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DOE Caves On Natural Gas Efficiency, Costing Consumers $10 Billion Plus 100 Million Tons Of Needless Carbon Pollution

By Climate Guest Blogger on Jan 15, 2013 at 4:29 pm

Setback Could Set the Stage for Higher Department of Energy Standards

by Kit Kennedy, NRDC, via Switchboard

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has just retreated on important new energy efficiency standards for natural gas furnaces that were scheduled to go into effect in May and would have saved Americans an estimated $10.7 billion in lower heating bills over the next three decades.

By undoing these standards that were supported by manufacturers, consumers and efficiency advocates, states, and many utilities, American households are destined to waste more natural gas and money. In terms of energy, these standards would have saved 31 billion therms of natural gas over the next 30 years – enough to heat 62 million typical U.S. homes for a year. And the standards would have avoided the emission of somewhere between 81 to 130 million metric tons of global warming carbon pollution over the next three decades – that’s equivalent to the pollution generated by thirty or so coal-fired power plants.

Energy efficiency standards require our appliances and heating and cooling systems to operate efficiently while still providing the same or greater level of performance and comfort. DOE’s appliance efficiency program has a long record of success. Unfortunately, sometimes we encounter a setback, which is what happened Friday with the Department of Energy’s action in an ongoing lawsuit. In a motion filed in a legal challenge, DOE asked the court to “vacate” – or undo – these furnace efficiency standards, so that it can go back to the drawing board and redo them from scratch.

Importantly, consumer and low-income consumer groups agree that this is a setback.  “The Department of Energy’s retreat from long overdue natural gas furnace efficiency standards is bad news for consumers. Strong efficiency standards reduce winter heating bills, helping all families but especially those who have the least means to stay warm and save money,” according to National Consumer Law Center attorney Olivia Wein.

DOE couldn’t have chosen a worse moment to turn the clock back on natural gas efficiency. Just last week, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration affirmed that 2012 was the hottest year ever in the continental United States, and the destructive impacts of global warming on communities and public health keep adding up, especially in light of Superstorm Sandy. Moreover, concerns over the environmental and public health risks of under-regulated fracking continue to multiply. If DOE succeeds in undoing these standards, it needs to sets things right quickly by setting new furnace efficiency standards at the same or stronger levels.

Here’s the story.

Read more

Economy

Without Infrastructure Investment, America Will Lose $3 Trillion In GDP And 3.5 Million Jobs

By Pat Garofalo on Jan 15, 2013 at 4:10 pm

Congressional Republicans in 2011 blocked the American Jobs Act, which included some desperately needed funds for infrastructure improvements. But even the money in that bill would have been a drop in the proverbial bucket when it comes to America’s infrastructure needs.

According to a new report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, America’s infrastructure deficit stands at $1.6 trillion and will grow to $2.75 trillion over the next decade, costing the country trillions of dollars in wasted economic potential and millions of jobs:

[T]he consequences of infrastructure shortfalls differ by each system. With degrading surface transportation, trips can still be made, but they would take longer and be less reliable, and travel could be less safe. Declining airport and marine port infrastructure directly impacts the nation’s ability to import and export goods efficiently, driving up costs to U.S. consumers.

Overall, if the investment gap is not addressed throughout the nation’s infrastructure sectors, by 2020, the economy is expected to lose almost $1 trillion in business sales, resulting in a loss of 3.5 million jobs. Moreover, if current trends are not reversed, the cumulative cost to the U.S. economy from 2012–2020 will be more than $3.1 trillion in GDP and $1.1 trillion in total trade.

A recent study found that infrastructure investments provide a major boost to the economy, but public investment has plunged since the Great Recession (even as the U.S. is paying record low rates to borrow money).

Justice

New Poll Shows Broad, Bipartisan Support For Key Gun Safety Measures

By Adam Peck on Jan 15, 2013 at 4:00 pm

A new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows that a solid majority of Americans are more concerned about enacting greater restrictions on gun ownership than they are about protecting the rights of gun owners, and some reforms enjoy overwhelming, bipartisan support.

According to the poll, fully 85 percent of Americans are in favor of enacting a universal background check system and closing the gun show loophole. That figure includes nearly an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, and supports previous polls that have suggested that even members of the National Rifle Association are in favor of expanding the background check system.

Every single gun safety measure polled by Pew enjoys the support of a majority of Americans, including bans on assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and semi-automatic weapons. A majority also opposes arming teachers and school officials, an idea advanced by several Republicans in the days following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, CT, but there is considerable support for placing trained, armed security personnel in more schools as well.

Gun advocates do outpoll their counterparts in one key area: political activism. Nearly a quarter of pro-gun advocates contribute financially to groups that are active on the issue of gun policy, compared to just five percent of people in favor of greater gun regulation.

Politics

GOP Congressman Warns That Library Books About Muslim Culture Will Undermine Christianity

By Scott Keyes on Jan 15, 2013 at 3:39 pm

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC)

There was no photo-op or press release from Rep. Walter Jones’ (R-NC) office when a local library in his district was awarded a federal grant to expand its collection.

Instead, in an exceedingly rare move, Jones actually criticized the grant money that will soon be coming to eastern North Carolina for one reason: it will be used to buy books about Muslim culture.

Craven Community College, a small school in New Bern, was recently awarded a small National Endowment for the Humanities grant. The money, enough for 25 books and a DVD, is intended to expand the library’s Muslim culture collection. Jones protested that the money was unfairly benefiting Muslims and harming Christians, as he explained in a local TV interview.

“I want to treat it fairly and I think too many times the Christian faith is not treated fairly,” Jones said. “If they want to have book about the Muslim’s faith, let’s have equal number of books about Judeo-Christian [faith].”

The North Carolina Republican insisted he has nothing against Muslims. “Keith Ellison from Minnesota is a friend of mine and he’s a Muslim,” Jones said.

Jones told WITN he wrote a letter in response to the grant to a local Christian organization, asking for them to provide an equal number of Judeo-Christian items to offset the new Muslim culture books in the library’s collection.

For its part, the college is happily anticipating the new funds. Judy Eurich, Director of Marketing, Communications and Development Liaison at Craven Community College, explained: “anytime we have an opportunity to apply for a grant that’s going to either give us money or resources to enhance our library collection, that’s an important resource to us.”

Still, Jones’ protests are unlikely to harm his standing in the eyes of constituents. In a WITN web poll, only 14 percent of respondents thought the college should accept the grant, compared to 62 percent opposed.

Health

Oklahoma Lawmaker Won’t Stop Trying To Grant Embryos The Full Rights Of U.S. Citizens

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Jan 15, 2013 at 3:35 pm

Oklahoma State Rep. Mike Reynolds (R) has already unsuccessfully attempted to pass a far-right “personhood” bill to endow embryos with “all the rights, privileges and immunities” of other U.S. citizens. That bill failed without coming up for a vote in April, but Reynolds is ready to try again in the new legislative session.

According to the Tulsa World, the state lawmaker has authored a new bill that is “virtually identical” to last year’s failed personhood measure, which women’s health advocates warned could actually result in outlawing some forms of contraception and invitro fertilization:

The bill states that life begins at conception — which is already part of state law — and that “unborn children have protectable interests in life, health, and well-being,” and that Oklahoma law “shall be interpreted and construed to acknowledge on behalf of the unborn child at every stage of development all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state.”

Pregnant women are exempt from prosecution for “indirectly harming her unborn child” and miscarriages.

Personhood measures are so extreme that they don’t even have the full support of the anti-choice community. A similar proposal in Virginia faced strong opposition from Republicans during the last session, and personhood initiatives across the country have failed to gain traction over the past year.

In addition to the failure of Reynold’s first anti-abortion bill, Oklahoma’s personhood movement was dealt another blow last year when the Supreme Court confirmed that defining an embryo as a citizen is “clearly unconstitutional.”

Nonetheless, far-right lawmakers like Reynolds are pressing on in their quest to redefine personhood to include zygotes. And the radical anti-choice agenda is looking for inroads on a national level, too — Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is among the Congressmembers supporting a fetal personhood bill this year.

LGBT

Boehner Secretly Agrees To Now Pay $3 Million Defending Marriage Discrimination Law

By Zack Ford on Jan 15, 2013 at 3:20 pm

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH)Late Monday, House Democrats learned that the Republican leadership had once again secretly renegotiated its contract with attorney Paul Clement to defend the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act at the Supreme Court. This is the third time the contract has been adjusted, raising total costs to $3 million from the original $500,000 cap.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) both sit on the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), the House body intervening to defend DOMA in court in lieu of the Department of Justice’s decision not to. However, they did not find out about BLAG’s new agreement with Clement until after it had already been finalized. They wrote to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to decry the increased spending:

Let us be clear: these steps do not reflect the will of the House or the consensus of the BLAG.  Democrats do not support any decisions to invest taxpayer funds in defense of an indefensible law.  We remain united in our opposition to any effort to preserve, protect, and defend discrimination in our country.

From the start, the Republican-led campaign to defend DOMA has been a practice in futility and a waste of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.  The Republican-appointed, taxpayer-funded legal team has lost in every case.  Courts across the nation have stood on the side of justice and equality for all Americans.  DOMA is on its way into the dustbin of history.

It would be bad enough if Republicans were losing in court and accepting the result.  Yet it is the height of hypocrisy for House Republicans to waste public funds in one breath then claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility in the next.  With Republicans willing to take our economy and our country to the brink of default in the name of deficit reduction, there is simply no excuse for any Member of Congress to commit taxpayer dollars to an unnecessary – and futile – legal battle.

Despite the apparent hypocrisy, Boehner has not backed down from his intent to fund the defense of DOMA. In December, when the last increase was discovered, he was asked about the spending at a press conference. He angrily responded that if the Department of Justice won’t defend the law of the land, Congress will, before storming away from the podium. Indeed, House Republicans voted the defense of DOMA into the House rules earlier this month.

Economy

Louisiana Governor’s New Plan Would Raise Taxes On Bottom 80 Percent Of Residents

By Pat Garofalo on Jan 15, 2013 at 3:10 pm

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) recently rolled out a plan to replace his state’s personal income and corporate taxes with an increased sales tax. Such a move would shift taxes from the rich to the poor, who are disproportionately hit by the sales tax.

According to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Jindal’s plan will raise taxes on the bottom 80 percent of Louisianians, while cutting them for the richest 1 percent:

– The bottom 80 percent of Louisianans in the income distribution would see a tax increase from repealing the personal and corporate income taxes and replacing them with a higher sales tax.

– The poorest 20 percent of taxpayers, those with an average income of $12,000, would see an average tax increase of $395, or 3.4 percent of their income, if no low income tax relief mechanism is offered.

– The middle 20 percent, those with an average income of $43,000, would see an average tax increase of $534, or 1.2 percent of their income.

– The largest beneficiaries of the tax proposal would be the top 1 percent—a group with an average income
of well over $1 million. Louisianans in the top 1 percent would see an average tax cut of $25,423, or 2.3 percent of their income under the plan described above.

Jindal is not the only Republican lawmaker looking to shift more taxes onto his low-income constituents. North Carolina Republicans are also looking to swap their state’s income tax for a sales tax, while Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) wants to finance elimination of his state’s gas tax with an expanded sales tax.

Justice

Rick Perry Falsely Claims An Assault Rifle Ban Is Unconstitutional

By Ian Millhiser on Jan 15, 2013 at 2:40 pm

In a speech to the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council two years ago, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) claimed that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all violate the Constitution. He’s now bringing that same crackerjack understanding of our nation’s founding document to the Second Amendment:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry believes that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s effort to ban assault weapons would be deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

“I believe in the Constitution. I don’t think you limit free speech nor do you limit the second amendment,” Perry told ABC affiliate KTRK’s Ted Oberg on Thursday. “I think the Constitution is clear. Here we have the amendments to the constitution and we have the Bill of Rights. The Tenth Amendment says anything that’s not enumerated and not clearly laid out in the Constitution is reserved for the states and for the people. For me, just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean I will change the U.S. Constitution.”

“I would suggest to you they can try, but there will be a lawsuit that goes forward to the U.S. Supreme Court that finds those kinds of things unconstitutional,” Perry added.

Perry was referring to Cuomo’s intention to pursue “the toughest assault weapon ban in the nation.”

Perry, of course, is wrong about what the Second Amendment permits. Indeed, even conservative Justice Antonin Scalia conceded in his opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller that “dangerous and unusual weapons” of the sort not “in common use” by the public can be regulated or banned.

Climate Progress

Fuggedaboutit: No Climate Change Questions For Chris Christie During Interview Blitz On Superstorm Sandy

By Jeff Spross on Jan 15, 2013 at 2:18 pm

The seat may have been hot, but the questions weren't.

Early this month, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made headlines when he ripped into his fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives for allowing their political gamesmanship over spending and budgets to torpedo an aid package for Hurricane Sandy. Then last week, Governor Christie did the rounds on five different national television networks to discuss the GOP’s current dysfunction and the destruction the superstorm left throughout his state.

But despite the extensive coverage, there was one issue that was noteworthy for its complete and utter absence. After tracking the five interviews, Salon reporter David Sirota noted that Christie was not asked about climate change once:

Somehow, in interviews with every major national television news organization about an unprecedentedly severe weather event, Christie wasn’t asked about climate change. That’s right, he wasn’t asked about whether Hurricane Sandy changes his views on climate change or whether Hurricane Sandy means we should address climate change more urgently. He wasn’t asked whether homes should be rebuilt in New Jersey’s climate-change-threatened areas. He wasn’t even asked why he didn’t mention climate change in his first state of the state following the hurricane.

Indeed, he wasn’t challenged with a single question about the entire issue. Not one.

As Sirota notes, this latest punt on the issue of climate change is part of a larger media trend. A recent study by Media Matters found that coverage of the topic collapsed on both the Sunday shows and the nightly news after 2009. The nightly news reports have modestly improved since 2010, but remain severely depressed from their 2009 peak. Their more prominent Sunday competitors are still scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Christie himself is self-contradictory on the question of climate change. He’s bluntly stated that “it’s real,” that “human activity plays a role,” that it’s “impacting our state,” and that “it’s time to defer” to the 90 percent of scientists who agree with those assessments. But in May of 2011, Christie pulled New Jersey out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multi-state alliance along the northeast and the Atlantic seaboard to set up a regional cap-and-trade system. Like Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, Christie took the political risk of stating climate change is a problem and humans contribute to it, but then torpedoed actual policy to address those human contributions under pressure from his fellow conservatives and the rise of the Tea Party.

Human-driven global warming raises sea surface temperatures, which in turn drives up the energy of these storms as they form over the ocean. The higher temperatures increase water vapor in the air, leading to 5 to 10 percent more rainfall and an increased risk of flooding. Even the unusual high pressure system that drove Sandy into the northeastern coast rather than back out to sea has been linked to global warming.

In December 2012, 69 percent of New York State residents told a Siena Research Institiutue poll that they blamed climate change for Sandy. And in November of that year, 57 percent of Americans told the National Journal that they thought climate change will make storms like Sandy more likely.

All that, combined with Christie’s politically heterodox, outspoken, and pugnacious nature, his own mercurial record on climate change, his governorship of the state devastated by one of 2012′s most extreme weather events, it’s remarkable that the networks didn’t pose him a single question on the matter. As Sirota observed, “It seems there is now an unspoken rule in television news mandating that the topic of climate change is to be eschewed when at all possible.”

Related Posts:

Alyssa

New Minnesota Vikings Stadium A Boondoggle Before It’s Even Built

By Travis Waldron on Jan 15, 2013 at 2:05 pm

Artist's rendering of new Vikings stadium

Last spring, Gov. Mark Dayton (D-MN) and the Minnesota state legislature exploited a legal loophole to approve $348 million in public financing to help build a new stadium for the state’s National Football League franchise, the Minnesota Vikings. The majority of the state’s financing of the stadium would come from revenues gained from new electronic gambling machines placed in bars and restaurants — an idea that seemed fool-proof to Dayton and legislators since Minnesota ranks among the biggest states in charitable gaming.

Less than a year later, revenues from the electronic pull-tab machines are falling far short of projections, and even before ground has been broken on the new stadium, it already looks like a bad deal for Minnesota taxpayers. New financial projections say the revenue from gambling has come in below both monthly and daily targets, and the amount of cash on hand has been cut in half, Minnesota Public Radio reports:

Revenues since pull-tabs started on Sept. 18 have fallen far short of the $100 million monthly target experts initially set for the games. Last month, disappointing revenues prompted state finance officials to cut the expected stadium cash they’d have on hand by half.

The most current data from the Minnesota Gambling Control Board show Minnesotans only played a total of $4.1 million worth of the games through the end of 2012. [...]

The existing machines each are grossing $180 a day — again short of the projected $225 daily take — grossing less per day than the experts’ projection made when the stadium financing plan was being worked on last spring.

State officials now project the pull tabs will generate just $47 million in revenue, barely more than half original estimates. Pull tab revenues for 2012 were down 51 percent compared to projections. Minnesota officials and stadium advocates argue that the shortfall is a result of too-slow approval for the new machines. As of December, 75 bars and restaurants had been approved to host the machines, short of the 300 that would have been idea by that time, advocates told the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. The more likely explanation, though, is that the plan was a bad one.

Across the country, taxpayers are footing the bills for stadiums to the tune of $4 billion a year. Cities and states have used a host of public financing tactics, but the result is near-universal: revenue from such schemes falls short of projections, the city and state that financed the stadium are left with a shortfall and without the promised economic boom, and taxpayers eventually pick up the tab, whether through higher taxes or cuts to government services.

Usually, hard evidence that stadiums and arenas are boondoggles doesn’t emerge for at least a few years. In Minneapolis, it became obvious before construction crews even broke ground.

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