Showing remarkable gall, Canadian environmental minister Peter Kent took time from a climate change summit with the United States to promote the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. At the summit, Kent and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a coalition to reduce short-lived climate pollutants. Kent called the deal, to which Canada has pledged $3 million, a “critical step forward” in the fight against climate change. Kent also pushed Clinton to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which alone would add five billion tons of greenhouse pollution to the atmosphere over its lifetime:

Environment Minister Peter Kent on Thursday pressed U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the merits of the Keystone XL pipeline and affirmed the Harper government’s belief the Obama administration’s rejection of the $7-billion project had “nothing to do with the merit of the application.”

But Kent, in Washington for a summit on climate change, pointedly declined to weigh in on current efforts by congressional Republicans to strip the U.S. State Department of its authority to approve a new application for the 2,700-kilometre [1700 mile] oilsands pipeline.

Kent’s promotion of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline made a mockery of the climate pollution deal covering methane, hydrofluorocarbons, and black carbon, to which the United States has pledged $12 million and Canada $3 million. The Keystone XL pipeline is a $7000 million project.

“Action on short-lived climate pollutants will have clear benefits for particularly vulnerable regions like the Canadian Arctic,” Kent said. “The fragile Arctic environment is susceptible to the impacts of short-lived climate pollutants which may be partly responsible for the accelerated warming trend that we are recording there.”

The worst thing Canada can do to the “fragile Arctic environment” would be to mine and burn the “carbon bomb” of the tar sands.

If the short-lived pollution deal is a “critical step forward” in the fight against global warming, then investing billions in the exploitation of Canada’s tar sands is a giant leap backward.

There was a beacon in the smog surrounding the U.S. Capitol building this week.

While the House and Senate pushed for arctic drilling, attempted to revive the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and tried to delay rules on mercury emissions standards — all while failing to extend a key tax credit for wind — four climate hawk Senators attempted to put these actions into a powerful climate context.

Standing on the Senate floor for an hour on Wednesday, Senators Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Al Franken (D-MN), Tom Udall (D-NM) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) delivered a wide-ranging colloquy calling on the President and Congress to address the “enormous crisis” of global warming.

Here’s a great clip featuring Senators Sanders, Franken and Whitehouse:

Senator Whitehouse has delivered three great speeches on the Senate floor about global warming since October. During his last delivery in December, he was joined by Senator Franken. This time around, they brought in two more climate hawks, Senators Udall and Sanders.

Here’s a piece of the Senator Sanders’ speech:

According to virtually the entire scientific community in the United States of America and around the world, according to virtually every agency of the United States government, global warming is real and it is significantly caused by human activity. And people are mistaken if they believe that the impact of global warming will just be in decades to come. We are seeing very negative impacts today, and what the scientific community tells us, if we do not begin to reverse greenhouse gas emissions, those problems in America and around the world will only get worse.

Now, if there is a silver lining in all of that is that, Mr. President, right now, we know how to cut greenhouse gas emissions. We know how to move to energy efficiency, mass transportation, automobiles. We get 50, 60, 100 miles per gallon. We know how to weatherize our homes so that we can cut significantly the use of fuel. And what we also know is that in the middle of this recession, if we move in that direction, energy efficiency and sustainable energy, we can create over a period of years millions of good-paying jobs.

So let me conclude by saying this. We now have the opportunity to be in a win-win-win situation. We can save consumers money. We can significantly reduce greenhouse gases and protect our planet, and we can create substantial numbers of jobs that we desperately need in the midst of this terrible recession.

When is Obama going to talk like this?

One in a series of posts about the Heartland Institute’s inner workings, from internal documents acquired by ThinkProgress Green. Heartland has issued a press release claiming that some of these documents were sent to an outsider under false pretenses and that one document in the set is a fake, but the AP independently verified their contents.

Internal documents acquired by ThinkProgress Green reveal that the climate-denial think tank Heartland Institute received funding from at least 19 publicly traded corporations in 2010 and 2011. The companies’ combined contributions exceeded $1.3 million for an array of projects. As Think Progress Green reported on Tuesday, the Heartland Institute’s projects included a secret plan to teach children that climate change is a hoax.

The companies backing the Heartland Institute:

DENIERGATE COMPANIES
Company	Ticker Symbol	2010-2011 Total	Project Code
Altria Client Services Inc.	MO	$90,000	BTN
Amgen, USA	AMGN	$25,000	HCN
Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc.	BUD	$5,000	ITTN
AT&T	T	$100,000	ITTN
BB&T	BBT	$16,105	ECN
Comcast Corporation	CMCSA	$35,000	ITTN
Diageo	DEO	$10,000	GO
Eli Lilly & Company	LLY	$25,000	HCN
General Motors Foundation	GM	$30,000	SRN
GlaxoSmithKline	GSK	$50,000	HCN
KCI	KCI	$115,000	FIRE
LKQ Corporation	LKQX	$24,500	FIRE
Microsoft Corporation	MSFT	$59,908	ITTN
Nucor Corporation	NUE	$502,000	ECN
PepsiCo, Inc.	PEP	$5,000	BTN
Pfizer	PFE	$130,000	HCN
Reynolds American Inc.	RAI	$110,000	FIRE
Time Warner Cable	TWC	$20,000	ITTN
XL Group	XL	$35,000	FIRE
Projects: BTN=Budget & Tax News; ECN=Environment & Climate News; FIRE=Finance Insurance and Real Estate ; GO=General Operating; HCN=Health Care News; ITTN=Information Technology & Telecom News; SRN=School Reform News.

Some companies have issued statements about their contributions, but none have committed to ending their support for the Heartland Institute.

“Diageo provided a small contribution (nearly two years ago) to Heartland Institute – related to an excise tax issue,” a spokesperson said. “We vigorously oppose climate skepticism and our actions are proof of this. We will be reviewing any further association with this organization.”

While disavowing climate denial, Microsoft has indicated no intention to stop its in-kind tax-deductible contributions to the think tank.

“GSK absolutely does not endorse or support the Heartland Institute’s views on the environment and climate change,” a Glaxo Smith Kline spokesperson said. “We have in the past provided a small amount of funding to support the Institute’s healthcare newsletter and a meeting.”

Asked about the contributions, General Motors defended the Heartland Institute as “careful and considerate,” even though the radical think tank has accused “Government Motors” of “corporate welfare-sucking” and told people to “never again buy a GM car or truck.” Forecast The Facts has established a petition to GM asking them to stop funding climate denial.

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Last night the House of Representatives passed part of the behemoth transportation bill it is considering over the next month on a 237-187 vote.  This section consisted solely of earmarks to Big Oil including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opening Florida coasts to offshore drilling, a plan to develop oil shale (which isn’t even commercially viable), and building the Keystone XL pipeline.  A Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that the drilling proposals together generate only approximately $2 billion, far less than the $50 billion funding gap needed for transportation projects over the coming years.

Even if the drilling could pay for the costs, linking oil and gas development to long-term highway funding is just bad public policy, as Ryan Alexander of the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense has explained:

Paying for a couple of years of transportation funding with expected revenues from an increase in oil and gas drilling that will likely take many years to get rolling is not a responsible budget approach… It’s like buying the Ferrari tomorrow because you are sure a raise is coming sometime in the future.”

Originally the transportation bill (H.R. 7, American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012) was one large bill that included transportation funding, drilling, and changes to federal pensions.  However, Republicans realized that they would not have the votes for the bill, and so split it into three bills to be voted on separately that will then be spliced back together and sent to the Senate.  This was an unusual procedural move designed to shield Republicans from having to take tough votes that won’t be popular with their constituents but also force the bill through.

What is most galling is that none of these bills alone or combined would be able to pay for the costs of transportation generated by this bill.  Traditionally, improvements to roads, bridges, and public transportation are funded by the federal gasoline tax, but GOP leaders in the House are taking the unprecedented step to tie funding to an unnecessary and ineffective increase in fossil fuel production.  Since it doesn’t even begin to fund our highways, the bill can be considered nothing more than a series of earmarks for Big Oil.

The proposal to fund oil shale from Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) is a particularly nasty earmark.  The Congressional Budget Office found the bill would generate no revenue over 10 years and in the short term would cost money to implement the leasing program.  The Checks and Balance Project detailed this “boondoogle” in an online ad.

Last night’s vote saw some crossing of party lines, particularly 11 Florida Republicans angered by proposals to drill off of the state’s coasts who voted no on the bill’s passage.

After 185,000 pages of documents, ten hearings, and two subpoenas, we still haven’t found any evidence improper behavior

by Richard W. Caperton

Today, the fruitless investigation into the Solyndra loan guarantee turns one year old. Sadly, fruit is the traditional gift on the fourth anniversary. So what do you give on a first-anniversary to someone who already demanded all the paper they could ever need for the rest of their lives?

On February 17, 2011, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns sent a letter to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu requesting all DOE communication about the decision to issue a loan guarantee to Solyndra.  Thus began the most over-hyped, over-covered, and over-examined stories in recent memory — including Tim Tebow.

Since Upton and Stearns sent their letter, the House has received 185,000 pages of documents, held ten hearings, heard from 26 witnesses, and issued two subpoenas. Despite this, they have yet to find any evidence of improper behavior.

The key figure in the House investigation has been Stearns. Not since Ponce de Leon went searching for the Fountain of Youth has a Floridian led a less successful hunt for an illusive prize. To be fair to de Leon, at least he knew what he was looking for and had he found it, his youth would have been restored. Stearns didn’t even know what a loan guarantee was as recently as October, and this investigation is definitely getting old.

It’s not as if the House Republicans are the only people pursuing this story. The mainstream press has devoted countless column inches and hours of coverage to the Solyndra non-story, while virtually ignoring real scandals that are a full order of magnitude bigger in dollar terms.

While House Republicans have wasted day after day in hearings, independent analyses continue to find that the DOE loan guarantee program is actually exceeding expectations. Most recently, Herb Allison — John McCain’s former national finance chair — led a team of accountants and auditors who found that the Program will cost a full $2 billion less than DOE initially expected. This follows analyses by Bloomberg Government, who found “The focus on Solyndra is not proportional to its impact,” and the Congressional Research Service, who found that the great majority of guarantees were extremely low risk.

Instead of wasting more staff time and taxpayer dollars on a fishing expedition for political scandal, it’s time for the House to do things that can actually move clean energy forward and put Americans back to work, like extending the Production Tax Credit, passing a clean energy standard, and creating a Clean Energy Deployment Administration. That would be a gift all Americans would welcome.

Richard W. Caperton is director of clean energy finance at the Center for American Progress.

Scientist calls coverage of his research by Murdoch media outlet “misleading” and “inaccurate”

by Shauna Theel, reposted from Media Matters

Once again, a scientist has had to correct a Fox News distortion after the network’s flagship nightly news program misrepresented a study to claim “the Earth’s polar ice is melting less than previously thought.” Dr. John Wahr, who helped lead the research, said via email that Fox’s coverage is “misleading” and “inaccurate.”

The research from the University of Colorado Boulder — the ”first comprehensive satellite study of the contribution of the world’s melting glaciers and ice caps to global sea level rise” – found that the land ice shrunk by nearly 150 500 billion tons every year between 2003-2010 (mostly from Greenland and Antarctica), adding 12 millimeters to sea level rise.

While the study found that glaciers in the Himalayan region were melting less than ground-based estimates had indicated, Professor Wahr said “our estimate of polar ice loss is roughly the same as previous estimates,” contrary to Fox News’ report. Wahr observed that Fox seemed to believe that the Himalayas are located at the Earth’s poles. They are not.

Speaking to The Guardian last week, Wahr said: “Our results and those of everyone else show we are losing a huge amount of water into the oceans every year … People should be just as worried about the melting of the world’s ice as they were before.” But somehow Fox came up with this:

BRET BAIER (host): Worried about polar ice melting? You may not be after a quick break.

Shauna Theel is a researcher with Media Matters for America. This piece was originally published at Media Matters.

Related Posts:

• JPL bombshell: Polar ice sheet mass loss is speeding up, on pace for 1 foot sea level rise by 2050.
• Greenland Ice Sheet Ties Record for Mass Loss in 2011 and “Could Undergo a Self-Amplifying Cycle of Melting and Warming … Difficult to Halt,” Scientists Find

Big win for nation’s first offshore wind farm; big loss for a Koch Brother

by Michael Conathan and Kiley Kroh

In a huge step toward making the nation’s first offshore wind farm a reality, Massachusetts officials announced Wednesday that energy companies Northeast Utilities and NStar have agreed to buy more than a quarter of the power produced by the Cape Wind offshore wind farm.  The Cape Wind power purchase agreement is “one portion of a broader agreement that Attorney General Martha Coakley said would save an estimated $217 million over four years for customers of NStar and Western Massachusetts Electric Co., which is currently owned by Northeast Utilities.”

With 50 percent of its power previously under contract to National Grid, the terms of the merger agreement between the two companies means Cape Wind will have a buyer for more than three-quarters of its electricity, paving a clearer path for the company to generate the investments that will allow construction to begin. The project received the green light to begin construction from the Department of the Interior last year.

The project has been more than a decade in the making, due in no small part to opposition led by Bill Koch, the founder of fossil fuel giant Oxbow Carbon, a company that spent over a million dollars lobbying against Cape Wind in the past.

Koch is described on Oxbow’s website as “an international businessman, chemical engineer, art collector, and world-class sailor.” Much of Koch’s yachting occurs on sojourns from his waterfront mansion in a gated island country club community overlooking the Nantucket Sound location where Cape Wind’s turbines are slated for construction.

And yes, he’s the brother of David and Charles Koch – the leading funders of disinformation and political action against greenhouse reductions and clean energy, including a bogus study about the economics of offshore wind energy in New Jersey.

Cape Wind’s backers, on the other hand, include the 76% of Massachusetts residents who, in a November 2010 poll said they were willing to pay higher electricity rates for renewable energy, and the 57% of Cape Cod residents who, in 2009, said they supported the project.

According to Cape Wind CEO, Jim Gordon:

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Other stories below: Recent extreme weather impacted 80% of Americans; Global warming threatens tropical birds

Bill forces decision on pipeline, expands drilling to pay for transportation projects

The Republican-controlled House endorsed a plan Thursday to vastly expand oil and gas drilling off the nation’s coasts to help pay for a $260 billion transportation bill.

The legislation has no chance of passing the Senate and faces a White House veto. But for Republicans, the 237-187 vote showed they’re willing to go further to boost U.S. energy production than President Barack Obama. Obama lately has embraced increased oil and gas production on the campaign trail, and has touted how the U.S. in recent years has produced record amounts of oil and natural gas.

“The bill we are considering … is an action plan that clearly contrasts President Obama’s anti-energy policies with the pro-energy, pro-American jobs policies of Republicans,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

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