean Air Act as decided by the Supreme Court. For the Senate, CAPAF urges a “no” vote on the Baucus Amendment # 236, Stabenow-Brown Amendment # 277, Rockefeller amendment # 215, and McConnell amendment # 183, which were offered to the SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011, S. 493. For the House, CAPAF urges a “no” vote on H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act.

Congress should oppose efforts to block protection of public health from threats posed by carbon dioxide pollution. Preventing the EPA from doing its job will risk the health of children, seniors, and those suffering from respiratory ailments.

– The public believes the EPA should do more, not less, to support the Clean Air Act. A February 2011 bipartisan poll found that “69 percent think the EPA should update Clean Air Act standards with stricter limits on air pollution.” Unions and more than 500 nongovernmental organizations oppose this antipublic health proposal.

– Delaying or eliminating the EPA’s authority to clean up carbon dioxide pollution will harm our health, which is why similar legislation restricting EPA authority was opposed by the major public health protection organizations, including the American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and many others. The American Medical Association recently wrote:

Patients are presenting with illnesses that once happened only in warmer areas. Chronic conditions are becoming aggravated by more frequent and extended heat waves. Allergy and asthma seasons are getting longer. Spates of injuries are resulting from more intense ice storms and snowstorms.

– The Clean Air Act has protected thousands of lives and has generated real benefit to the economy. For every $1 of pollution reduction costs, we have seen an economic benefit of $20.

– Halting the EPA’s efforts will increase smog by failing to address a key contributor to global warming. 2010 was the hottest year on record, following the hottest decade on record, which is part of a 50-year trend. Uncontrolled large coal-fired power plants and oil refineries will add to the carbon dioxide pollution responsible for this warming. And warm temperatures are a key ingredient in smog formation. An interim assessment by the EPA found that there is “the potential for global climate change to make U.S. air quality management more difficult.”

– The EPA’s efforts to reduce carbon dioxide pollution will create jobs and boost innovation, which is why utility leaders from Exelon Corp., Constellation Energy Group, Calpine Corp, and PG&E, among others, oppose congressional efforts to delay Clean Air Act implementation. These business leaders wrote that:

[E]xperience complying with air quality regulations demonstrates that regulations can yield important economic benefits, including job creation, while maintaining reliability.

Members should vote against the Energy Tax Prevention Act and the Baucus (#236), Stabenow (#277), Rockefeller (#215), and McConnell (#183) amendments, and instead allow the Environmental Protection Agency to continue to fulfill its responsibility to protect public health from carbon dioxide and other air pollutants.

‘Forgetting by doing’? Real escalation in reactor investment costs

Drawing on largely unknown public records, the paper reveals for the first time both absolute as well as yearly and specific reactor costs and their evolution over time. Its most significant finding is that even this most successful nuclear scale-up was characterized by a substantial escalation of real-term construction costs.

Fig. 13.  Average and min/max reactor construction costs per year of completion date for US and France versus cumulative capacity completed

We’ve known for a while that the cost of new nuclear power plants in this county have been soaring (see Nuclear power: The price is not right and Exclusive analysis: The staggering cost of new nuclear power).

Before 2007, price estimates of $4000/kw for new U.S. nukes were common, but by October 2007 Moody’s Investors Service report, “New Nuclear Generation in the United States,” concluded, “Moody’s believes the all-in cost of a nuclear generating facility could come in at between $5,000 – $6,000/kw.”  That same month, Florida Power and Light, “a leader in nuclear power generation,” presented its detailed cost estimate for new nukes to the Florida Public Service Commission. It concluded that two units totaling 2,200 megawatts would cost from $5,500 to $8,100 per kilowatt “” $12 billion to $18 billion total!  In 2008, Progress Energy informed state regulators that the twin 1,100-megawatt plants it intended to build in Florida would cost $14 billion, which “triples estimates the utility offered little more than a year ago.” That would be more than $6,400 a kilowatt.  (And that didn’t even count the 200-mile $3 billion transmission system utility needs, which would bring the price up to a staggering $7,700 a kilowatt).

Historical data cost on the French nukes have not been as well publicized.  But Arnulf Grubler of the International Institute for Applied Systems in Austria, using “largely unknown public records” was able to perform an analysis of French (and U.S.) nuclear plants for Energy Policy, “The costs of the French nuclear scale-up: A case of negative learning by doing” (subs. req’d).

Before discussing that paper, it is worth noting that renewable energy technologies have classic learning curves.  Here is solar:

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Maybe you can’t fool some of the people all the time.

Glenn Beck, the clown prince of disinformers, had increasingly become a self-parody (see Beck’s anti-science rant: Evolution is “ridiculous “” I haven’t seen a half-monkey, half-person yet”).

As MediaMatters noted a few weeks ago, “Beck now routinely flirts with ratings in the 1.6-1.8 million range, which is almost exactly half the rating Beck was getting one year ago.”

And so Beck is ending his daily relationship with Fox News show — or is that vice versa?  ThinkProgress has more details:

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Senators should vote against amendments that halt agency’s efforts to reduce air pollution

You can watch the debates in the House and Senate right now on efforts to block EPA’s effort to control carbon dioxide pollution on C-SPAN.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund urges a “no” vote on the Baucus Amendment #236, Stabenow Amendment #277, Rockefeller amendment #215, and McConnell amendment #183, which were offered to the SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011, S. 493.

Here’s why:

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“we need to figure out a way to get people in more places to listen to our case on the merits….”

“Frankly a couple of electoral losses attributable to bad environmental records would do a tremendous amount to restore some political will.”

Those are excerpts from an email sent me by Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund.  I asked him to elaborate on and/or clarify his controversial comments as quoted in this Greenwire/NYT piece, “EDF Chief: ‘Shrillness’ of Greens Contributed to Climate Bill’s Failure in Washington,” which a number of people e-mailed to me or posted comments on.

No one was more central to the environmental community’s strategy and tactics in the fight to pass a climate bill than Krupp, which is made clear in Eric Pooley’s must-read book on the bill’s life and death, The Climate War.

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By CAPAF’s Daniel J. Weiss and Richard W. Caperton

House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed FY 2012 budget resolution is a backward-looking plan that would benefit big oil companies at the expense of middle-class Americans. It retains $40 billion in Big Oil tax loopholes while completely eliminating investments in the clean energy technologies of the future that are essential for long-term economic growth.

This budget would lock Americans into paying high, volatile energy prices. It would ensure that millions of clean energy jobs are created oversees-not here in the United States. It is a path backward to Bush-Cheney Big Oil energy policies that cost jobs and harm American competitiveness. In short, the Ryan plan ensures that we lose the high-stakes competition for the $2 trillion worldwide clean tech market.

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Solar Costs May Already Rival Coal, Spurring Installation

Solar panel installations may surge in the next two years as the cost of generating electricity from the sun rivals coal-fueled plants, industry executives and analysts said.

Large photovoltaic projects will cost $1.45 a watt to build by 2020, half the current price, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimated today. The London-based research company says solar is viable against fossil fuels on the electric grid in the most sunny regions such as the Middle East.

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With Republican super-majorities in the New Hampshire senate and house, the Koch front groups American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Americans for Prosperity (AFP) have carefully orchestrated a campaign to remove the state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

In 2008, New Hampshire joined RGGI, which is a market-based regulatory program that cuts greenhouse gas emissions and has created 1,130 jobs as a result of the energy efficient benefits. While cleaning the environment, RGGI has cumulatively generated $28.2 million in revenue for New Hampshire.

Koch Industries, because they have manufacturing plants in the Northeast and release 300 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution every year, stand to profit greatly by repealing RGGI. To increase their bottom line, ALEC — a Koch-funded group that drafts model legislation for conservative state legislators — has written legislation to repeal regional climate programs:

WHEREAS, there has been no credible economic analysis of the costs associated with carbon reduction mandates and the consequential effect of the increasing costs of doing business in the State of ______;

WHEREAS, forcing business, industry, and food producers to reduce carbon emissions through government mandates and cap-and-trade policies under consideration for the regional climate initiative will increase the cost of doing business, push companies to do business with other states or nations, and increase consumer costs for electricity, fuel, and food;

Compare to the anti-RGGI bill sponsored and introduced to the House by state Rep. Richard Barry (R):

I. There has been no credible economic analysis of the costs associated with carbon dioxide emissions reduction mandates and the consequential effect of the increased costs of doing business in New Hampshire.

II. Businesses, industries, and food producers have been forced to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as a result of government mandates and cap and trade policies through the regional greenhouse gas initiative, which has increased the cost of doing business, pushed companies to do business with other states or nations, and increased consumer costs for electricity, fuel, and food.

When asked to explain the language in the bill at a public hearing, Barry nervously said that the bill’s sponsors did not write that particular section. State Rep. James Garrity (R), Chair of the House Science, Technology, and Energy Committee, responded by saying that “[o]ur committee does not feel that editorials belong in laws.”

After ALEC wrote the bill, Koch’s Americans For Prosperity began orchestrating broad campaigns to drum up support for the legislation:

– Koch’s AFP flooded New Hampshire with robocalls in support of the bill to repeal RGGI.

– At an event sponsored by ALEC, AFP Vice-President for Policy Phil Kepern publicly voiced his opposition of NH’s membership in RGGI. New Hampshire AFP Director Corey Lewandoski followed suit, saying, “It does nothing to reduce greenhouse gases because jobs and businesses just move to other states.”

ALEC’s text in the repeal bill was ultimately dropped, but the amended legislation to remove New Hampshire from RGGI overwhelmingly passed the House last week. If the bill makes it through the Senate and overtakes Gov. John Lynch’s veto, New Hampshire will be the first state to pull out of RGGI, threatening the wildly successful clean energy program’s future viability for the entire region.

There is a glimmer of hope: Not every state Republican is under the thrall of the Koch brothers. On Monday, state Sen. Nancy Stiles (R-Seacoast) broke party lines, saying she wanted to “save the standards for carbon emissions.”

See the Center for American Progress Fund’s new report on the Koch brothers empire.

-Paul Breer

Christy Goldfuss, CAPAF’s Public Lands Project Director, in a Think Progress cross-post.

For freshman Rep. Jeff Landry (R-LA), record pay for oil CEOs as Americans suffer from surging gas prices is the realization of the American Dream.

In a House Hearing last week, Landry had a remarkable exchange with Michael Fox (a lobbyist for gas station owners, not the actor). Pressed on Big Oil’s supposedly low profit margins, Fox pointed out that Exxon CEO Lee Raymond’s retirement package was “$450 million dollars for doing a 90 hour job,” and the service station retailer gets paid $60,000 for doing a 90 hour job. Landry responded by claiming that’s just the American Dream, and that Big Oil executives must be smarter and better than everyone else, including small business owners:

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In this excerpt from his book “Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse,” environmental visionary David Orr talks about The Oberlin project, a joint venture with President Clinton’s  Climate Positive Development Program.

With no prospect for Federal climate legislation anytime soon, however, what’s to be done? The short answer is that, whatever the prospects, we must keep pushing on every front to: change Federal and state policies, transform the economy, improve public understanding of science, engage churches and civic organizations, reform private institutions, educate for ecological literacy, and improve our own behavior. Even without a coordinated, systematic national response, maybe enough small victories in time will suffice. Maybe.

I ended Down to the Wire on a personal note by describing the Oberlin Project, a joint effort by Oberlin College and the City of Oberlin to create “full-spectrum sustainability” in which the parts are integrated to reinforce the resilience and durability of the whole community. Typically, we’ve gone about implementing sustainability as a series of one-off projects unconnected to each other. As a result, work in sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, green buildings, economic development etc. were not designed to take advantage of the synergies that exists between the parts.

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Another week, another hearing by the House Natural Resources Committee to perpetuate the myth that the only thing standing between us and energy security are the policies erected by the Obama administration that are supposedly thwarting domestic drilling on public lands.  CAPAF’s Tom Kenworthy has the story in this WonkRoom cross-post.

According to a recent statement by committee chairman Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), the “greatest factors” for new drilling are federal regulations and laws:

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