Big Business Jumps Ship from the S.S. Climate Change
The still-growing Climategate scientific fraud scandal has already started to move public opinion against global warming alarmism. And even people who believe in looming climate catastrophe aren’t too happy about cap-and-trade legislation that would force them to pay more (and in reality, much, much more) for energy. What has kept cap-and-trade legislation alive in Congress is strong support from big business. Many major corporations have figured out that they can make billions of dollars in windfall profits if a cap-and-trade scheme is enacted that will give them free ration coupons and force consumers to pick up the bill.
Big business support began to crumble on Tuesday — and in a big way. In separate announcements, BP America, Conoco Phillips, and Caterpillar dropped out of the main lobbying group for cap and trade, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). BP sent a letter to its fellow coalition members, Conoco Phillips sent out a press release, and Caterpillar had its name taken off the USCAP website and then confirmed that it was dropping out when media inquiries were made.
All three corporations say nice things about USCAP and how much their participation in it has meant to them. And they all say that they are still committed to working for policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So why are they pulling out? Conoco Phillips was the most candid in its press release: “House climate legislation and Senate proposals to date have disadvantaged the transportation sector and its consumers, left domestic refineries unfairly penalized versus international competition, and ignored the critical role that natural gas can play in reducing GHG emissions,” according to chairman and CEO Jim Mulva.
Two real reasons: 1) assessement that there is little political damage to pulling out, and 2) expectation that legislation will not pass, so no need to try and steer its path by embracing it.
The rent-seekers have decided that there’s more to lose with being publicly associated with something like USCAP than by standing on the outside.
It`s good that they are steering away from from this Hoax of the Century but they never should have signed on in the first place. All it shows me is they were all more than willing to sell we Americans down the road as were the politicians.
Goes to show you can never trust anyone about anything….
Corporations are under the spell of PR people. They do nothing without their input. Aside from the profits to be made in cap and trade, there would be more profits made by the whole corporate going green public relations, marketing, and advertising blitzes. Since the science is fading from expertise to fraud, there is no downside.
AGW had the potential to make people billionaires. Now, it is exposed as the scientific equivalent of a Ponzi scheme.
“chairman and CEO Jim Mulva.”
I forget his name, but I knew it sounded like a female body part – how Seinfeld!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1g5iPdwTL4
You know, it’s great these companies are getting out. But they are getting out because they don’t think Waxman-Markey and Crap & Charade are good for business, not because they have been following Climategate and gotten a clue that carbon is not a pollutant. When that happens (as the state of Texas is doing by suing EPA), it will be cause for legitimate celebration. But big corporates bailing on a Mad Government Scheme because it doesn’t line their pockets really doesn’t have the same impact.
In separate announcements, BP America, Conoco Phillips, and Caterpillar dropped out of the main lobbying group for cap and trade
So, uh, why the heck were they ever in it in the first place? Big business and big government are two sides of the same coin.
3. whyyeseyec: Goes to show you can never trust anyone about anything….
Glad you have figured that one out.
Politicians do everything for the public good, but forget to tell you they and their cronies are the public. We the little people are to fill the trough to fatten the public pigs. Lesson learned: never support anyone who is doing things for the public good.
2. JEM: Rent-seekers only go to where there are rents to be seeked.
“An example of rent-seeking is when a company lobbies the government for loan subsidies, grants or tariff protection. These activities don’t create any benefit for society, they just redistribute resources from the taxpayers to the special-interest group.”
Who is giving out these “rents”? Yes, the govt. Who is the govt.? We are, we elect the politicians to rob us to pay off the rent-seekers who campaign-contribute to re-elect them to rob us some more. Lesson learned: kick the bums out before they are entrenched.
Bed, Bath & Beyond, Inc., & Whole Foods Market, Inc. They made some noises about the Oil Sands in Alberta. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/bed-bath-beyond-backs-away-from-boycott/article1465569/ was the response from Bed, Bath & Beyond.
Methinks BP, Conoco and Caterpillar saw it and concluded that it did not want to lose customers, or potential customers, so they took the course of action they took.
You don’t suppose there will be a ripple effect, now?
Yay!
I’m curious whether anyone knows this: how many acres of trees would one have to plant to eat as much carbon dioxide as would be produced by a coal plant using today’s technology?
There’s two sides to the coin.
Of course, corporations will endorse politicians who offer them rentseeking propositions.
On the other side are politicians who will extort support from companies. They can propose damaging measures to one or more corporations and then drop those measures when the corporations get in line behind the politician.
Here in California, our utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, had the decision made for them. They HAD to support AGW and hence AB32 with its state-wide controls on carbon emissions. The state had literally bankrupted the company once before, during the 2001 California electricity crisis through bad legislation and a failure to provide relief.
That’s one problem with regulated public utilities – they become toadies to those who regulate them. Thye either play along or get destroyed.
The new meme needs to be, “Hey folks! It’s okay to burn stuff cleanly. C02 won’t kill us, regardless of the scientists on the Supreme Court or the political hacks at the EPA.”
The follow-on should be, “You want less dependence on foreign oil? Encourage our own production!”
Part of our obscene debt is the outflow of capital to Saudi, Chavez’s Venezuela and everybody else we send billions to for their oil.
Drill, baby, drill.
Cap and trade is collusion between government and big business to fix energy prices. The government gets a kickback in the form of taxes and gets some social engineering/wealth distribution jollies. Big business gets to raise prices and receives unearned revenue from government subsidies. Whether this is monopolistic competition or oligopoly depends on how many buyers and sellers there are and how much the buyers or sellers can affect energy prices by their own actions. In this case government creates the market by fiat, enabling the skulduggery to begin.
But who cares what the correct geeky economic label for it is. Just colour cap and trade bad. It’s wonderful to see such shakedown schemes thwarted. Sadly these government functionaries and big business guys dream about circumventing or putting the fix into competitive markets every waking minute. Their current scheme is failing but they will be back with others.
The ironic thing is that if government has any role in markets, it is as a referee to ensure they are kept competitive. The government should not be the enabler of non-competitive markets and chief fixer.
Acting as a market referee, President T. Roosevelt brought an anti-trust action against the Northern Securities Trust of J.P. Morgan. The Sherman Act of 1890 and the Clayton Act of 1914 are other examples of government as a market referee.
I’m thinking that Teddy Roosevelt would have viewed Obama as a team mate of J.P. Morgan.
Robert Hahn asks how many acres of trees would one have to plant to eat as much carbon dioxide as would be produced by a coal plant using today’s technology?
Answer: none have to be planted. The plant life on this earth naturally expands to consume CO2. The more CO2, the more plant life. Plants love the stuff.
Repeat after me: all plants (not just trees) absorb carbon dioxide.
And here’s a shocker: if it’s warmer, plants grow better. Amazing, but true.
You see, in winter, when it’s cold, or in colder places that have short summers, plants don’t grow so well.
In warmer places like the central valley of California, where the sun shines most of the year and the earth is good, plants grow like crazy, assuming you don’t have idiot California liberals turning off the water to protect a 2″ fish, which they have done.
Carbon dioxide is not evil!
The IPCC report, NASA’s Hansen and Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth>/i> are part of a gigantic hoax.
A fraud.
A lie.
A scam.
A con job.
A power grab.
How many ways can this be explained? We’ve been taken. Waxman is a charlatan. Boxer is a liar.
They should all be in cells next to Bernie Madoff.
A couple months ago we ran into one of my wife’s cousins, who is a medium-high exec at Alabama Power (a Southern Company).
He said most of the power companies were rolling over for the govt on cap and trade precisely because they’d get various guarantess and sweethear deal — and get to pass all the new BS costs down to their customers who will be the ones to get screwed.
Alabama Power was one of the few utils in this part of the country putting up a bit of a fight because they currently have excess capacity to sell to other utils, which revenue stream would take a big hit under cap & trade limits.
We conservatives and libertarians must be on our guard against letting our defense of capitalism and markets and dislike of govt make us overlook ig corporate sellouts (if not crooks).
That’s an issue which definitely has bipartisan appeal of the good sort.
Fun facts: Nike supports cap-and-trade, Nike’s shoes are made in Asia, will not be affected by cap and trade. It’s competitor New Balance(?) who makes its shoes in New England will. Nike — green?
Alcoa pro cap-and-trade, wants to replace steel cars with lighter weight aluminum frame cars. Lighter weight, more energy efficient, less carbon emissions. Nice? Aloca develops and makes its aluminum in Australia where it lobbies against cap and trade. It takes a lot more energy, a lot more pollutions to make aluminum. Alcoa — green?
Another, a greenie whose name I forgot, teams with GE to produce electricity with natural gas, and lobbies against coal fired power plants. The greenie, so happened, also builds coal fired electricity generation plants in Africa which will have a lower coal cost because there will be plenty of coals which will no longer be allowed here. Green enough for you?
Walmart supports mandatory employer provided health insurance. Walmart is self insured. Its smaller competitors are not, they have to pay a high price to cover their employees, making them less competitive. Walmart is pro healthcare reform. Wonder why?
If you care to learn more about the rent-seekers, read Obamanomics. I just finished watching the author on C-SPAN. I think his name is Tim Carney.
Look under the rocks, there are a lot of critters scurrying around.
What a bunch of back stabbers. And while we’re on the subject, how about the betrayers in health care? While we were out at the Tea Parties, Big Pharma, the AMA, AARP, and many doctors groups were making deals and selling their customers down the river. I don’t understand why the little guy is working harder to protect the future of this country than these huge business interests. They didn’t even try to fight. I really hate these weasels.
CO2 sequestration is still a good idea, as inert gasses like CO2 are quite useful in oil drilling, where they are used to force oil to the surface under pressure by forcing the inert gasses into the well.
Where have all the green trolls gone?
About two years ago, the EPA told Cat if they wanted to keep making truck engines, they would have to pay a large fine and reconfigure their engines to meet the new EPA standards for low-sulpher diesel fuel. Cat said that would lower the quality of their product and decided instead to cease production for the highway truck market. This was just before Obama said Cat would hire back laid off workers, not realizing those jobs were not coming back.
The EPA standards reduced fuel mileage by about 1/2 mile per gallon. So what? you say. Go from 7 mpg to 6.5 mpg, over approx. 140,000 miles per year, and about 20 gallons of diesel from a barrel of crude oil times the number of trucks on the road (fewer now thanks to the recession) and see where that takes you. And Bio-diesel? fine in summer, but it gels at 5 degrees above zero. Even the new low-sulpher gels at a higher temperature.
Plants around the planet are rejoicing, they will have food. We can breath again without have to pay a tax for each breath and fart.
The LIE too big to failed has failed.
how many acres of trees would one have to plant to eat as much carbon dioxide as would be produced by a coal plant using today’s technology?
2/3 of the Earth’s surface is covered in Ocean, where life teems to a depth of several miles. The vast majority of plant life on Earth is there, and the vast majority of that is microscopic. Then fish eat the plants and big fish eat little fish and the fish die and fertilize the plants. It’s all part of the great big circle of life, like in The Lion King.
Carbon Dioxide is not pollution. Carbon Dioxide is plant food. That’s how all that carbon got into the coal in the first place.
Lots of great comments , but. . . . . where are the trolls? The poor citizens,homo, davids, etc? their world is crashing down around them. . . I love it!!!
I would never buy a Volvo after their Superbowl “Green Police” ad, nor would I ever buy Esurance after their “green” campaign last year.