TransCanada prepares to hand Barack Obama a bill for $15B

From Hotair:

I’m sure our regular readers remember when Barack Obama went with his conscience (as opposed to boring old things like science) and shut down construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. At the time he claimed that it didn’t meet the test of combating climate change, though in reality he was running from a massive revolt on his Left flank if he’d approved it. But it took a long time to “get to No.” There was one review after another, coming from the EPA, the State Department, the Department of the Interior and the Federation of Urban Dog Walkers. (Okay… I may have made up that last one.)

During all of that time, TransCanada (the company working to complete the project) was running up some significant bills doing preparatory work, filing reports, paying for armies of lawyers and engineering talent… this was not a low cost, low risk endeavor. And all the while they were being assured that the plan would get a fair hearing and held obvious benefits for both the United States and Canada. Then the plug was unceremoniously pulled.

With all of that history as prologue, it may not be surprising that they would now like some of the money which was invested in good faith returned to them, and they’d like Barack Obama to sign the check. (Reuters)

TransCanada Corp is formally requesting arbitration over U.S. President Barack Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, seeking $15 billion in damages, the company said in legal papers dated Friday.

TransCanada submitted a notice for an arbitration claim in January and had then tried to negotiate with the U.S. government to “reach an amicable settlement,” the company said in files posted on the pipeline’s website.

“Unfortunately, the parties were unable to settle the dispute.”

TransCanada said it then filed its formal arbitration request under North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provisions, seeking to recover what it says are costs and damages.

Yet another bill he's leaving behind AFTER he leaves office.

Public university admits to burying study finding no damage to water quality from fracking because funders ‘disappointed’

From Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker Blog:

A three-year study undertaken by the state-funded University of Cincinnati will not be released to the public, because it found no damage at all. This direct contradiction of the goals of many environmentalist groups had to be suppressed. As the lead researcher said:

I am really sad to say this, but some of our funders, the groups that had given us funding in the past, were a little disappointed in our results. They feel that fracking is scary and so they were hoping this data could to a reason to ban it[.]

This is a scandal that goes to the heart of the relationship between science and public policy and the reliability of global warming doomsayers. The scandal was broken in a small town newspaper, the Free Press-Standard of Carroll County, Ohio and only gradually made its way to the national media via Jeff Stier of the National Center for Public Policy Research, Newsweek, and Jazz Shaw of Hot Air.

This is one case that has been discoverd. So one has to ask, how often does this go on and how many other incidence is this true?

Gas Prices Stay High in California, Fall in Rest of Country

From Breitbart California:

The average price of gas is below $2 per gallon in more than half of the United States, but prices at California pumps are creeping higher due to maintenance issues at refineries across the Golden State.

As of Monday evening, the average price of gas in California sat at $2.85 a gallon, well above the less than $2 per gallon national average, according to gas price-tracking service GasBuddy. The high statewide average is buoyed by particularly pricy pumps in Los Angeles ($3.04/gallon), San Diego ($2.99/gallon), and San Bernardino ($2.97/gallon).

California already enjoys higher-than-average gas prices due to the botched implementation of global warming legislation signed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger nearly a decade ago. But recent disruptions at several major refineries across the state have compounded the problem, and motorists are feeling the difference at the pumps.

Yet another reason to move out of this state, when I retire.

"Unstoppable" California Gas Leak Now Being Called Worst Catastrophe Since BP Spill

From Zero Hedge via H/T at Instapundit:

Since initially reporting on California's Alison Canyon gas leak, more details have emerged on the scale (and potential for no solution) of the problem as the infamous Erin Brockovich writes, "the enormity of the Aliso Canyon gas leak cannot be overstated. Gas is escaping through a ruptured pipe more than 8,000 feet underground, and it shows no signs of stopping," as according to the California Air Resources Board, methane - a greenhouse gas 72 times more impactful in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide - has been escaping from the Aliso Canyon site with force equivalent “to a volcanic eruption” for about two months now.

So where is the wall to wall coverage?

Might it have to do with the fact that Jerry Brown's sister, former gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Brown is on the Board of Directors for SoCal Gas?

NOAA refuses to comply with House subpoena for documents on climate

From Rick Moran at The American Thinker:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is refusing to fully comply with a subpoena from Science Committee chair Lamar Smith that would shed light on the 15 year "pause" in warming.

The agency cites "confidentiality" in refusing to turn over documents.

Confidentiality, the documents were paid for by the American Taxpayer. WE own the documents.

Aside from the shocking arrogance in defying a subpoena from Congress, it's pretty obvious that the NOAA doesn't want to release the data because it will either show they cooked the books, or, as they've done in the past, misinterpreted the data. Smith can go to court, but by the time the issue is adjudicated, the next Congress will be sitting.

There is a simple solution. Zero out the NOAA budget until they comply.

Sand Causes Cancer, Say British Fracktivists

From The American Interest via H/T at Instapundit:

But remember, it's the Right who's anti-science.

Green activists have found a new way to villainize hydraulic fracturing in Britain: claiming that sand, one essential component of the sluice pumped at high pressure into horizontal wells to “frack” shale, will give people cancer. . . .

By this logic, greens ought to be calling for the quarantining of beaches—to hear these activists tell it, the sand you’d be tanning on there would be as big a cancer risk as the UV rays you might be soaking up.

This kind of campaigning isn’t unique to this specific green group, either. It’s part of a pattern of behavior employed by the modern environmental movement, in which sober analysis of important policy decisions is overrun by overwrought and often emotional rhetoric—baseless fear-mongering. For a group that prides itself on being joined at the hip to science, greens show a remarkable tendency to ditch the facts when it’s convenient to serve their point, and this latest sand-causes-cancer campaign is a great example of that.

Once you realize that it’s about protection money and lefty agitprop, it makes more sense.

That last paragraph just defines the modern environmental movement.

New Plastic Bag Ballot Measure Targets Greedy Grocers

From Breitbart California:

For many years, the most extreme elements of the environmental movement pursued a statewide ban on plastic grocery bags in California. Every time they would do this, despite the overwhelming liberal majorities in the state legislature, their efforts would fail.

Over and over the arguments on the junk-science behind defaming the bags, the negative economic impacts of a ban, and the impressive political coalition opposing the ban combined to kill the effort.

Until last year, that is, when something happened.

The California Grocers Association (CGA), which had been a key member of the coalition stopping the ban from passing for many years, threw its full weight behind SB 270, which added to the statewide ban on standard plastic grocery bags a ten-cent “fee” (read: TAX) on each paper bag and thicker plastic bag provided to customers. The profits from those fees will go to–you guessed it–the grocers.

Crony capitalism at work again.

A couple of weeks ago the American Progressive Bag Alliance, the same group that spent several million dollars gathering signatures for the referendum on SB 270, filed a petition to place yet another ballot measure before voters, entitled the Environmental Tax Protection Act. If passed by the voters, it would require that the ten-cent paper/thicker plastic bag tax collected under SB 270 be redirected to an environmental purpose.

Specifically, this new measure would require that those hundreds of millions of taxes be deposited into a state Environmental and Enhancement Fund that is administered by the State Wildlife Conservation Board. These funds would then be available for legitimate environmental grants (e.g., drought mitigation projects, recycling).

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or a sophisticated political analyst, to figure that the public, if forced to pay a tax at grocery stores, would far more prefer that the money go to a public benefit than simply to profit major grocery chains. Especially when they learn during next fall’s campaign the self-dealing role that the California Grocers Association actually played in the process.

Another case of schadenfreude. A pox on both their houses.

Oil Trade Group Challenges Environmentalists -- Enough Talk, Try Actually Living Without Fossil Fuels

From PJ Media via H/T at Instapundit:

Why? The goal is to wreck your lifestyle, not theirs. Since announcing the Fossil Fuel Free Challenge two weeks ago, we’ve challenged numerous environmental groups to practice what they promote. We’ve called on companies like Starbucks, Nike, Walmart and others that have pledged to do away with fossil fuels to try going just one week without.

The reaction we get is people saying they’ll ride a bike to work or that they already drive a hybrid. However, those still use considerable amounts of fossil fuels and components that only come from oil and natural gas. As Patrick Richardson writes, “The people protesting against fossil fuels don’t really want to live in a world without them. They just want to feel righteous, a problem even some within their ranks recognize they have.”

That's why the people , who protest about the use of fossil fuel drive hybrids, the show that they are superior, to the low folks who drive Hummers.

EPA — The Other Villain in the Volkswagen Scam.

Via H/T at Instapundit:

But the hard reality is that this might not be the last such scam we’ll see. If the EPA continues on its anti-industry crusade, it’ll practically invite widespread disrespect for the law.

The EPA slashed allowable nitrogen dioxide car emissions from the already low 1.2 grams per mile average to 0.07 grams per mile in 2008 to boost air quality that courts at the time ruled was already pretty good and adequately protecting public health. The EPA is now poised to tighten that standard another 30 percent.

The problem for carmakers is that they can’t simultaneously satisfy such regulatory edicts and consumer demand.

Drivers want cheap, safe, powerful cars. That is exactly what the EPA’s NOx standards made it very difficult for VW to produce.

To be fair, the people behind the standards want us all riding buses.

You must include the California Air Resources Board (CARB) as part of the radical environmentalist cabal. They just make regulations, without and scientific justifications, it's a waving of the hand, "Make it so."

All Hail VW -- Heroic Resistants Against The Green Tyranny!

From Breitbart's Big Government:

Who’d want to buy a VW right now?

Me, for one. The VW I currently drive is, by some margin, the most exciting car I’ve ever owned.

It’s a Golf Four-Motion which I picked up for a song on Ebay. From the outside it looks deceptively ordinary: just the standard, boxy Golf body with no distinguishing marks or features to tell you how secretly evil it is. But underneath the bonnet is a ludicrously inappropriate 2.8 litre V6 engine. On a Golf. Imagine!
...................

Which is the real reason, I suspect, that they ended up being targeted by the green Gestapo, in the form of the Environmental Protection Agency, which has caught VW out doctoring their emissions tests to make their cars look greener than they actually are. (Invented by Hitler; destroyed by the green Gestapo. Oh the irony!)
...................

And the reason for this is that, unlike most of its craven, corporatist sell-out competitors, VW was brave enough to try to fight against the technologically unfeasible, economically untenable emissions targets being imposed on it by the green commissars of the European Union.

“…The 95 g/km Long-Term-Target for 2020 is the result of a political decision taken last year. It is not based on sound impact assessment nor on a realistic appreciation of the costs and technical progress necessary to meet the goal within the timescale…” — Volkswagen 2010

VW, in other words, was making a stand for its consumers and – just as importantly – its shareholders against a bunch of unelected ideologues who don’t give a stuff for free markets or the bottom line.

That's a different take than I would take, but BooYah!

Debate over Bill to Halve Gas Use in CA

From Breitbart California:

The Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015, SB 350, which would force petroleum use in California cars and trucks to be cut in half by 2030, is snaking through the California State Assembly toward a vote, prompting acrimonious debate between supporters and opponents.

Capital Public Radio reported that Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, the co-author of the bill, said that his opponents in the oil industry were overreacting to the bill. He asserted that gasoline would still be available and no driving limits would be mandated, adding, “I’m under no illusion whatsoever that oil will be eliminated. That’s just not a reality. It’s not going to happen in the present. It’s not going to happen in the near future or in my lifetime.” CBS Los Angeles quoted de León saying, “Our focus is very clear: to put more money in the people’s pockets so they can save. Who wouldn’t want to save on gasoline? Who wouldn’t want to drive farther on a gallon of gasoline?”

Governor Jerry Brown ripped the oil companies, snapping, “Of course, the people who are going to sell 50 percent less petroleum are not only going to have questions, they’re going ot have a fierce, unrelenting opposition.”

But Beth Miller, a spokeswoman for the California Drivers Association, expressed concern that new standards would entail new fees for drivers of old cars. She stated, “To be able to say to every Californian, we are going to dictate to you what kind of car you should have and how old it is, it’s not something that Californians want to see.”

Wow.

Just wow. How do they expect to accomplish this goal. The wand of a fairy god mother. Well they''re a lot of fairies in San Fransisco.

Tom Steyer wants to know why the gas prices he jacked up are so high

From Hot Air:

It’s impossible to simply skim over the irony of someone demanding to know why gas prices are so high in the very same press release where they push for an additional ten percent tax on oil extraction. Does Tom Steyer actually understand where gas comes from?
.................

The disconnect here is shocking. Dan Walters notes that Steyer really doesn’t seem to know how all of this works. (Sacramento Bee)

Just two months ago, at UC Berkeley, Schremp laid out the cost factors for nearly all of the 52.1-cent-per-gallon differential between California and the rest of the nation for “reformulated” fuel. They were higher taxes, 17 cents; higher production costs, 10 cents; cap-and-trade fees, 10 cents; and “an isolated market,” 10-plus cents.

The latter is very important. California requires a unique fuel blend to fight smog, making it very dependent on a few in-state refineries. Therefore, when there’s a strike, a fire or some other refinery disruption, California-only fuel supplies shrink and prices rise.

Were there some “nefarious” conspiracy to keep prices high, as Steyer suggests, California’s prices would not only be high, but stay high.

Thanks to precisely the initiatives which Steyer has backed in the past, Californians have to use a special snowflake mixture of gasoline which is only produced in a couple of refineries. When you limit supply, prices are vulnerable. They have a cap and trade plan which mandates that each gallon of gas will cost more than it does almost anywhere else right off the top. And their gas tax is already stupidly high, even before they tack on the next 10% Steyer is pushing for.

And yet he wants an investigation to find out why their gasoline costs 51 cents more per gallon. Can somebody remind me again how Tom Steyer managed to become a billionaire in the first place?

He knows, but this is all just PR. An miserable attempt to "feel" the problems of the common man. He's almost as tone deaf as Hillary.

The Week in Pictures -- Salad Edition

From the guys at Powerline Blog:

The Black Book of Tom Steyer

From the Washington Free Beacon:

The former hedge fund of one of the Democratic Party’s most important donors was involved in a scheme to defraud foreign investors out of tens of millions of dollars, according to documents filed in a Texas court.

Compare the Drive-By media's coverage of Steyer to the Koch Brothers.

Obama passes on Keystone Decision once again, Democrats left scrambling.

From Breitbart's Big Government:

Once again President Obama has bowed to his environmentalist supporters and passed on making a decision for or against the Keystone XL Pipeline. But the President's refusal to make a decision has left several Democrats running for re-election stammering to explain to constituents why thousands of new jobs are still in limbo.

By constantly putting off any final decision these many years Obama has placated his extreme environmental activist donor base. However, in February the President said he'd have a decision "one way or another" in "a couple of months." Yet even as it is closing in on two months later, Obama is still refusing to make that final decision.

But by not approving the pipeline, thousands of jobs and millions in economic benefits have also been put in limbo and this loss of income and jobs is not sitting well with many.

Recently a large construction union warned Democrats that they would be targeted for defeat in the upcoming midterm elections due to this failure to approve the project.

Additionally, now that the President has again put off a final decision, several Democrats are finding that this inaction is coming back to haunt their election campaigns.

So the Dear Leader passes on yet ANOTHER HARD decision

Does this really surprise anyone?

The Week in Pictures -- The Royal Baby Edition

From the guys at Powerline Blog:

Two US Cities, One With the Highest Unemployment in the Country, The Other With the Lowest. One is the Capital of Shale Fracking; The Other is the Capital of Solar Power Production.

From Ace of Spades HQ:

Guess which is which?

According to data released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Midland, Texas, has a 2.9 percent unemployment rate, the lowest in the country.

Midland sits above the Permian Basin Shale, a massive formation that constitutes a large chunk of Texas’ booming shale oil industry.

The West Texas town is also one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country, which many attribute to its booming oil-fueled economy. ...............................

As a result of Midland’s fracking-induced oil glut, the town’s increasing population is also enjoying a boost in personal incomes. Per capita income in the city increased by 25 percent between 2009 and 2011. ................................

In contrast to the successes of those oil and gas boomtowns, Yuma, Ariz., is facing the highest unemployment rate of any U.S. metro area at a whopping 26.1 percent.

Yuma is the site of the Agua Caliente solar plant—the largest photovoltaic solar generation facility in the world.

Agua Caliente received a $967 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy (DOE) in 2011. According to DOE, federal financing helped create 10 permanent jobs.

Ten jobs for almost a billion dollars.

That's not good, that's Obama Math.

Senate Report: EPA Official Convicted of Bilking Government Out of Nearly a Million Dollars Was Critical Player in Crafting EPA's "Playbook" on Regulations

From Ace of Spades HQ: Remember this guy? He skipped out of work constantly, and, at one point, collected a steady paycheck despite not showing up for work for a year and a half.

Between 2000 and 2012, Beale skipped work for at least 616 days. But his fraud wasn’t discovered until last year when it was found out that he was still getting paid for a year and a half but hadn’t shown up for work in that whole time. Under McCarthy, Beale missed at least 18 consecutive months of work, costing taxpayers more than $239,000.

He covered his absences by claiming he was working for top men in the CIA.

Who?

Top. Men.

But despite his chronic absenteeism, he did manage to do Big Things when he troubled himself to show up at work.

A report by Senate Republicans contends that the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory “playbook” was written by known agency fraudster John Beale, who put into place major air quality regulations that set the stage for “the exponential growth of the agency’s power over the American economy.” .....................

“This report will reveal that within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), some officials making critically important policy decisions were not remotely qualified, anything but neutral, and in at least one case — EPA decision making was delegated to a now convicted felon and con artist, John Beale,” wrote Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. ......................

“Together, Brenner and Beale implemented a plan, which this report refers to as ‘EPA’s Playbook,’” the senators continued. “The Playbook includes several tools first employed in the 1997 process, including sue-and-settle arrangements with a friendly outside group, manipulation of science, incomplete cost-benefit analysis reviews, heavy-handed management of interagency review processes, and capitalizing on information asymmetry, reinforced by resistance to transparency. Ultimately, the guiding principal behind the Playbook is the Machiavellian principal that the ends will justify the means.”

From the Most Transparent Administration evah!

Let’s Save California Now!

Victor Davis Hansen has suggested some laws that need to be passed now to save California.

1. The Hetch Hetchy Smelt and Salmon Act - Aim: To synchronize water resources with water-use advocacy.

2. The Undocumented Immigrant Equity Act - Aim: One, to achieve economic parity for undocumented immigrants by allowing them affordable housing in affluent areas where jobs are plentiful, wages are high, and opportunities exist for mentorships; and, two, to ensure cultural diversity among the non-diverse host community, bringing it into compliance with the state’s ethnic profile.

3. The Cultivating Diversity Education Equilibrium Act - Aim: To end disparities in California school testing and performance levels accruing largely due to intrinsic racial and ethnic discrimination.

4. The Silicon Valley Transparency and Fair Jobs Act - Aim: To ensure progressive Silicon Valley commercial businesses are caring progressive state citizens.

5. The California Firearms Safety Act - Aim: To prevent unnecessary armed deterrence by private security units in the hire of the affluent.

6. The Fair Housing Adjustment Act - Aim: It would ensure state resources are equally distributed and not inordinately siphoned off to a small minority of the state population. Would encourage existing large homes to downsize through reverse remodeling.

7. The High-speed Rail Equality Act - Aim: To ensure commuters in Los Angeles and San Francisco will have priority in construction, avoiding privileging Fresno-to-Corcoran commuters, where construction of the first link of the high-speed rail line is slated to begin.

8. The Climate Change Adjustment and Fair Temperature Act - Aim: To ensure every Californian the right to live in a house with temperatures at 75 degrees.

9. The One-percenter Politician Act - Aim: To ensure that California’s representatives reflect the rich economic diversity and income averages of the state. It also prohibits inside influence peddling on the part of politicians.

10. The Protect the Peregrine Act - Aim: To stop the wind and solar industry from harming natural ecosystem of California.

11. The Petroleum Fair Use Act - Aim: To ensure that Californians only consume the gasoline they produce and thereby do not promote a larger carbon footprint by subsidizing out-of-state oil production not overseen by California resource legislation.

12. The California Fair Automobile Act - Aim: To ensure so-called imported high-performance and luxury cars do not use an inordinate amount of state energy resources, or leave large carbon footprints on the California ecological landscape, or divert collective resources to the individual from the greater needs of the state.

Read the whole article, it gives more details about the suggested laws and the reasoning behind them.

The End of Incandescent Lightbulbs — Not Environmental Protection, But Corporate Cronyism:

From the Washington Examiner:

Competitive markets with low costs of entry have a characteristic that consumers love and businesses lament: very low profit margins. GE, Philips and Sylvania dominated the U.S. market in incandescents, but they couldn’t convert that dominance into price hikes. Because of light bulb’s low material and manufacturing costs, any big climb in prices would have invited new competitors to undercut the giants — and that new competitor would probably have won a distribution deal with Wal-Mart.

So, simply the threat of competition kept profit margins low on the traditional light bulb — that’s the magic of capitalism. GE and Sylvania searched for higher profits by improving the bulb — think of the GE Soft White bulb. These companies, with their giant research budgets, made advances with halogen, LED and fluorescent technologies, and even high-efficiency incandescents. They sold these bulbs at a much higher prices — but they couldn’t get many customers to buy them for those high prices. That’s the hard part about capitalism — consumers, not manufacturers, get to demand what something is worth.

Capitalism ruining their party, the bulb-makers turned to government. Philips teamed up with NRDC. GE leaned on its huge lobbying army — the largest in the nation — and soon they were able to ban the low-profit-margin bulbs. . . .

Technologies often run the course from breakthrough innovation to obsolete. Think of the 8-track, the Model T or Kodachrome film. But the market didn’t kill the traditional light bulb. Government did it, at the request of big business.

So it wasn't the Environmentalist Wackos?