At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) yesterday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) asked the crowd, “What is happening to our liberty?,” before launching into a long-winded story about how he took back his freedom by replacing the energy-efficient “curlicue bulbs” at the Capitol with “good Edison light bulbs.” At some point during his anecdote, King even went so far as to compare the Capitol Hill janitors who replaced his incandescent bulbs with energy-efficient ones to “East German communist secret police, describing them as “Nancy [Pelosi]‘s Stasi troops.”

So I got this green bag right here. And I filled it up with the black market light bulbs. And I brought them back to my office here in the Capitol. Whenever I need to put a bulb in the lamp, I reach in this green bag and I screw it in there and smile. A little bit of my liberty back. A little bit of our freedom back. And I want to challenge you to do the same thing. Bring back some of that liberty, some of that freedom.

Following his attack on energy-efficient light bulbs, Rep. King took on the water-saving showerhead in his shower, before bringing his tirade to a close with the declaration, “I want my liberty back!”

Watch it:

The new light bulb efficiency standards have faced strong opposition from members of the GOP, who consider the rules not only a ban on light bulbs, but as another example of unneccessary federal regulation. Environmentalists and energy-efficiency business groups disagree and are quick to point out that the standards do not ban incandescent light bulbs, but requires them to be more efficient. Despite the GOP’s best efforts to pass measures that would block funding for the standards’ enforcement, The Energy Department rules went into effect at the beginning of the year.

– Fatima Najiy

In an independent review, John McCain’s former National Finance Chairman finds the loan guarantee program was cost-effective for taxpayers

by Richard W. Caperton

Take a deep breath, because what I’m about to tell you may be shocking: loan guarantees for energy have been successful, cost-effective investments.

That’s the message from Herb Allison, former national finance chairman for John McCain, who led a team of accountants and auditors in conducting an independent analysis of the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program.  Allison and his team found that, despite the hysteria around Solyndra, this program will cost $2 billion less than initially expected.

Today, the White House released Allison’s review.  It includes an analysis of every loan guarantee issued from DOE, as well as recommendations for managing this portfolio of guarantees going forward.  This independent review was requested by the White House in late 2011, to make sure that the DOE loan guarantee portfolio was cost-effective for taxpayers.

The Allison review confirms what we already know, thanks to the Congressional Research Service and Bloomberg Government.  Instead of looking at individual investments, CRS examined the entire DOE portfolio, and concluded that the overwhelming majority of the portfolio was in electrical generation projects, which DOE structured to have very low risk.  Bloomberg Government took that a step forward, and concluded that the media’s incessant focus on Solyndra was “not proportional to its impact.”

There are multiple reasons why the risks to taxpayers from this program are so low.  First, most of the guarantees went to support projects that have very secure contracts to sell their power to investment-grade rated utilities. Allison and his team of independent auditors endorsed the methodology that DOE initially used to evaluate these types of projects, writing, “The Independent Consultant used the same Nine Criteria as did DOE because, in the opinion of the Independent Consultant, they comprise the salient factors for evaluating the credits and are substantially similar to the criteria that would be employed by private sector credit analysts for these types of loans.”

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Any morally acceptable pathway to prevent catastrophic global warming includes broad access to affordable birth control for the world’s women. The conservative war on birth control is a war on women’s rights, and thus on the rights of us all. Manmade global warming is one of the most troubling symptoms of economic and social injustice around the planet, and the ”countries in the developing world least responsible for the growing emissions are likely to experience the heaviest impact of climate change, with women bearing the greatest toll.” Researchers have found that empowering women to reduce unplanned pregnancies is one of the most cost-effective ways to combat greenhouse pollution, as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson discussed at the Durban climate conference last December:

In addressing climate resilience, Robinson stressed the importance of focusing on health and burden impacts of climate change. One of the keys is access to reproductive health for women.

”The sexual and reproductive health and rights community should challenge the global architecture of climate change, and its technology focus, and shift the discussion to a more human-based, rights-based adaptation approach,” said a Lancet editorial in 2009. ”Such a strategy would better serve the range of issues pivotal to improving the health of women worldwide.”

“Increasing women’s reproductive rights should be at the heart of the climate discussion, in the same basket as strategies like increasing energy efficiency and researching new technologies,” Robert Engelman of Worldwatch said in 2010.

As Nick Kristoff said in 2011, family planning is a solution to “climate change to poverty to civil wars,” but it has become a “victim of America’s religious wars.”

The more world leaders focus on giving women and girls the tools of empowerment — access to family planning, education, and the political and economic system — the better future all of us will have.

A world where women and girls have more power is a healthier world.

What’s an anti-science politician to do when even a Koch-funded researcher says that human activity is causing global warming? Well, you could just stop all scientific endeavors in the field all together.

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference yesterday, Colorado Republican Congressman Cory Gardner explained to attendees that was just what his party was determined to do.

When a questioner asked how Republicans can stop taxpayer dollars going to climate research and other programs to reduce carbon emissions, the panelists chuckled. Then Rep. Gardner answered the question, explaining that many GOP leaders are committed to “get that money out that’s been feeding the industry.”

Think Progress Green has the video. (Also for another CPAC “best of,” check out TP Green’s post: Santorum Froths At CPAC About ‘Facade Of Man-Made Global Warming’).

QUESTIONER: Since climate science is now all settled, Republicans and Democrats can agree that it’s all settled” the DOE budget is going to roll out, can we stop spending taxpayer’s money on climate science and ways and means of limiting carbon emissions.

GARDNER: Those amendments were all added to the Republican past budgets and appropriations bills, stripped out of course by the Senate, so I think there have been attempts to get that money out of research that’s feeding the industry.

Rep. Cory Gardner was one of 34 members of Congress who voted three times in a row last March to against an amendment recognizing that “climate change is happening and human beings are a major reason for it.”

Related Post:

• Santorum Froths At CPAC About ‘Facade Of Man-Made Global Warming’

Rick Santorum, who scored several wins this week in the Republican presidential race, told a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC this morning that climate change is a leftist scientific conspiracy to destroy America. He railed that the “facade of man-made global warming” might convince people with the “sentimentality” to be “stewards of this earth” to think there should be limits on the burning of fossil fuels:

One of the favorite things of the left is to use your sentimentality, and your proper understanding and belief that we are stewards of this earth and we have a responsibility to hand off a beautiful earth to the next generation. They use that and they have used it in the past to try to scare you into supporting radical ideas on the environment. They tried it with this idea, this politicization of science called man-made global warming. President Obama, you may remember, tried to pass cap-and-trade and tried to get control not only of the health care system but of the energy industry, the manufacturing industry, another two big sectors of this economy, and using this facade of man-made global warming. I stood up and fought against those things. Why? because they will destroy the very foundation of prosperity in our country.

Watch it:

Santorum argued that his public embrace of the radical conspiracy theory that the world’s scientific community has concocted the greenhouse effect to enable socialists to take over the fossil fuel industry will help him win the White House.

“They try to scare you and intimidate you to trust them and give them more power,” Santorum concluded. “We need somebody who is willing to go out on these big issues of the day and draw contrasts.”

With the construction industry still recovering in the U.S., companies offering “green” services may be able to set themselves apart and grow business faster, according to a survey conducted by McGraw-Hill Construction.

In 2011, green builds in the residential sector made up 17% of construction, totaling $17 billion in economic activity. And the value of the residential green building market is expected to grow five-fold by 2016, taking up to 38% of the market and representing $87 billion – $114 billion.

McGraw Hill defines green building as “one built to LEED standards, an equivalent green building certification program, or one that incorporates numerous green building elements across five category areas: energy efficiency, water efficiency, resource efficiency, responsible site management and improved indoor air quality.”

According to figures released by McGraw Hill, 46% of “conventional” homebuilders say that providing green design services makes it easier to find new work. And 71% of firms working exclusively in the green building space say that these services help set themselves apart in a struggling construction market.

Many factors are driving the green homes market, with “higher quality” and “increases in energy costs” topping the list, indicating that today’s green homebuyer is not just a green consumer. Buyers recognize that green homes have lower bills due to higher building performance. The reported costs of building a green home have also gone down significantly. Builders report that the cost to go green is now 7%, as compared to 10% in 2008 and 11% in 2006.

While green is growing across the U.S., three regions are seeing higher than average growth. The West Coast has seen the highest green growth; the Midwest’s northern region, west of the Mississippi, is second highest; and New England ranks third.

The green remodeling market performed even better than new construction in 2011, with 62% of firms saying green services helped them increase work last year. Just over one third of remodelers say they’ll be doing mostly green work by 2016.

This mirrors trends in the commercial sector, where LEED-certified retrofits surpassed new builds for the first time ever in 2011.

All this green building activity translates into new jobs and new skills for existing workers. McGraw Hill reported in October that one third of architects, engineers and contractors in the U.S. — around 660,000 people — say they have “green” jobs. That number may climb to more than 900,000 jobs by 2015.

Related Posts:

• Green Jobs Make Up 35% of Design and Construction Industry: “People Will Never Go Back to Building Inefficient Buildings”
• Retrofits Surpass New Builds in LEED-Certified Green Buildings
• Top 10 Residential Green Building Trends to Watch in 2012

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Even before taking control of the House of Representatives last year, Republicans made concerted efforts to demonstrate exactly how little they care about climate change, defeating cap and trade in 2009 and opposing any effort to regulate carbon emissions or pollutants.

But since taking the House, the GOP has taken those efforts to a new level, attempting to strip funding for climate change research from various budgets and spending proposals. Senate Democrats were able to protect such funding, but at the Conservative Political Action Conference yesterday, Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) assured attendees that the GOP was committed to ending such funding and hinted that such efforts would continue:

QUESTIONER: Since climate science is now all settled, Republicans and Democrats can agree that it’s all settled” the DOE budget is going to roll out, can we stop spending taxpayer’s money on climate science and ways and means of limiting carbon emissions.

GARDNER: Those amendments were all added to the Republican past budgets and appropriations bills, stripped out of course by the Senate, so I think there have been attempts to get that money out of research that’s feeding the industry.

Watch it:

The effects of climate change have become more evident over the last year, as extreme natural disasters struck across the country and record warm temperatures have hit the country this winter. Still, the GOP remains committed to doing nothing about it, and if Gardner is to be believed, Republicans will continue to assault funding for climate change research at every opportunity.

A bulldozer flattens out coastal sand dunes to make way for Donald Trump's golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Trump says the Scottish First Minister is "hellbent on destroying the Scottish coastline."

Real estate mogul and former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has outdone himself this time.

After starting construction on a 1,235 acre coastal golf course on rural land in Scotland that will feature two golf courses, 950 houses and a luxury hotel, Trump is now complaining that the Scottish Minister is “hell-bent on destroying Scotland’s coastline” with offshore wind projects.

Last summer, Trump vowed to fight an 11-turbine offshore wind project proposed for waters 1.5 miles away from his sprawling complex where bulldozers have been ripping up untouched grasses and flattening coastal sand dunes to make way for an artificial golf course.

In a letter to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond sent this week, Trump hilariously says he will try to “save Scotland” (yes, really) from the plight of wind turbines being proposed for the country’s coastline:

“With the reckless installation of these monsters, you will single-handedly have done more damage to Scotland than virtually any event in Scottish history.”

Trump also said he would never be “on board” with the project, which he called “insanity”.

He added: “As a matter of fact, I have just authorised my staff to allocate a substantial amount of money to launch an international campaign to fight your plan to surround Scotland’s coast with many thousands of wind turbines.”

He added: “Please understand that I am doing this to save Scotland.”

One Scottish politician called Trump’s comments “desperate” and “embarrassing” — perhaps two of the biggest understatements of the year so far.

Trump’s letter comes after a multi-year battle with local landowners who don’t want to be forced from their property to make way for the golf course. In one case, Trump built a fence around a local homeowner’s property he deemed “ugly” and then billed him for half the costs!

Yes, this is coming from a man who ran for U.S. president, and who now sees himself as a serious candidate for Secretary of State in order to “be in a position to negotiate against some of these countries.”

Trump has not signaled what his negotiating strategy would be. But if history is any guide, it will likely involve sending hypocritical letters to countries threatening his pet projects.

Other stories below: Rio +20 shows little sign of living up to original Earth Summit; wind energy tax credit could be extended

Canada PM vows to ensure key oil pipeline is built

Canada’s prime minister on Friday made his strongest comments yet in support of a proposed pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to the Pacific coast, saying his government was committed to ensuring the controversial project went ahead.

Enbridge Inc’s Northern Gateway pipeline, which is strongly opposed by green groups and some aboriginal bands, would allow Canada to send tankers of crude to China and reduce reliance on the U.S. market.

An independent energy regulator — which could in theory reject the project — last month started two years of hearings into the pipeline.

In remarks that appeared to cast some doubt on the regulator’s eventual findings, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it had become “increasingly clear that it is in Canada’s national interest to diversify our energy markets”.

He continued: “To this end, our government is committed to ensuring that Canada has the infrastructure necessary to move our energy resources to those diversified markets.”

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