The Wonk Room

Big Oil Releases Report Exposing Continued Refusal To Invest In Renewables

A new report commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute (API) focuses on their finding that of $132.9 billion invested by US public and private sectors in greenhouse gas-mitigating technologies from 2000 to 2008, $58.4 billion came from the oil and gas industry. While API called the oil and gas industry’s investment “pretty impressive,” their report just reinforces that Big Oil has all the wrong priorities:

Kyle Isakower, API’s director of policy analysis, called the oil and gas companies’ $58.4 billion investment a “pretty impressive” number when put in context. “Our members’ primary responsibility is to be able to provide the fuels our country needs,” Isakower explained.

Let’s put this investment into context. The claim that the oil and gas industry invested $58.4 billion in clean energy technologies from 2000 to 2008 is overstated — about ten times over. API lumped in spending on renewable technologies with other “alternative” energies to exaggerate their purported commitment to renewable energy. In fact, the oil and gas industry spent only $6.7 billion on “non-hydrocarbon technology” including ethanol, wind, and solar. $21.1 billion of the $58.4 billion, or more than a third, was invested in liquefied natural gas, yet another fossil fuel. Another $30.6 billion went “mostly to energy efficiency.” Their total investment in renewable energy was little more than a tenth of the $58.4 billion “investments to cut greenhouse gases.”

The oil and gas industry has long invested only a small percentage of their profits in renewable and alternative energy ventures. The API-commissioned report from T² and Associates and the Center for Energy Economics at the University of Texas leaves out any accounting of total oil and gas profits, which totaled over $100 billion in 2008 for the top five companies alone. Analysis from the Center for American Progress showed that these top five oil companies — BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell — committed just 4 percent of their total profits to low-carbon investments in 2008. Exxon-Mobil, the biggest of the big oil companies, made more than $45 billion in net income in 2008 — and invested less than 1 percent of its profits in renewable energy. In fact, the API report reveals that the entire oil and gas industry is as bad as or worse than Exxon when it comes to under-investing in renewable energy:

Big Oil Invested Less Than One Percent Of 2000-2008 Profits In Renewables. The top five oil companies raked in $656 billion from 2000 to 2008, meaning that the $6.7 billion investment by the entire US oil and gas industry in renewable energy represents just 1 percent of the profits of the top five oil companies alone. [API, CAP]

Other examples of Big Oil’s attempt to inflate their commitment to renewable energy include multi-million dollar investments in advertising and “green-washing” campaigns, despite investing heavily in organizations that question the existence of global warming. In 2007, Exxon-Mobil spent $100 million on advertising, producing ads that focused on global warming, efficiency, and alternative energy. Chevron has created an “I Will” ad campaign in spite of its record of investing only 5 percent of its $23.9 billion in profits in renewable energy in 2008.

Repowering America’s Defense: Energy And The Risks To National Security »

Our guest blogger is Alexandra Kougentakis, a Center for American Progress Action Fund Fellows Assistant.

The Department of Defense (DOD) is the single largest consumer of energy in the United States. A new report by the Military Advisory Board (MAB) of the Center for Naval Analysis, “Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security,” describes the significant security threats the energy status quo poses to US military missions and the country:

Energy, security, economics, climate change — these things are connected.

General Charles F. “Chuck” Wald, the chairman of the MAB, laid bare the conclusions of the report in his opening remarks at the panel discussion to launch the report, held at the Newseum on Monday. Describing the oil crisis as a serious and urgent threat to national security, General Wald noted that not only does the military’s inefficient use of oil “reduce combat effectiveness,” but that American dependence on oil has a major impact on foreign policy. Significantly, he noted that the problem was “dependence on oil, and not just foreign oil.” The US has less than two percent of global oil reserves, making it dependent on foreign sources for current consumption levels.

The panel explained that US’s exposure to volatile international oil markets also poses a significant financial threat:

– The US military consumes over 300,000 barrels of oil per day, leading to a bill of $20 billion in FY 2008.

– Skyrocketing oil prices in 2008 led to a more than 50 percent increase from the $13 billion paid for oil in FY 2007.

General Wald warned that the current status quo on oil was part of the reason for the current global financial crisis. Even worse, unless urgent action is taken to overhaul energy use in the US, a future financial crisis “could dwarf this one.”

Calling efficiency the “hat trick” of energy, the panel experts described efficient energy use as essential to protecting American troops and saving lives. As General Ronald F. Keys, a retired US Air Force commander pointed out:

When you’re being shot at, of course that’s important for folks who are out there in harm’s way.

In Afghanistan, 70 percent of the convoys are used for carrying fuel and water. In Iraq, where the majority of fuel delivery is for generators that provide for tent air-conditioning, the military tried insulating tents with foam, reducing energy consumption by a remarkable 45 percent. Cutting the energy use not only saves money but also cuts the number of dangerous convoy runs. More »« Less

Another Energy Lie: Vitter Falsely Claims 271,000 Oil And Gas Jobs Lost Under Obama’s Green Economy Plan »

We were quite surprised to see a Center for American Progress report being cited on the Senate floor by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) yesterday. Unfortunately, what he said was just another in a string of “fuzzy math” and distortions defending the broken energy status quo and push for more of the same failed Bush-Cheney energy policies that caused the average family’s spending on gasoline end electricity to skyrocket by more than $1,100 per year.

Vitter said:

“According a preliminary estimate based on the Center for American Progress data, 271,000 oil and gas jobs would be destroyed annually by the administration’s proposed new taxes and fees on energy.”

Watch it:

This is a totally fabricated distortion of our 2008 report, “Green Recovery: A New Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy.”

We wondered where Vitter got it — it turns out this talking point has been circulating for some time, appearing in a document put out by the American Petroleum Institute, in a messaging memo from the oil-backed group Freedom Works, and on a set of talking points hosted on ConocoPhillips’ web site.

The point is a complete distortion of our data (nothing new for conservatives when it comes to energy policy). Our “Green Recovery” report shows that a two-year $100 billion federal investment in a green recovery program, including investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy, would create approximately 2 million jobs. The same amount of money invested in the oil industry would create 542,000 jobs over two years or…271,000 per year.

Apparently, they’ve taken this to mean that President Obama’s energy plan would cost 271,000 lost oil and gas jobs every year, which is simply not what the report says. More »« Less

Perplexed By Science: Joe Barton Wonders If Oil Reached The North Pole From A Secret Texas Pipeline »

In an Earth Day hearing, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu was forced to explain to Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) how oil is found in the Arctic. Chu and other administration officials are testifying today before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Barton, the top Republican on the committee and a recipient of $1,330,160 in oil money, was flabbergasted by the concept of continental drift. After Chu explained that “oil and gas is the result of hundreds of millions of years of geology and in that time also the plates have moved around,” Barton questioned whether oil didn’t actually reach Alaska through a secret Texas pipeline:

Isn’t it obvious that at one time it was a lot warmer in Alaska and on the North Pole? It wasn’t a big pipeline that we’ve created from Texas and shipped it up there and put it under ground so we can now pump it up?

Watch it:

“No,” Secretary Chu responded, “there are continental plates that have been drifting around throughout the geological ages.” The “driving force” for Alaska’s oil formation during the Triassic era 200 million years ago, according to University of Alaska geologist Mark Rivera, “is plate tectonics, which is the unifying theory of geology.”

Ironically for someone who has called climate science “absolute nonsense,” Barton was actually onto something. During the Triassic, the entire planet was indeed a hothouse and entirely deglaciated. The carbon dioxide (CO2) content in the atmosphere was at its highest ever levels, spiking from 1000 parts per million to 3000 ppm. The end of the Triassic period was marked by one of the largest mass-extinction events in Earth’s history.

Habitable conditions for humanity, hundreds of millions of years later, are very different. Carbon dioxide levels, which had been below 300 ppm for the last 650,000 years and was stable at 280 ppm during the rise of human civilization, have skyrocketed since 1800 because of our burning of coal, oil, and natural gas to 388 ppm, a nearly 40 percent rise.

Transcript: More »« Less

Economic Analysis: Waxman-Markey Clean Energy Act Can Cut Pollution, Create $465 Billion In Wealth A Year

According to a new analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Americans can “significantly reduce carbon emissions and lower energy bills” by implementing green economy legislation. In a two-year study, UCS analyzed the economic, emissions, and energy effects of their recommendations for clean energy, clean vehicles, and global warming standards. The UCS approach of comprehensive energy, transportation, and cap policies is similar to that in the American Clean Energy Security Act, released in draft form earlier this month by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA). The analysis finds that by 2030, net household savings will reach $900 a year, while oil use drops 6 million barrels a day and global warming pollution is cut in half:

Billions Of Dollars In Annual Savings Across The Nation

Source: 4/22/09 Congressional Testimony, Kevin Knobloch, Union of Concerned Scientists

UCS will soon release the complete version of its two-year study, “Climate 2030: A National Blueprint for a Clean Energy Economy,” which uses a modified version of the Department of Energy’s National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) to project “how UCS recommendations would reduce emissions and lower energy costs over the next 20 years.” Tomorrow, UCS president Kevin Knobloch will testify before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce about the initial findings of the Clean Energy Blueprint:

– Under the Blueprint, our nation meets a carbon cap of 26% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 56% below 2005 levels by 2030.

– We can achieve these deep cuts in carbon emissions while saving American consumers and businesses $465 billion annually in 2030. The Blueprint also builds $1.6 trillion in cumulative net savings between 2010 and 2030.

– We can keep jobs growing at the same rate as in the reference case.

– We can cut the use of oil and petroleum products by 6 million barrels a day in 2030 - as much oil as we currently import from OPEC and 30 percent of our nation’s current total daily oil consumption.

– We can save consumers money on their energy bills because of increased energy efficiency, even though electricity rates and gasoline prices go up slightly. That means families will see average household savings of $900 a year in 2030, while businesses will, all together, save nearly $130 billion a year.

– We can reduce power plant carbon emissions 84% below 2005 levels by 2030. The Blueprint policies will also cut mercury, acid rain, smog and soot pollution, improving air and water quality and saving lives.

– We can cut emissions from cars and trucks by 40% compared to their 2005 levels and freeze emissions from freight trucks at 2005 levels even as the economy undergoes significant growth. The transportation sector contributes the second largest area of emissions reductions and accounts for one-half of the net consumer and business energy cost savings in 2030.

The savings in the transportation sector come on top of the savings that will come because of the increase in fuel economy standards in 2007. Strong efficiency standards, like those in Waxman-Markey, drive the transformation of the electricity sector, allowing the nation to end its dependence on dirty coal and allow citizens to keep their money in their pocketbooks.

Efficiency Key To Transforming U.S. Electricity Use

Source: 4/22/09 Congressional Testimony, Kevin Knobloch, Union of Concerned Scientists

April Fools Or Groundhog Day? GOP Budget Continues Bush-Cheney Energy Disaster

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

The “April Fools” Republican budget would keep America on the Bush-Cheney path of paying fossil fuel polluters to burn up the planet. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, sketched out their plan to continue Bush-era policies in the Wall Street Journal:

Our budget lays a firm foundation to position the U.S. to meet three important strategic energy goals: reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil, deploying more clean and renewable energy sources free of greenhouse gas, and supporting economic growth. We do these things by rejecting the president’s cap-and-trade scheme, by opening exploration on our nation’s oil and gas fields, and by investing the proceeds in a new clean energy trust fund, infrastructure and further deficit reduction.

Now I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Their “firm foundation” is just rehashed talking points from George W. Bush, who similarly promised year after year (after year after year after year after year after year) to reduce our dependence on foreign oil:

Rejecting Cap-and-Trade. In 2007, the Bush White House threatened to veto the Lieberman-Warner cap and trade bill as “bad legislation” that “would raise fuel prices and raise taxes on Americans” and “demand drastic emissions cuts that have no chance of being realized.”

Opening Oil And Gas Exploration. Under Bush, the United States opened the floodgates to domestic drilling, increasing the number of permits issued each year by the federal government increased by more than 361 percent. From 2004 to 2007, the Bureau of Land Management issued 28,776 permits to drill on public land, ten thousand more than the number of wells actually drilled. The only result? Record profits for oil and gas companies at the expense of American farmers and ranchers. Meanwhile, gas prices exploded and our dependence on foreign oil rose to record highs.

Clean Energy Trust Fund. Bush established a cornucopia of “clean energy” initiatives, including the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership for “clean nuclear,” Future Gen for “clean coal,” the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy, and the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Under the cover of these voluntary programs, Bush slashed funds for renewable energy, blocked energy efficiency standards, and even killed off FutureGen’s attempt to make coal less dangerous.

Like Bush, the House GOP is lying to the public while relying on the goodwill of industry, showered with subsidies, to reduce pollution. In reality, even well-designed voluntary agreements (VAs) between government and industry to reduce catastrophic pollution don’t work. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change explains, “there is little evidence that VAs have achieved significant reductions in emissions beyond business as usual (high agreement/much evidence).”

Paul Ryan sums up his Bush-lite plan to cut taxes on corporations, privatize Medicare, and increase subsidies for oil tycoons by saying:

In the recent past, the Republican Party failed to offer the nation an inspiring vision and a concrete plan to tackle our problems with innovative and principled solutions. We do not intend to repeat that mistake.

April Fools!

Obama’s Energy Budget Begins To Repair Bush’s Toxic Legacy

Speaking before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, President Barack Obama declared that his plan to restore America’s economic prosperity “begins with energy.” The details of his proposed budgetary outline reveal what Obama meant. George W. Bush’s energy policy was based on tax breaks for polluters and making everyone else pay the costs of pollution. Obama’s decision to make polluters pay instead is a breath of fresh air:

Restoration of Superfund. In 2002, Bush shafted Superfund, the successful program to clean up the most toxic sites in America, by eliminating the tax on industrial polluters “that once generated about $1 billion a year.” President Obama’s budget reinstates Superfund taxes in 2011, restoring $17 billion over ten years to the depleted program.

Polluters Pay To Fight Climate Change And Make Work Pay. Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, instituted a voluntary program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2002 (they rose). President Obama calls for a mandatory cap on carbon emissions starting in 2012, expected to raise $645.7 billion over ten years. Instead of sending those revenues back to the polluters, $15 billion a year will go to clean energy technologies, with the rest funding the Making Work Pay tax credit to reduce payroll taxes for every working American.

Ending Tax Breaks For Fossil Fuel Industry. Big Oil had no better friends in the White House than Bush and Cheney, both oil men. Oil, natural gas, and coal companies enjoyed record profits even as the rest of America suffered from skyrocketing energy prices. Yet Bush protected numerous incentives and tax breaks for companies that drill and mine our shared resources. President Obama’s budget eliminates $31.75 billion in oil and gas company giveaways and increases the return from natural resources on federal lands by $2.9 billion over ten years.

In a column at the Center for American Progress, director of climate strategy Dan Weiss analyzes the budget and finds: “President Obama’s proposed energy budget is a ray of sunshine after an eight-year blackout. Congress must now make this clean energy future a reality.”

Wire Services Uncritically Promote Fossil Industry Propaganda

Even as the costs of global boiling increase from Australia to California, the mainstream media continues to provide a platform for conservative polluter propaganda. In the past few days, both the Associated Press and Reuters have written news stories based on polluter misinformation without indicating their industry ties.

Reuters (2/18/09): “Western climate plan could prolong recession.” “A cap-and-trade program planned for the Western United States and Canada,” Reuters reporter Nichola Groom writes, “could prolong the economic recession and chase high technology investment to other regions, according to a new study commissioned by” the Western Business Roundtable, described only as “a group of business leaders.”

Although Groom does report that Jim Sims is not only the chief executive of the Roundtable but also “chairman of Colorado-based lobbying firm Policy Communications Inc,” nowhere does the article describe who the “group of business leaders” are. The Roundtable is, in fact, as the DeSmog Project’s Kevin Grandia has previously reported, a “fossil-fuel industry organization whose membership includes Peabody Coal, Shell Oil, and the Western Fuels Association.” Policy Communications is also responsible for these other Orwellian front groups: Partnership for America, Americans for American Energy, NextGen Energy Council, and the Conservation Science Foundation.

AP (2/15/09): “Former astronaut speaks out on global warming.” “Former astronaut” Harrison Schmitt “is among 70 skeptics scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change” hosted by “the Chicago-based Heartland Institute,” reports the Associated Press. Schmitt “walked on the moon and once served New Mexico in the U.S. Senate,” with a “science degree from the California Institute of Technology” and “doctorate in geology from Harvard University in 1964.”

The Associated Press story, cribbed from a piece by the Santa Fe New Mexican, fails to mention that Schmitt is a Republican who was the president and chairman of the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy from 1994 to 1998, and remains its “chairman emeritus.” The Annapolis Center is an ExxonMobil-funded front group founded by Richard Siebert, a National Association of Manufacturers lobbyist. Furthermore, Media Matters notes the article fails to mention the “Heartland Institute receives funding from the fossil fuels industry.”

Of course, this misreporting is not special to the wire services. The Washington Post publishes the global-cooling rants of George Will; the New York Times publishes John Tierney’s radical global-warming Pollyannaism; CNN’s Ali Velshi promotes liquid coal and goes on drilling junkets with Michelle Bachmann. Igor Volsky describes the sorry state of climate-change journalism in today’s Progress Report:

Given the media’s eagerness to prop up global warming skeptics, it’s no surprise that “only 40 percent of Americans believe that ‘most’ scientists agree that ‘global warming is happening.”

Polluter Front Group Prepares Attack Against Western Climate Initiative »

Our guest blogger is Kevin Grandia of the DeSmog Project.

A powerful coal and oil industry lobby group called the the Western Business Roundtable is scheming to derail the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), founded by a number of progressive US states and Canadian provinces in 2007 to begin tackling carbon emissions in the face of endless inaction from their national governments. The Desmog Project has come into possession of an internal memo that the Western Business Roundtable recently sent to their members, laying bare their strategy for smearing the work of the WCI.

The WCI aims to lay the foundation for a continental cap and trade system to limit greenhouse gases 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The coalition currently has 11 member states and provinces representing 20 percent of the US, and 70 percent of the Canadian economy. They recently released their detailed recommendations for a regional cap and trade system that will be voted on for ratification by the member states and provinces.

The Western Business Roundtable is a conservative fossil-fuel industry organization whose membership includes Peabody Coal, Shell Oil, and the Western Fuels Association. WBR is a project of the right-wing public relations firm Policy Communications, which is also responsible for these other Orwellian front groups: Partnership for America, Americans for American Energy, NextGen Energy Council, and the Conservation Science Foundation.

And guess what? This group is about to release an “economic analysis” that will trash the recommendations of the WCI. Wonders never cease. The Business Roundtable memo obtained by the Desmog Project talks candidly about yet to be released “findings”: More »« Less

Pollution Industry Says ‘It’s Scary’ To Think Of Waxman In Charge Of Climate Legislation »

This week, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) announced his intent to replace Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) as chair of the House Energy Commerce & Committee, which has jurisdiction over global warming legislation. On Thursday, Dingell told WJR Radio’s Frank Beckmann that Waxman is an “anti-manufacturing left-wing Democrat” with a “serious lack of understanding of people in the auto industry and manufacturing generally.”

Representatives of major greenhouse gas-emitting industries have also recoiled at the prospect of Waxman being in charge instead of Dingell.

R. Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “took issue with the idea of a Waxman-led committee given the Californian’s support for far more aggressive greenhouse emission limits compared with Dingell,” telling E&E News, “It’s scary, isn’t it?”

The Chamber’s public comments reinforce the anonymous “refining industry insider” who told E&E News “all hell will break loose legislatively” if Waxman won.

The coal lobby has also weighed in on this dispute. Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association, told Bloomberg News that Waxman likely would be “a very slow learner on the importance of coal for affordable energy. It would have been problematic in the best of times to have Mr. Waxman’s views prevail.”

Climate Progress’s Joe Romm responds, “If actually trying to prevent catastrophic global warming is ’scary’ then all I can say is ‘Boo!‘”

Digg it!

UPDATE: Josten and Popovich are the top figures in the Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth, the front group formed in 2001 to promote the Cheney energy bill.

UPDATE 2: In 2006, the New Republic’s Bradford Plumer wrote this review of Dingell’s impact on clean-air legislation during his 50-year tenure: More »« Less

McCain Calls Offshore Drilling ‘Alternative Energy’ »

This morning, CNBC’s Larry Kudlow asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) what his plan was “to create some recovery in the stock market.” McCain replied:

Keep taxes low, cut spending, create jobs with alternative energy including nuclear power plants, including drilling offshore, wind, tide, solar, free us from our sending $700 billion or whatever it is across to countries that don’t like us very much, free up credit.

Watch it:

Even though the term “alternative energy” is vague, under no rational interpretation does the entirely conventional practice of offshore oil drilling qualify. As the ExxonMobil website describes the offshore areas that were formerly covered by the 27-year moratorium lifted this month, those reserves are “conventional“: More »« Less

Is There Anything Palin Doesn’t Like ‘Tapping Into’?

Yesterday, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) gave a speech on energy policy at a solar energy company, in her words, “in a manner with much substance.” She repeatedly went off the script of her prepared remarks (as Jed Lewison and Ana Marie Cox have noted), using many of her favorite locutions. One of her most common rogue phrases was a call for tapping into various sources of, well, just about anything. Her approach exposes the conservative ideology that all forms of energy are created equal; that details like cost, pollution, and long-term consequences are immaterial.

Watch it:

For those watching at home, here’s the list:

Of that list, only natural gas is a resource that can be literally “tapped into.” Palin’s use of an oil industry metaphor to describe all forms of energy and innovation is consistent with the mindset of supply-side exploitation, a dangerously simplistic approach to energy policy that only considers the short-term profit interests of energy corporations. Some of her off-script “tapping” remarks had some policy “meat,” such as her attack on solar energy:

We have many many alternative sources that have not yet been tapped into and allowed to become economic and reliable. That’s the key, of course, is the reliability of these alternative sources.

This false attack on the unreliability of renewable energy is one both she and McCain have made before.

The Prepared Text For Sarah Palin’s Love Letter To Big Oil [Updated] »

UPDATE: At Climate Progress, Joe Romm notes that Palin’s prepared remarks make it unambiguous that McCain won’t regulate global warming pollution.

UPDATE II: We’ve updated the text with her speech as delivered. Jed Lewison notes one of her more amusing revisions. Gristmill’s David Roberts calls the speech “bizarre.” Ana Marie Cox describes the travails of the teleprompter operator.

UPDATE III: Former vice president Al Gore will be delivering a true energy policy speech tonight, in a live webcast at 8:30 PM as part of the Energy Action Coalition’s Power Vote campaign for youth climate activism.

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) just completed a “major” speech on energy policy, in which she offered no new policy, nor recognized the existence of global warming. She delivered her speech at the headquarters of the Xunlight Corporation in Toledo, Ohio, a producer of flexible thin-film photovoltaic solar panels — despite her earlier mockery of such technology:

Alternative-energy solutions are far from imminent and would require more than 10 years to develop.

This hypocritical choice is just following the lead of her running mate. In May, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) delivered a speech on global warming at the U.S. headquarters of a Danish wind turbine manufacturer, after decades of opposition to the domestic renewable energy industry.

Below is the text of her prepared remarks — a half-hour love letter to Big Oil. Please note, however, that Palin went off-script repeatedly, throwing in such catchphrases from the campaign as “Drill, baby, drill,” “He’s got the scars to prove it,” “Maverick of the Senate,” and several digs at journalists.

UPDATE: Palin’s off-script remarks are in red.

Thank you all very much. I appreciate the hospitality of Xunlight Energy, and all the people of Toledo. The folks at Xunlight are doing great work for this community and our country. I’m so excited about this, Thank you for your hospitality, again doctor, thank you. Good, good things being said about this corporation as you’re progressing with the solar panels and understanding alternative energy sources. So necessary as a piece of the puzzle that we’re working on. I know my state of Alaska is certainly working on this. All that we can do to put the pieces together to allow our nation to become energy secure.

More »« Less

Sununu’s Newfound Opposition To Big Oil »

Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) is a longstanding supporter of big oil companies, and they have been kind to him. During his career, he received $265,000 in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests. To obscure his support for ExxonMobil and friends, Sununu brags about his opposition to big oil subsidies. In a debate on October 21st with former governor Jeanne Shaheen, Sununu said, “We also repealed tax subsidies for oil companies, which I supported.”

But seconds later he was forced to admit he supported tax breaks for big oil before he opposed them. He gave a tortured explanation for filibustering a bill that would have closed oil tax loopholes last December:

I was the deciding vote . . . I voted to take a large tax package off a conservation bill because it would have killed the bill. You’re correct about that vote, but it was on the legislation to raise fuel efficiency standards for cars, something I supported and wanted to see signed into law. If that tax package had stayed on the bill, it would have been dead, killed, vetoed, no conservation measures, no improvement in fuel efficiency standards.

Watch it:

Sununu’s record on breaks for big oil is clear — it’s identical to Bush’s policy. Here are the facts. In 2007, Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) made three attempts to eliminate billions of dollars of big oil tax breaks. And three times, Senator Sununu voted “Nay”: More »« Less

McCain’s Opposition To Energy Independence »

Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

In the third and final presidential debate on October 15, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said one of his goals is that “we become energy independent and we will create millions of jobs in America.”

However, he conclusively demonstrated that he advocates policies that will achieve neither “energy independence” nor “millions of jobs.”

Plank #1: Nukes, Baby, Nukes

Sen. McCain said that to achieve “energy independence…. We have to have nuclear power.”

Building 100 new nuclear plants, as he has proposed, will do nothing to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Nuclear power generates approximately 20% of U.S. electricity, while oil produces less than 2%, and only 2% of oil use goes to producing electricity.

Nuclear power will not lead to energy independence because the U.S. must import over 90% of its uranium, with nearly one-third coming from Russia. If we double the number of nuclear plants, as McCain has called for, we would become even more dependent on countries that, in McCain’s words, “don’t like us very much.” More »« Less

How Deregulation Killed The Wild West »

Our guest blogger is Todd Darling, a documentary filmmaker whose film, “A Snow Mobile For George,” is being featured tonight in Washington, D.C., by Reel Progress.

Back on January 13, 2004, when I left Los Angeles loaded down with cameras, winter gear, and a threadbare credit card, few, if any heads would turn at the mention of “deregulation.” Head movement would be limited to a nod, as in “nod out.”

Wall Street’s wipe out changes that. Now we realize that we let the fox into the hen house, and now the fox wants to be reimbursed for the chickens he ate. But, when I set out to make “A Snow Mobile for George,” a film about environmental deregulation, the concept of deregulation was too abstract for most viewers. That’s why I picked the environment because the effects of deregulation had no place to hide. My drive across America, trailing my two-stroke snowmobile, looking for tales of environmental deregulation, didn’t turn up a lot of joy. The reason why should not have surprised me. Simply put, the same deregulation that mangled the environment, also ruined people’s lives. Watch the trailer:

This discovery hit us hard out on a snow-covered ridge in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. A tall cowboy told us his land had been invaded by oil companies. They had come onto his land, uninvited, looking for natural gas — “Coal Bed Methane.” The companies drilled four wells every 80 acres, built roads, installed pipe lines, pumped away his water supplies, polluted his top-soil, installed noisy pressure stations, damaged the natural vegetation, and he had almost no say in the matter. He has been virtually forced off his own private land. More »« Less