White House communications director Anita Dunn is in the news cycle for having said that Mao Zedong, the megalomaniacal Communist dictator of post-war China, is one of her “favorite political philosophers.”  Zedong’s ideas led to the death of scores of millions of human beings, so many people find it news worthy that he’s an inspiration for an important White House official.

I know that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue can be a catty work environment because I’ve seen NBC’s “The West Wing” on television. As such, I know there’s a chance that Ms. Dunn is now being ostracized by her peers on account of her controversial affinity for Mao. With that in mind, I have a comforting thought for Ms. Dunn: You are not alone!

Ms. Dunn has a comrade in Carol Browner, Obama’s climate czarina, who’s also a card-carrying member of the Socialist International. In fact, she’s busily implementing socialist environmental policies in America. SI last week introduced a climate change policy eerily similar to the strategy that Browner is pushing here in the United States.

Read more about Browner’s red plan to green the economy here.

The usually courteous practice of international diplomacy degenerated into name-calling last week over which nations are responsible for the slow pace of negotiations for a successor climate treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which environmentalists hope will be finalized this December in Copenhagen.

It all started when Yu Qingtai, a Chinese official, told reporters during a Bangkok climate conference that, “I have yet to see a developed country or a group of developed countries coming up to say to the public, the international community and to their own people that they are not here to kill the Kyoto Protocol.”

He was referring to the concept of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol, which absolves developing countries from any responsibility to fight climate change until they attain a higher standard of living. Developed countries want to jettison this principle because rapidly developing countries (such as China, India, and Brazil) will account for almost all future increases in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Qingtai’s comments elicited a response from the European Union’s lead negotiator, Mr. Runger-Metzger, who told reporters that, “You may have heard that China accused the EU of killing off the Kyoto Protocol. But it is the U.S. that is trying to kill it. They want everything ‘common’ and nothing ‘differentiated.’”

Mr. Runger-Metzger’s assertion is patently false-European nations have repeatedly indicated that treaty to fight global warming must include rapidly developing countries. That’s why an anonymous diplomat told BusinessWeek that “The EU is briefing against the U.S., but they aren’t doing anything where it matters-attacking the U.S. position in the talks themselves.”

The December deadline for a climate treaty has long been in doubt. This week’s undiplomatic cattiness suggests that a breakthrough is all but unthinkable.

Today’s New York Times carries an article, “Hopes fade for comprehensive climate treaty.“  It’s not that important an article about the lead-up to Copenhagen.  What’s most interesting are the comments from these NYT readers — many expressing skepticism about catastrophic global warming, confusion about the science, and linkages between energy use and economic growth. Here are some examples of those views – of course, the usual “sky is falling” comments are there too.

MrPitchfork

Maybe some day, someone will finally say, “Global warming is a fraud perpetrated by Al Gore and other green technology invested twits to make themselves rich at tax payers expense” and it fall and die and turn into “Global cooling”… again..

Dan DiLeo

Faced with the pressing desire of their citizens for improved living standards,it is hard to imagine the leaders of poor and emerging countries to do anything that might conceivably inhibit the most rapid and most well-tested possible path to development. The only conceivable way to get them to sign on is through some enormous and very reliable transfer of wealth to those countries. Very hard to envision.

Paul

Good news! I knew we could count on the international bureaucrats to disagree and throw a monkey wrench into this farce called global warming. As the world starts a cyclical cooling trend maybe they will come to their senses, if that is even possible for these people.

Glenn

[Excerpt from lengthy comment]… My suggestion? I would love for a news source like the New York Times to host a series of debates between the scientists on both sides of this issue. No politicians or other loudmouths allowed. I’d like to see an agenda created ahead of time, negotiated by both sides so the issues are framed properly and also have the encounters structured so that the key issues are given enough time to be thoroughly explored. If the AGW folks win this hands down – as they should if the debate it’s structured properly, than folks like me can feel more assured in demanding the very difficult policy decisions that we must make from our leadership.

Finally, I know that the Gore’s of the world, and many other’s, say “the debate is over” but clearly, in the real world, it’s not, otherwise we’d be seeing different behavior. Let’s do this, let’s make it global and make it a learning experience for all of us. Instead of cursing the darkness and hoping our government can force policy on folks who don’t believe in AGW, let’s lead people to understand this issue more clearly. I think that may be the only chance we have, and if the planet is really at risk, then of course the effort is worth it.

AlexBell

The USA march toward European Socialism will result in the colapse of our ecconomy and way of life. Countries like Brazil, India, China, and Russia are growing because the have and is energy as a way of growing their ecconomy. The USA can not shrink its self to propserity. Renewable energy – Yes. Energy indepentence – Yes. Cap and Trade (tax) – NO NO!!

It’s about time that business groups started defending free enterprise, and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce is off to a good start – a bit belatedly – with its “American Free Enterprise. Dream Big” campaign. Launched on October 14, the campaign features national TV and print ad campaigns, a video contest, small business awards, and other outreach.

Here’s the underlying message, as shown on their website:

At the U.S. Chamber, we believe that the values of individual initiative, hard work, freedom of choice, and the free exchange of trade, capital, and ideas can lead America back to prosperity. Only free enterprise will create the innovation, the opportunities, and the jobs our nation needs. That is why we are launching this campaign.

The Chamber has been under a lot of pressure recently to cave in to the rent-seekers on global warming policy.  Some members of the Climate Action Partnership seeking to profit from cap-and-trade legislation  –  the utilities Pacific Gas & Electric, PNM Resources and Exelon — bowed out of their Chamber membership. Then, Nike and Apple sanctimoniously dropped their membership.  But as the Wall Street Journal noted today, both of those companies would escape onerous energy taxes from global warming legislation because most of their manufacturing is done in countries that don’t yet suppress energy use.

The WSJ points out how short-sighted these companies are:

If companies are going to dump the Chamber over a single dispute, then the overall influence of business in Washington is likely to decline. The Chamber’s job isn’t to favor one company’s agenda over another but to stand broadly for free trade, low taxes and limited regulation-principles that help U.S. business as a whole.

Having abandoned their business allies on climate change, Apple and Nike might wake up one day to discover they need those friends on one of their crucial issues. It will serve them right if they find themselves alone in the Beltway square.

The Chamber deserves kudos for standing firm on principle and coming out loud and clear in its support of free enterprise.

On November 4, California regulators may vote to ban big-screen televisions. The large sets use more energy than they would prefer.

Commissioner Julia Levin claims the ban “will actually save consumers money and help the California economy grow and create new clean, sustainable jobs.”

It is easy to imagine the ban costing tv manufacturing jobs; less so the jobs that would take their place.

Fortunately, the ban isn’t terribly enforceable. Consumers can just drive to Arizona, Nevada, or Oregon to get the kind of tv they want.

A final point on semantics: what does “sustainable” even mean, anyway? It is a meaningless buzz term, right up there with “synergy” and “paradigm.” This decade’s equivalent of “social justice.”

If anything, use of the word “sustainable” signals that a person knows not of what they speak. If you’re unable to defend a proposal on the merits, just use fashionable buzz words that poll well.

Updated 10/16/09

Over the weekend, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) co-authored an oped in the New York Times titled, “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation).”

On Tuesday, my colleague Myron Ebell responded with “Yes We Can (Raise Your Energy Prices and Send Jobs Abroad).”

On Wednesday, the Washington Examiner  scorned “Lindsay Graham’s costly collegiality.”

Thursday, on MasterResource.Org, the free-market energy blog, I posted “Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Me-Too Kyotoism (will he snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?)”

In the Washington Examiner, Mark Tapscott concludes that “Lindsey Graham is the Senate’s densest Republican.”

Timothy H. Lee of the Center for Individual Freedom says Lindsay Graham Desperately Tries to Become Cool with Global Warming.

Updated 10/16/09

Today [Oct. 15, 2009], Rep. Darrell Isa (R-CA), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, ranking member of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, released a joint minority staff report titled, The Politics of EPA’s Endangerment Finding.

I’ll say more about the report after reading the 146-page document. Key findings include:

• EPA prejudged the outcome of its endangerment finding to advance the Obama administration’s policy agenda.
• EPA’s effort to control greenhouse gas emissions will give the Agency authority over the entire U.S. economy. 
• EPA did not conduct its own analysis. Instead, the Agency deferred to the judgment of two external literature surveys — the IPCC reports and the U.S. National Assessment of Climate Change. 
• EPA erected internal barriers to stifle dissent within the Agency.
• EPA apparently refused to read the thousands of comments submitted in response to the previous administration’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
• EPA punished and demoted whistleblower/skeptic Alan Carlin and retaliated against the office in which he works.
• Energy and Environment Czar Carol Browner may have violated the Presidential Records Act during fuel-economy negotiations between EPA, the Department of Energy, the State of California, and the auto industry.

These points seem spot on to me. The report, however, contains details I have not seen elsewhere. As aforesaid, I’ll blog about this later.

Update

Having read the Issa-Sensenbrenner report, I’d like to share a few details.

Non-responsiveness to congressional inquiries

• In a letter of March 12, 2009, Rep. Issa asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson for various information relating to public comment on the Agency’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR), such as how many comments EPA received, how many of those were in favor of an endangerment finding, how did the Agency determine which comments were “key” and required a response. Ms. Jackson’s letter of May 18 was completely non-reponsive to these queries. Issa and Sensenbrenner justifiably conclude that EPA may not have read most of the comments on the ANPR. 
• Jackson’s May 18 letter was also non-responsive to Mr. Issa’s question as to whether EPA had ever before found a pollutant to “endanger human health” solely on the basis of indirect effects on weather and climate, and to his request for a list of precedents on which EPA relied to classify CO2 emissions as a health hazard due to their supposed indirect effects.
• All her letter says on this matter is: “EPA’s notice of the proposed endangerment finding identifies the precedents the agency relied on its making the proposal.” If so, then why not quote the relevant passage, or cite the pertinent pages? The public health discussion (pp. 18901-18902) in EPA’s endangerment proposal discusses no precedents and lists no previous examples of pollutants deemed health hazards by virtue of their indirect effects.

Bad-mouthing SBA

• On April 24, 2009, EPA posted an OMB-coordinated inter-agency review of its proposed endangerment finding. The review warned of “serious economic consequences” for small business, noted that EPA had not “undertaken a systematic risk analysis or cost-benefit analysis,” and said that EPA seemed to “stretch the precautionary principle” in making the case for endangerment.
• Obama officials dismissed these criticisms as irrelevant, claiming the author was “a Bush holdover.” In fact, the so-called holdover was a career civil servant originally hired by the Small Business Administration during the Clinton Administration. Her previous job was as an aid to a Democratic Member of Congress.
• OMB also disclosed the name of the “Bush holdover,” violating its own protocol designed to protect professional staff from political retaliation. OMB claimed it divulged the analyst’s identity to “correct inaccurate and misleading media reports.” However, the reports simply quoted the OMB document. OMB never clarified what “inaccuracies” its breach of protocol corrected.

Mistreatment of Dr. Alan Carlin

• Dr. Carlin, a 37-year EPA analyst, wrote a comment critical of the science on which EPA proposed to base its endangerment finding. Al McGartland, director of EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), the office in which Carlin works, refused to transmit Carlin’s comment to EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, told Carlin not to discuss the endangerment proceeding with anyone outside of NCEE, ordered Carlin to discontinue all work on climate change, removed him from NCEE’s Climate Workgroup, and cut him from the group’s email list.
• In addition, McGartland reassigned Carlin to tasks (updating a grants database and an economic incentives report) previously performed by a junior staffer and an outside contractor.
• McGartland’s behavior appears to have been motivated by fear of reprisal from Agency higher-ups. His email to Carlin of March 17 states: “The Administrator and the administration has [sic] decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.”

EPA efforts to discredit Dr. Carlin

• To discredit Carlin’s comment, EPA initially stated that Carlin was “not a scientist” and “not part of the working group dealing with the issue.”
• However, Carlin holds a degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology, was a member of NCEE’s Climate Workgroup, and is listed as an author of the original (2007) endangerment finding Technical Support Document (TSD).
• In response to a July 17 letter from Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), EPA confirmed that “Dr. Carlin was one of several members of the NCEE workgroup that reviewed the [2009] draft TSD for EPA’s proposed endangerment finding for greenhouse gases.”

On July 8, 2009, EPA finally included Dr. Carlin’s comment in its endangerment docket — almost one month after the comment period closed. Alan Carlin still has a job — although he no longer works on climate issues. NCEE has not been defunded, despite concerns expressed by Carlin’s colleague John Davidson (and hinted at in McGartland’s March 17 email) that Agency brass could punish NCEE for committing climate heresy.

Public outcry over the treatment of Alan Carlin and the ongoing investigations by Reps. Issa, Sensenbrenner, and Barton have not produced an atmosphere of open and free intellectual discourse at EPA. Nonetheless, the outcry and the investigations can only help deter future acts of retaliation against climate skeptics.

For further discussion of these issues, see my blog post, John Broder’s spin job on Alan Carlin.

The Socialist International’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society has sent an interesting account of their recent meeting and release of their report, “From a high carbon economy to a low carbon society.” As revealed by Steve Milloy earlier this year, Carol Browner, former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton Administration and now President Barack Obama’s “climate czar,” is a long-time member of Socialist International . Here’s what Socialist International said about their meeting held at the UN in September:

“Holding its second yearly meeting in conjunction with the opening of the general debate of the General Assembly at the United Nations, the Presidium of the Socialist International, together with a number of Heads of State and Government, Heads of international institutions, and the members of the SI Commission for a Sustainable World Society and the SI Commission on Global Financial Issues, met at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on September 23 to address two of the major issues on the international agenda today: Climate Change and The Global Financial Crisis.

“Amongst the Heads of State or Government and Ministers joining Presidium members at the meeting were Tarja Halonen, President of Finland; Jalal Talabani, President of Iraq; Toomas H. Ilves, President of Estonia; Alvaro Colom, President of Guatemala; Boris Tadic, President of Serbia; Navim Ramgoolam, Prime Minister of Mauritius; Laurent Gbagbo, President of Cote d’Ivoire; Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Home Affairs Minister of South Africa, Mohamed El Yazghi, Minister of State from Morocco; Maged George, Environment Minister of Egypt; Marco Hausiku, Foreign Minister of Namibia and Abdelwaheb Abdallah, Foreign Minister of Tunisia.

“Also taking part, as guests, were Juan Somavía, Director-General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO); Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); José Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS) and Alicia Bárcena, Director of the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)….

“…[The] Report was introduced by Commission Co-Chair Ricardo Lagos, Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on Climate Change and former President of Chile. Commission members Sergei Mironov, Chairman of the Council of the Russian Federation and Chair of the Just Russia Party; Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister; Beatriz Paredes, President of the Institutional Revolutionary Party of Mexico, and Mohamed El Yazghi, Moroccan Minister of State, added to the presentation of the Report….”

I guess Browner was too busy implementing many of the report’s recommendations to make it to the meeting.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace held a useful discussion on “Can a Deal Be Reached at Copenhagen?” in Washington on Wednesday. Carnegie’s President, Jessica Mathews, moderated the panel, and the discussants were: Margot Wallstrom, Vice President of the European Commission and former Commissioner for the Environment; Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and former Assistant Secretary of State in charge of negotiating the Kyoto Protocol; and Mohamed El-Ashry, Senior Fellow of the United Nations Foundation and former Chairman of the Global Environment Facility.

Mathews began by saying that since it now seemed highly unlikely that the fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the U. N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (to be held in Copenhagen in December) would reach a deal on a new agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the question that they should discuss was what can we still hope to get out of Copenhagen. Margot Wallstrom disagreed. She said that she still believes Copenhagen will succeed because we cannot afford to fail. The new treaty must include broad mandatory cuts in emissions and a financing mechanism by which rich countries would pay poor countries to cut their emissions. Wallstrom later said that President Obama must go to Copenhagen and that many world leaders needed to go and “must tie themselves to the mast”. By attending, heads of state would not be able to accept failure as the outcome.

Eileen Claussen was astute, candid, and realistic. She said that there were three main obstacles to a new treaty going into the recent negotiations in Bangkok and that a fourth major obstacle had arisen at Bangkok. First, President Obama cannot say what the U. S. is committed to until, at a minimum, the Senate passes a bill. Claussen thinks that Waxman-Markey is a good bill even though flawed, but that what the Senate might produce was still in doubt. The Environment and Public Works Committee would undoubtedly pass out the Kerry-Boxer bill, but the committee membership’s was not representative of the Senate as a whole. She later added that by her count, there were forty definite Democratic votes for Kerry-Boxer, three and three-quarters Republican votes as a result of Senator Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) op-ed with Senator John Kerry (which remark drew a laugh, but which she didn’t explain). Although support from a number of additional Democrats was likely, Claussen said that legislation could not pass without more Republican votes. And she added that no energy-rationing bill would get the sixty votes required without a significant nuclear component.

The second obstacle according to Claussen is that the developing countries won’t commit to anything until they know what commitments the U. S. will make. Third, the question of the financing mechanism by which rich countries would pay for emissions reductions in poor countries was entirely unresolved. The fourth obstacle that had arisen in Bangkok was procedural, but very serious, according to Claussen. The problem is whether the new treaty continues the Kyoto Protocol or dumps Kyoto and starts afresh. Given all these issues to be resolved, Claussen concluded that the best that could be hoped for in Copenhagen was a strong statement that they would conclude a new treaty in the near future—say by next summer.

Mohamed El-Ashry said that the negotiators in Copenhagen needed to go back to the Bali Action Plan and achieve step one in that plan. This would mean agreeing on the immediate steps that were necessary to meet the 2020 target for emissions reductions. These would include energy efficiency measures, more renewable energy, and forest sequestration. According to a report by McKinsey and Company, these measures combined could achieve 75% of the reductions necessary by 2020 at a net economic benefit of billion. Achieving step one would build confidence, which would help negotiators in future years to achieve step two—binding emissions targets.

There were a number of interesting questions from the audience and several quite revealing answers from the panelists. Quite a bit of discussion swirled around the topic of who would be to blame if Copenhagen failed. Claussen replied to one question that she was trying hard to think of some way that the COP can end up not blaming the U. S. for everything. Wallstrom observed that expectations were running high in the European Union that a deal would be reached and added that she couldn’t guarantee that the European Union wouldn’t blame the U. S. if Copenhagen failed. (This is odd given the fact that George W. Bush is no longer President.)

In reply to a question about what lessons for the future could be learned from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol in the Senate, Claussen said that she feared that not much had been learned, but what the Obama Administration took away from it was that the Senate must go first before the U. S. makes definite international commitments. Wallstrom replied to a question about whether policies already in place would be dropped if Copenhagen failed by saying that the European Union would not abandon any of its climate policies because they gave the EU a competitive advantage. They make the EU less dependent on Russia, create lots of green jobs, and save money through greater energy efficiency. That of course is the EU’s line, but I think the scary thing is that Wallstrom actually believes it.

My weekend is starting out fine, thanks to this happy news.

Peter Glaser, an environmental attorney with Troutman Sanders, just sent around his analysis. Here it is:

California Federal Court Dismisses Global Warming Common Law Nuisance Lawsuit

In another chapter in the continuing saga of whether energy companies can be sued under tort law for emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs), a federal district court in California yesterday dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Kivalina Alaska Native Village and others against a large number of energy companies.  The Court became the fourth federal district court to find, in essence, that there is no common law nuisance tort of global warming.  One of those district court decisions, however, was recently reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the Connecticut v. AEP case, which we reported on extensively in a previous client alert available at the link provided below. 

The lawsuit dismissed yesterday alleged that the defendants’ GHG emissions contribute to global warming that has diminished the Artic sea ice that protects the Kivalina coastline.  As a result, the plaintiffs argued that their protection from winter storms has diminished, resulting in erosion and destruction of the land which will require that Kivalina’s residents be relocated.  Plaintiffs sought monetary damages for these impacts, which they estimated in a range of -400 million.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed the lawsuit on the ground that the case involved a political question more properly decided by the legislative and executive branches.  The court also concluded that the plaintiffs lacked standing.  On the political question issue, the Court ruled that:

Regardless of the relief sought, the resolution of Plaintiff’s nuisance claim requires balancing the social utility of Defendants’ conduct with the harm it inflicts.  That process, by definition, entails a determination of what would have been an acceptable limit on the level of greenhouse gases emitted by Defendants….the allocation of fault – and cost of global warming is a matter appropriately left for determination by the executive and legislative branch in the first instance.

On standing, the court ruled that “[i]n view of the undifferentiated nature of greenhouse gas emissions from all global sources and their worldwide accumulation over long periods of time, the pleadings make clear that there is no realistic possibility of tracing any particular alleged effect of global warming to any particular emissions by any specific person, entity, group at any particular point in time.”

The decision will undoubtedly be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a court known for its liberal outlook.  At the same time, one of the other lawsuits, involving allegations that energy companies’ emissions contributed to Hurricane Katrina, is now pending and awaiting decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.  Defendants in the Second Circuit Connecticut v. AEP case are currently considering whether to seek rehearing.  Ultimately, this issue may end up in the Supreme Court.

See our discussion of the Second Circuit Connecticut v. AEP case and the issues these global warming tort lawsuits raise.

* * *

P.S., I also blogged on the Second Circuit case here.