Cooler Heads Digest 3 May 2013

3 May 2013

Announcements

The Marshall Institute today published a new report titled, “A Skeptical Look at the Carbon Tax,” by James DeLong of the Convergence Law Institute. Click here to read the report.

In the News

Does Big Green Care about People or Nature?
Ron Arnold, Washington Examiner, 3 May 2013

How Oil Made Working-Class North Dakota Rich
Jordan Weissman, The Atlantic, 2 May 2013

Oil Drilling Leaps, Clean Energy Lags
Jonathan Fahey, AP, 2 May 2013

The High Cost of Zero
Paul Driessen, Washington Times, 2 May 2013

Right Stuff: NASA Scientists Weigh In to Undo Hansen Damage
Robert Bradley, Jr., Master Resource, 1 May 2013

EPA Chief Pretended To Be ‘Richard Windsor’
Stephen Dinan, Washington Times, 1 May 2013

Washington Wind Turbine Toppled by 35 mph Gust
Andy Matarrese, Daily Record, 30 April 2013

Government’s Bad Bet on Fisker
Charles Lane, Washington Post, 30 April 2013

News You Can Use
Obama’s EPA Has Imposed $37.8 Billion in Annual Costs

According to a Heritage Foundation report published this week, EPA has imposed $37.8 billion in annual regulatory costs since President Barack Obama took office. The report, Red Tape Rising, is available here.

Inside the Beltway
Myron Ebell

Senate EPW Schedules Vote for EPA Nominee

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has scheduled a vote on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for the morning of Thursday, May 9th. All the Democrats on the committee will vote for McCarthy. Since they hold a ten to eight majority over Republicans, it is certain that the committee will send the nomination to the Senate floor for a confirmation vote.

What is less certain is whether Senator David Vitter (R-La), ranking Republican on the committee, will have the committee's seven other Republicans with him in voting against McCarthy. If he does, then the next question is whether Vitter will lead an effort to block a floor vote.

It takes 60 votes to invoke cloture to end debate and move to a vote. So Vitter needs to round up 41 votes to block McCarthy's confirmation. There are 45 Republicans in the Senate. If Vitter leads the effort against McCarthy, it is likely that he will have two or three Democrats with him. But there are also a number of Republicans who might defect. Several of them don't like McCarthy, but believe that deference should be given to the President's nominees unless they are manifestly unqualified or corrupt.

The argument for blocking McCarthy's confirmation is simply that it is one of the very few shots that Senators will have during the 113th Congress to push back the EPA's ongoing regulatory onslaught against affordable energy. McCarthy, as Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation for the past four years, has been in charge of writing and promulgating the several Clean Air Act regulations that are designed to close coal-fired power plants. In my view, those Senators who oppose the EPA's agenda should not be voting to promote the point person for implementing that agenda. She also misled both the Congress and the public about the design and impact of two of the most expensive regulations—new fuel economy targets and the Carbon Pollution Standard. My colleagues Marlo Lewis and Anthony Ward explain her duplicity here.

Across the States
William Yeatman

Renewables Repeal Resuscitated in North Carolina

Last Friday, I reported that the North Carolina House Public Utilities and Energy Committee voted down H.B. 298, legislation that would have prevented the state’s green energy mandate increasing from 3% to 12% of electricity sales. This week, however, the bill was resuscitated, thanks to the commitment of its sponsor, Rep. Mike Hager (R). Rep. Hager, who chairs the Public Utilities and Energy Committee, told reporters that he would use his prerogative as committee chairman to keep the bill in play indefinitely, and that his goal was to get a floor vote. Hager’s bill received another boost this week when its companion legislation was passed out of the Senate Finance Committee by a voice vote.

EPA Shaking Down Contractors?

In January, there was a split in the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA), an organization that represents air quality officials in state government. Delegations from seventeen states broke off and formed their own organization, the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies, due primarily to a disagreement over NACAA’s support for the Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality regulations. Unlike the NACAA, the breakaway groups objected to EPA’s regulatory assault, and they sought to create an independent voice.

The new group contracted Battelle, a prominent consulting firm, to administer its launch.  Last month, Inside EPA reported that Battelle dissolved the contract with AAPCA as a result of EPA pressure. Sources told Inside EPA that the agency bullied Battelle into dropping the contract, by thretening to block current and potential future contracts with the federal government. This week, the American Tradition Institute sent EPA a Freedom of Information Request Act seeking information about this alleged instance of “gangster government.” Also,Texas state officials sent a letter alleging that EPA had “threaten[ed]” Battelle, and demanded to know why.

Around the World
William Yeatman

Another Pointless Climate Confab Concludes

Today marks the conclusion of an intercessional meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn, Germany, the purpose of which was to prepare for negotiations at the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC this December in Warsaw, Poland.

According to Bloomberg, almost 190 UNFCCC delegates in Bonn are working towards a deal in 2015 that would establish binding greenhouse gas emissions targets for….2050.This is a pathetic goal, even by the pitiful standards of these climate confabs. The Kyoto Protocol, which was the result of COP-3, created binding targets that its signatories ignored. In 2007, after having spent a decade monitoring the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, climate diplomats at COP-13 in Bali, Indonesia established “aspirational” goals to achieve binding emissions targets for 2020 by COP-15. Two years later, the “Bali Roadmap” dead-ended at COP-15 in Copenhagen, Denmark, where negotiations completely disintegrated.

Since the disaster in Denmark, the UNFCCC has been aimless, and this new target is effectively an admission of total failure. A 2050 target is so distant as to be meaningless in practice. It's a goal I could support, and I'm a "denier." Of course, an empty agreement of this sort is the only one that nations of the world would ever submit to, for reasons that I explain here.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.GlobalWarming.org.

ALG's Daily Grind - The unsinkable Paul Krugman

March 11, 2013

The unsinkable Paul Krugman

If there is no limit to how much we can borrow and print for our debt, why should the American people pay any taxes at all?

McCain goes whacko bird

McCain attacks fellow Republican Senators. Their crime was to have had the audacity to actually stand up to power and force the Obama Administration to accept that the U.S. Constitution does not allow the random killing of its citizens on American soil.

Our real manmade climate crisis

In his first address as Secretary of State, John Kerry said we must safeguard "the most sacred trust" we owe to our children and grandchildren: "an environment not ravaged by rising seas, deadly superstorms, devastating droughts, and the other hallmarks of a dramatically changing climate."

First Ladies:  Frivolity, Fact and Why They Matter

First ladies have traditionally been the subjects of frivolous coverage and speculation, but presenting an Oscar breaks new ground. 

Cooler Heads Digest 8 March 2013

8 March 2013

Announcements

• The Cooler Heads Coalition will host a talk by Rupert Darwall at 4 PM on Wednesday, 13th March, in Room 2218 of the Rayburn House Office Building.  Darwall is the author of The Age of Global Warming: A History, published in London this week and in the U. S. at the end of the month by Quartet Books.  Attendees will be given a copy of the book.  Here are two op-eds by Darwall published this week in the Daily Telegraph and the Wall Street Journal Europe Please RSVP to mebell@cei.org.
• An anti-oil industry propaganda film, Greedy Lying Bastards, opens today in nine cities.  Several people featured in the movie trailer work for organizations that belong to the Cooler Heads Coalition.  The executive producer is former movie actress Daryl Hannah.  The director is former eco-terrorist Craig Scott Rosebraugh.
• The Majority Staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week published a study, “A History Lesson Worth Repeating: The Alaska Pipeline and Its Lessons for the Keystone XL.” Click here to read the report.

In the News

A Later Peak Cherry Blossom Date—Is D.C.’s Global Warming Indicator Broken
Adam Sandberg, GlobalWarming.org, 8 March 2013

Congressmen Demand Investigation of EPA Selectively Blocking FOIAs
Mark Flatten, Washington Examiner, 7 March 2013

EPA Is Manufacturing an Energy Crisis
Rep. Pete Olson, Friendsville Journal, 7 March 2013

Gina McCarthy and the Hell of a Ride Republicans
Jeffrey Lord, American Spectator, 7 March 2013

At Harvard, Green Is the New Crimson
Stanley Kurtz, National Review Online, 6 March 2013

Snow Postpones Global Warming Hearing
Marc Morano, Climate Depot, 6 March 2013

Greens Are Wasting Their Time Protesting Keystone XL
Washington Post editorial, 4 March 2013

New Mexico Ratepayers Lose Big on State’s Settlement with EPA
Paul Guessing, Errors of Enchantment, 4 March 2013

Can’t Afford a New Car? EPA Partly to Blame
Katie Tubb, The Foundry, 4 March 2013

News You Can Use
$4.8 Million in Taxpayer Giveaways per Wind Energy Job

According to a report by Bonner R. Cohen published this week by the American Energy Alliance and the National Center for Public Policy Research, a one-year extension of the wind production tax credit—the industry’s most lucrative taxpayer giveaway—would cost up to $4.8 million for each direct wind manufacturing and construction job added.

Inside the Beltway
Myron Ebell

Obama Nominates Gina McCarthy to Top EPA Post

President Barack Obama on Monday, Mar. 4, nominated Gina McCarthy to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.  McCarthy, who has served as Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation for the past four years, was described by the President as a “straight shooter.”  The media immediately echoed this evaluation, and several reporters noted that even her opponents respect her for being a straight shooter.

Perhaps McCarthy has won marksmanship competitions, but as an environmental administrator she is not much of a straight shooter in the metaphorical sense.  She has a pattern of developing policies in secret, refusing to disclose information requested by the relevant congressional committees, even after agreeing to do so, and of misrepresenting policies being developed.  My CEI colleague Anthony Ward summarizes some of McCarthy’s deceptions in a post on GlobalWarming.org, which quotes a 2011 post by another CEI colleague Marlo Lewis on Breitbart, titled “Why Obama Officials Had To Lie To Congress About Fuel Economy Standards.”

Along the same lines, Representative Lamar Smith, R-Tex., Chairman of the House Science Committee, and Senator David Vitter, R-La., ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, sent a letter to McCarthy the day she was nominated asking her to provide the scientific data on health and mortality that EPA has used to justify a raft of expensive new Clean Air Act Rules.  Smith and Vitter note that, “[T]his secret data is the lynchpin for a majority of the regulatory benefit for the entire federal regulatory enterprise.”  And they remind Assistant Administrator McCarthy that, “In September 2011, you committed to providing all underlying PM2.5-mortality data in order for it to be independently reviewed and on November 30, 2011, you pledged in letter to take action ‘…as soon as possible to provide you with any data and analysis produced with EPA funds….’”  They conclude by asking her to keep her promise and turn over the data.  (Don’t hold your breath.)  The whole letter is worth reading.

McCarthy has advanced the radical environmental agenda throughout her career as a state and federal administrator.  President Obama was never interested in environmental issues until he was elected President.  Since then, he has enthusiastically adopted the radical agenda.  Whoever he nominates to be EPA Administrator is going to promote those policies.  But I think McCarthy’s duplicity makes her wholly unqualified to be EPA Administrator.  

State Department Report Heats Up Keystone Debate

On Friday, Mar. 1, the State Department released a draft supplementary environmental impact statement (EIS) for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline that would connect Alberta’s oil sands with refineries in Texas and Louisiana. After the EIS is published in the Federal Register next week, there will be a 45-day public comment period.  The EIS finds all of the major claims of environmental risks and damages made by opponents of the pipeline to be groundless.

Naturally, environmental pressure groups have attacked the EIS and are re-doubling efforts to convince President Obama to deny the permit.   But some usual allies have thrown in the towel.  Columnist Joe Nocera even wrote in The New York Times that the prophet himself, James E. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia, was wrong about Keystone.

The Canadian government and much of the oil industry in Calgary have relaxed for the past year on the assumption President Obama would change his mind and approve Keystone after he was re-elected.  That complacency has disappeared in the past week.  As Toronto’s National Post reported, the Canadian government and some provincial governments have launched a co-ordinated lobbying blitz in the United States.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall was in Washington this week, as was Brenda Kenny, the president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association.  Kenny told an audience of energy experts gathered at the Smithsonian’s Wilson Center that her association was going to challenge falsehoods made by opponents about pipeline safety in general and Keystone in particular.  Labeling environmental propaganda as “falsehoods” is strong language for a Canadian.  Canadian Energy Minister Joe Oliver gave a speech that was described by the Hill as a “broadside against environmentalists” who oppose the pipeline. Oliver then went to Houston carrying the same message.    

Across the States
William Yeatman

Fracking Roundup

New York: The Associated Press this week reported that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was set to partially lift a statewide moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, a gas drilling technology also known as fracking, but he was persuaded to hold off on doing so by his former brother-in-law Robert Kennedy, Jr., a famous environmentalist. According to the AP, Kennedy impressed on Gov. Cuomo the “health problems” associated with fracking. Contrary to what Kennedy told the Governor, there are no such “health problems.” The truth is that environmentalist agitators like Kennedy and documentarian Josh Fox don’t have any evidence to back up their claims. If I was an upstate New Yorker whose property lay above the Marcellus Shale, a gas rich geological formation underneath much of the State, I’d question why my Governor is listening to his former brother-in-law, instead of New York state geologist Dr. Taury Smith, a fracking supporter who dismisses environmentalist alarmism about the drilling technique as being the “worst kind of spin.”

Colorado: On Tuesday evening, the Ft. Collins, Colorado city council voted to ban fracking within municipal limits. Ft. Collins became the third Colorado city to do so, joining Longmont and Boulder. All three measures are opposed by the state government, which was granted exclusive authority to regulate fracking by the Colorado legislature. Attorney General John Suthers already has a pending lawsuit against Longmont, and it is almost certain that the state will sue Ft. Collins, too.

Maryland: By a 6-5 vote, the Maryland Senate, Health, and Environmental Affairs voted down a bill that would have imposed a moratorium on fracking in the state.

Around the World
Anthony Ward

China Holding Off On Carbon Tax

In February, China’s Ministry of Finance announced its intention to introduce a Carbon Tax  aimed at reducing emissions from fossil fuels, but has now decided to delay its implementation until at least 2014. The Ministry of Finance’s decision to delay the tax comes in the wake of internal opposition raised due to economic concerns. China is both the world’s greatest coal consumer and largest contributor of carbon dioxide, accounting for more than 28 percent of the world’s total emissions.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.GlobalWarming.org.

Cooler Heads Digest 1 March 2013

1 March 2013

In the News

State Department: Keystone XL Would Have Little Impact on Climate
Juliet Eilperin & Steven Mufson, Washington Post, 1 March 2013

California’s Green Jobs Bust
Conn Carroll, Washington Examiner, 28 February 2013

Green Movement Has Turned into a Death Cult
Dennis Prager, Investors Business Daily, 27 February 2013

The Green Energy Religion Is Based on a False Premise
Bill Frezza, Beaufort Observer, 27 February 2013

Keystone XL: A No-Brainer
Rep. Fred Upton, National Journal, 27 February 2013

Dominion Virginia’s ‘Green’ Solar Program: Bad Economics for a Misplaced Cause
Charles Battig, Master Resource, 27 February 2013

Is Presumed EPA Nominee Gina McCarthy Trustworthy?
Anthony Ward, GlobalWarming.org, 26 February 2013

What Climate Consensus?
Peter Glover, Energy Tribune, 26 February 2013

We Should Defund the IPCC
Larry Bell, Forbes, 24 February 2013

News You Can Use
Carbon Tax Costs

According to a study published this week by the National Association of Manufacturers, a $20 per ton carbon tax would reduce household consumption by $340 in 2033, in addition to lowering employment by 2,520,000 job-equivalents. For more on advocates of a carbon tax, including AEI and Exxon Mobil, see Inside the Beltway.

Inside the Beltway
Myron Ebell

Sequester Begins With Devastating Spending Cuts

The automatic reductions of $85 billion in federal spending, known as the Sequester, which were agreed to by President Obama, Senate Democrats and House Republicans when the Budget Control Act was passed and signed into law in 2011, started going into effect today, March 1.  As President Obama has warned over the past several weeks, the consequences of cutting federal spending by 2.2 percent already are calamitous.  Bloomberg News reported that the Bureau of Labor Statistics was going to have to discontinue its survey of green jobs. 

Here’s what Bracken Hendricks, a senior fellow at the ironically named Center for American Progress and the author of a book on green energy told Bloomberg: “It’s a huge loss.  This means the U.S. will be flying blind on the growth of a very, very important sector in the U.S. economy.” 

It may be the White House agrees with my CEI colleague John Berlau, who told Bloomberg that he was glad to see the green jobs survey go.  That’s because President Obama promised in the 2008 campaign his policies would create 5 million new green jobs within a decade.  The White House later claimed $90 billion in stimulus funding had created 225,000 green jobs (at $400,000 per job).  So the president may be happy not to have be reminded by the BLS’s survey of how far he is from keeping his promise. 

For a Carbon Tax: ExxonMobil, AEI, Brookings and RFF
Against: NAM

It was a busy week for promoting and opposing a carbon tax.  Two studies on the economic effects of a carbon tax that draw opposite conclusions were released by the National Association of Manufacturers and the Brookings Institution.  Kevin Hassett, Ph.D., director of economic policy studies at the “pro-business” American Enterprise Institute, continued his advocacy of a carbon tax at a Resources for the Future forum.  And most interestingly, former EPA Administrator William K. Reilly, said at a conference that, “The strongest advocate on our task force for a carbon tax was ExxonMobil.  I had previously thought that was a public relations thing — I didn’t think they were quite interested in it.”  

The National Association of Manufacturers released a study by NERA Consulting on the Economic Outcomes of a Carbon Tax. The NAM study concludes that a tax starting at $20 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted and increasing by 4 percent per year would have a range of negative effects that would ripple through the economy.  In particular: “The negative impact of a carbon tax on total manufacturing output would be significant, with output from energy-intensive manufacturing sectors dropping as much as 15 percent and output from non-energy-intensive manufacturing sectors dropping as much as 7.7 percent.”

The NAM study also argues that: “A carbon tax would have a net negative effect on consumption, investment and jobs, resulting in lower federal revenues from taxes on capital and labor. Factoring in lost revenue from reduced economic activity, the net revenue from a carbon tax available for deficit/debt reduction and lower tax rates is relatively small.”

The Brookings Institution released a study by Adele C. Morris on The Many Benefits of a Carbon Tax.  The Brookings study proposes a tax starting at $16 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted and increasing by 4 percent per year to reduce the deficit and to lower the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent.  The study proposes 15 percent of the revenues from a carbon tax go to benefits for poor people who would be hurt most by higher energy prices.  Morris also argues in the study a carbon tax would make at least some EPA regulations of greenhouse gas emissions redundant and unnecessary. 

The details of a carbon tax were discussed on Feb. 27 at a Resources for the Future seminar on Comprehensive Tax Reform and Climate Policy.  A video of the seminar can be viewed here.  Participants included Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute, Billy Pizer of Duke University, Joe Aldy of Harvard University, Larry Goulder of Stanford University, Rob Williams of the University of Maryland, and Ian Parry of the International Monetary Fund.  Aldy worked as an adviser on climate policy in the Obama White House.  Pizer worked in the Treasury Department during the George W. Bush (when Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, was Treasury Secretary) and Obama Administrations to devise a model carbon tax.

William K. Reilly was one of the speakers at the Climate Leadership Conference this week.  The conference was hosted by the Climate Registry, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and the Association of Climate Change Officers.  It was sponsored by a long list of companies and organizations, including Bloomberg BNA News.  The “headline sponsor” was the Environmental Protection Agency.

Erica Martinson filed several short reports for Politico Pro, which is available to paid subscribers only.  In one of Politico Pro’s e-mails to subscribers dated 2/28/13 12:01 PM EST Martinson wrote:

Oil companies are expecting — and sometimes advocating for — a carbon tax, former EPA Administrator William Reilly said today. Two companies, ConocoPhillips and Shell, “have a virtual tax they append to their [internal rate of return] calculations when making new capital expenditures,” he said. “It’s $25 a ton for Conoco; $75 a ton for Shell. So Congress may not be acting, but companies are anticipating somebody will someday,” Reilly said.

The George H.W. Bush-era EPA leader recently participated on an energy policy task force and found ExxonMobil’s position interesting, he said. “The strongest advocate on our task force for a carbon tax was ExxonMobil. I had previously thought that was a public relations thing — I didn’t think they were quite interested in it,” he said.

The task force Reilly refers to is the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Strategic Energy Policy Initiative, which released its report at a press conference on Feb. 27.  Reilly was one of four speakers at the press conference, along with his three fellow co-chairmen: former Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Gen. James Jones, former National Security Adviser to President Obama.  Other members of the task force include William Colton, vice president of ExxonMobil, and Ralph Cavanaugh of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The task force’s 50 incoherent energy policy recommendations can be read here.

In other carbon tax news, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, asked Treasury Secretary nominee Jacob Lew during his confirmation hearing about the Obama Administration’s position on a carbon tax.  Lew responded, “The administration has not proposed a carbon tax, nor is it planning to do so.”   The Senate confirmed Lew by a vote of 71 to 26 this week.  Senator David Vitter (R-La.), ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, followed up on Lew’s statement by sending a letter to President Obama asking him whether he opposes the carbon tax bill introduced by Senators Bernie Sanders (Independent Socialist-Vt.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

Across the States
William Yeatman

Maryland Legislature Poised To Pass Empty Offshore Wind Bill

By a 7-4 vote, the Maryland Senate Finance Committee passed SB 275, the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act of 2013. The legislation, which was proposed by Governor Martin O’Malley, was approved by the House last week, and it is expected to soon win passage in the full Senate.

The bill would cap the amount that Maryland ratepayers would pay for offshore wind at about 13 cents per kilowatt hour. To date, the cheapest proposed offshore wind project, off the Massachusetts coast, is priced at 20 cents per kilowatt hour. Simply put, the price ceiling established by Maryland’s offshore wind legislation is almost 40 percent less than the price floor established by the market. As a result, it is highly unlikely that the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act will lead to wind turbines off Maryland’s coast.

Around the World
Anthony Ward

EU Financial Transaction Tax to Fund Climate Change

The European Union’s Commission has proposed a financial transaction tax (FTT) on bonds and stockholdings, and is considering using the tax revenues generated to combat climate change. The tax is currently being supported by 11 members of the EU.  Andris Piebalgs, the EU’s Commissioner on Development, said he  “wants member countries to really take [the idea of using tax revenue for climate change] seriously.”   

The FTT proposal coincides with European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard’s  visit to Washington D.C.  Hedegaard is the EU’s top climate change official and has been an outspoken opponent of the Keystone XL pipeline.  At a press conference on Thursday, The Hill reports  that Hedegaard told reporters that rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline would “be an extremely strong signal from the Obama administration.”  She went on to characterize the pipeline as a harmful investment that would not “pay off  in the world we are living in.”

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.GlobalWarming.org.

CEI Weekly: John Kerry's Climate Change Alarmism

March 1, 2013

Feature: Fred L. Smith, Jr. talks to The Wall Street Journal about the Secretary of State.

FEATURE: John Kerry's Climate Change Alarmism Wall Street Journal Live interviewed CEI Chairman Fred L. Smith, Jr. this week about Secretary of State John Kerry's dedication to fighting the "dramatic" changing climate. Smith talks about how Kerry will use his office to advance climate change alarmism and what Kerry really should be working on instead. Watch the video here. SHAPING THE DEBATE Government Office, Government Pay ... Union Duties? Trey Kovacs's op-ed in U.S. News & World Report Sequester This! President Obama's Colossal Media Blunder Bill Frezza's column in Forbes Countdown to Sequester John Berlau's op-ed in National Review Google Strikes Again? Ryan Radia's interview on RT Cut Spending: Permanently Furlough 'Official Time' Workers Matt Patterson & Trey Kovacs's op-ed in The Washington Times Beer Market Needs Liberty, Not Lawsuits Michelle Minton's op-ed in The Daily Caller At Minimum, a Big Loser Ryan Young's op-ed in The American Spectator  Chicago Adults Could Be Forced to Give Up Energy Drinks Michelle Minton's op-ed in Human Events The Return of the Euro Crisis Matthew Melchiorre's citation in The Washington Post

CEI PODCAST February 28, 2013: Italy's Troubling Election Results The results of Italy’s general election were announced this week, setting markets on edge across the Eurozone. For all intents and purposes, Italy is without a government. There is no clear majority in the parliament’s upper house, and former comedian Beppe Grillo’s populist Five Star Movement captured a quarter of the vote. Warren Brookes Fellow Matthew Melchiorre finds the outcome surprising, as well as troubling. BEST OF THE BLOGS The Real Dangers of Crying Wolf Over BPA By Angela Logomasini VAWA Likely to Pass Congress This Week, Despite Violating the First Amendment By Hans Bader EPA Cuts 2012 Cellulosic Blending Target to Zero By Marlo Lewis Immigration Restrictions Violate Americans' Liberty By David Bier