As the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman triumvirate works to craft green economy legislation, they’re negotiating with industry lobbyists who deny the threat of global warming. After meeting with President Barack Obama and a dozen industry-friendly lawmakers, the trio of Senate negotiators sat down with representatives of the fossil-based economy:

A cross section of industry power players met this afternoon in the Capitol with Kerry, Graham and Lieberman. Groups represented at the meeting included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute, Edison Electric Institute, Nuclear Energy Institute, National Association of Manufacturers, Farm Bureau, American Forest and Paper Association, American Railroads, National Electric Manufacturers Association and Portland Cement Association.

It’s perfectly reasonable for senators to meet with industry stakeholders as they work to unleash the clean energy economy. However, half of the lobbyist groups mentioned are legally challenging the threat of manmade climate change, with court petitions against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas endangerment finding:

– The Portland Cement Association, which has filed suit despite supposedly recognizing the need to reduce global warming pollution

– The American Petroleum Institute, which intends to blame climate policy for higher gas prices at every gas station in America

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has repeatedly questioned climate science

– The National Association of Manufacturers, which claims climate legislation is “anti-jobs, anti-energy”

– The American Farm Bureau Federation, which argues there is global cooling

One has to wonder how productive it can be to negotiate with polluters who deny the scientific reality of global warming.

On the other hand, the industry lobbyists thought the talks were “extraordinarily productive.” Tom Kuhn, president of EEI, the lead trade group for investor-owned electric utilities, told reporters:

It was a positive, encouraging discussion. I think they want to try and find ways to make things work from the standpoint of all the participants in that room, from the standpoint of the industrials and the oil companies.

John Shaw, the senior vice president of the Portland Cement Association, said:

It was an extraordinarily productive meeting. I think it was unprecedented for three senators, arguably each from a different political background, if you will, to sit down at a table and invite leaders from all different sectors, to try to create another level of dialogue. They want to start delving into the details, and creating those details with greater industry input than we’ve seen in the past.

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Appearing on General Electric’s conservative-skewing business network, CBNC, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) argued that carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, is not a “real pollutant.” In an interview with right-wing economist Larry Kudlow on Thursday, Inhofe repeated lies about the cost of climate legislation. Kudlow, praising Inhofe for telling Americans about this “very scary story,” attacked the prospect of global warming regulation as a “backdoor energy tax” that “can drive stocks into the ground.” Inhofe claimed that President Obama wants to “intimidate Congress” into passing “$300 to $400 billion a year” in taxes, so that the American people will blame Congress instead of him:

The reason why I don’t think they’ll try to do that through regulation is because certainly this president, President Obama knows that once the American people find out that they’re going to pay about $2,000 a year in taxes for something that doesn’t do anything, there’s going to be an outrage. And they want to be able to say, “Oh, no, that was Congress that did it.” My feeling is they’re using this for intimidation purposes and they’re going to try to intimidate Congress to do this.

Watch it:

CNBC’s promotion of right-wing fantasies originating from polluter-funded think tanks and conservative bloggers is nothing new. Energy and media multinational General Electric is often portrayed as a climate-friendly corporation which influences American politics to the left, primarily because of the presence of Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s afternoon programming. On Fox News, Glenn Beck rants that GE is going to get “all kinds of contracts from the government on green energy” because it is “in bed with Obama.” The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Steve Milloy claims the new Kerry-Boxer clean-energy jobs act is larded with “payoffs to GE.” Bill O’Reilly claims GE “is also pushing for the proposed cap-and-trade program” and “using its power and the airwaves to influence politics” so that it can “reap billions of dollars if the Feds OK the carbon deal.”

Not only does GE attack climate action through its CNBC network, it also supports several national lobbying campaigns against clean-energy legislation, through its membership in the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (GE Energy), the American Petroleum Institute (GE Oil & Gas), and the National Association of Manufacturers (GE Enterprise Solutions). Unlike GE, companies such as Duke Energy have abandoned NAM and ACCCE for their retrograde position on climate change.

Transcript: Read more

A new analysis of the economic impact of clean energy legislation forecasts powerful job and economic growth through 2030. The analysis of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), commissioned by the right-wing National Association of Manufacturers and the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF), finds that 20 million new jobs will be created in the United States by 2030, even under high-cost assumptions:

Similarly, NAM found the gross domestic product of the United States would increase by $9 trillion by 2030 from current levels. To be more precise, the analysis estimates $9.1 trillion in growth under its low-cost scenario, and $8.9 trillion under its high-cost scenario, versus $9.5 trillion in growth under its baseline scenario.

This analysis, conducted by the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), uses the same economic model as the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), but with “input assumptions provided by ACCF/NAM”:

SAIC is a policy-neutral organization. SAIC executed the NEMS/ACCF-NAM 2 model in this project using SAIC’s and ACCF/NAM’s interpretation of the bill, and input assumptions provided by ACCF/NAM. The modeling was performed independent of EIA. Analysis provided in this report is based on the output from the NEMS/ACCF-NAM 2 model as a result of the ACCF/NAM input assumptions. The input assumptions, opinions and recommendations in this report are those of ACCF and NAM, and do not necessarily represent the views of SAIC.

These “input assumptions” for the deployment of the ACES carbon cap-and-trade market include:

– International offsets are limited to 5%. ACES allows 50% of offset use to come from international offsets.

– Wind energy deployment limited to 5 to 10 GW per year for the next twenty years. In reality, 8.5 GW in new American wind power was deployed in 2008, even without the incentive of a carbon market.

NAM also made unusually pessimistic assumptions for the deployment of biomass electricity generation and the use of banking provisions by polluting corporations. These assumptions lead to a carbon allowance price of $123 to $159 per ton of carbon dioxide in 2030. This price is more than twice as expensive as the estimates of the EIA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Congressional Budget Office.

Essentially, NAM is assuming that American companies will be unable to deploy clean energy and energy efficiency technologies in a timely fashion. It’s odd that the National Association of Manufacturers is so gloomy about its members’ ability to build the clean energy economy. Even so, its analysis finds vibrant economic growth while global warming pollution is kept under control.

The Wonk Room recently pointed out that Sen. John McCain’s plan to achieve energy independence by doubling our use of nuclear power is a pipe dream, since the U.S. nuclear industry must import over 90% of its uranium. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) shot back on its Shopfloor blog, writing about the promise of southwest Virginia’s Pittsylvania uranium deposits:

How so, with a resource like the Pittsylvania ore available? Unless, of course, you expect environmentalists to block mining and nuclear power as they have in the past, in the process guaranteeing continued energy insecurity.

NAM quotes their friends Jack Spencer and Nicolas Loris at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who claims the Pittsylvania site has “110 million pounds of uranium,” enough to “supply all 104 nuclear reactors in the United States, which provide 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, for two years.” While NAM attacks “environmentalists,” Heritage prefers blaming “government bureaucrats” for preventing access to a “safe, affordable, clean energy source” – the language right-wing wordmeister Frank Luntz constructed to describe a dangerously toxic energy source.

In fact:

NAM’s Nuclear Obsession Guarantees ‘Energy Insecurity.’ The U.S. consumes one quarter of the world oil supply, but has only two percent of global reserves. The U.S. uranium position is eerily similar: “The U.S. has about 3 percent-4 percent of the world’s known uranium and produces about 4.3 percent of the world’s supply despite operating about one-quarter of the world’s commercial power reactors.” [EIA 1/29/07, 6/9/08] [Heritage Foundation, 3/25/08]

The Threat Of Uranium Mining In Virginia Is Real. “Enormous quantities of radioactive waste are generated by uranium mining and milling, with only 2 to 4 pounds of concentrated uranium oxide yellow cake obtained from each ton of ore taken out of the ground.” “Most domestic uranium mining occurs in the arid waste, where the radioactive waste is less likely to contaminate runoff. But the Virginia uranium mining would occur in a place with four times the annual rainfall of the west – 40-60 inches annually. This rainfall dramatically increases the risk of radioactive runoff contaminating drinking water.” [Piedmont Environmental Council]

Why are NAM and Heritage promoting Pittsylvania uranium as a “safe” solution to “energy security” despite the facts? Could it be because there’s a huge pile of money at stake? The Pittsylvania deposits are worth upwards of $10 billion for Virginia Uranium, the private company that owns the mining rights — and is selling the project with an army of lobbyists as a “safe” solution for “energy independence.”

UPDATE: Jack Spencer writes in: Read more