OPINION/COMMENTARY

A Mountain of Money

...Yet that mountain of money is but a molehill compared to the fortune that will be up for grabs if the government ever imposes carbon rationing. The Kyoto protocol and its progeny -- including the McCain-Lieberman bill (S.139) and various "micro-Kyoto" bills circulating in state legislatures -- would cap, or ration, not only gasoline, but most other carbon-based fuels as well, including diesel fuel, jet fuel, natural gas, and coal. While none of the proposed programs use paper coupons, the cost of the carbon allowances, or "C-rations," would be built into the price of fuels and into the price of electricity and all the other products and services that use them. With a cap for U.S. carbon emissions of about 1.5 billion tons (carbon-equivalent) per year, and a market price anywhere from $20 to $200 per ton (depending on how binding the cap is), the value of C-rations distributed by the government would be in the range of $30 to $300 billion dollars per year.
The cost of all those C-rations will be passed on to U.S. consumers -- a fact that advocates of carbon rationing typically neglect to mention. Most "Cost of Kyoto" estimates look only at the real-resource cost (reduced GNP) of carbon rationing, yet this represents only about 10 percent of the total cost to consumers. The other 90 percent is the price consumers pay to holders of the coveted C-rations. In that sense carbon rationing is like a tax -- it produces revenue -- but the revenues from carbon rationing will not go to reduce the budget deficit. Instead, the C-rations will be allocated to industries and organizations that find favor with the government...

NAACP To PETA: We Have No Problem With KFC

Last month we told you that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had apparently endorsed People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' (PETA's) campaign against KFC. But now the Louisville Courier-Journal is reporting that the NAACP has come to its senses.
According to the Courier-Journal:

A spokesman for NAACP president Kweisi Mfume said the group's leader was only curious about charges leveled against KFC by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals when he wrote Yum! Brands Inc. chairman David Novak last month ... [Mfume] also said he was glad to hear "of your commitment to adopt comprehensive industry-leading guidelines and audits" of the handling and raising of poultry.


The NAACP has asked PETA, the Courier-Journal reports, to remove Mfume's picture and signature from its website. But to no one's surprise, PETA is still trumpeting "NAACP Head Speaks Up for Chickens!" on its anti-KFC page.
As the NAACP leaves animal rights to the PETAphiles and returns to its regularly scheduled programming, PETA is only intensifying its opposition to the horror of the two-piece dinner, both in the U.S. and overseas. In late September PETA tried to intimidate a KFC executive by protesting outside his home and church. And PETA recently announced that it would also initiate shareholder resolutions in an attempt to sway KFC's chicken suppliers.

Bye-Bye Kyoto

Gray Davis's political career isn't the only thing circling the drain this week. Remember the Kyoto protocol on global warming? Russia is about to flush it.
Ever since President Bush decided to withdraw the U.S. from the unratified (and unratifiable) treaty, environmentalists have been scheming to drag the U.S. into Kyoto through the back door. If one more "Annex 1" nation ratifies the treaty, it will go into effect among the nations that have already signed on. The requirements of the treaty would then begin having an effect on American companies doing business in Europe and other Kyoto-conforming countries. This, the greens hoped and expected, would increase pressure on business here in the U.S. to get with the program...

Global Warming Shakeup in Moscow

Events at a recent scientific conference in Moscow represent an important and dramatic change in the worldwide debate over global warming. Several distinguished scientists who spoke at the World Climate Change Conference in Moscow last week shattered claims that the science is settled and any consensus that the Kyoto Protocol would serve any useful purpose.
“This is the most important development in the public debate over global warming since President Bush’s decision that the United States wouldn’t ratify the Kyoto treaty,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute president Fred L. Smith, Jr. “Major scientific voices from both Russia and the U.S. emphasized the uncertainties underlying the theory that man is causing catastrophic global warming. The challenge now is to address these scientific uncertainties while continuing to improve global economic and environmental conditions.” ...

Air Pollution is Declining Under Bush

Nothing you hear about worsening air pollution is true. Air pollution is declining under President Bush, just as it declined under Bill Clinton. With the exception of greenhouse gases, trends in air pollution have been favorable for years or decades, says author Gregg Easterbrook.
According to the author:

"Aggregate emissions," the sum of air-pollution categories, have fallen 48 percent since 1970, although the U.S. population has grown 39 percent.
Local newscasts have recently begun to emphasize code red and code orange ozone-warning days, making smog seem more prevalent, yet the overall number of bad-air days has actually been falling steadily.
In 2001, there were fewer than half as many air-quality warning days across the country as in 1988; Los Angeles, for example, has experienced just one Stage 1 ozone warning in the past five years, whereas in the 1970s it averaged about 100 Stage-1-alert days per year.

Air pollution can decline as the population rises because antipollution technology keeps getting better and because the Clean Air Act controls on cars, power plants and factories have been growing stricter for two decades. Most Clean Air Act enforcement continues to become more strict under Bush, says Easterbrook.

Source: Gregg Easterbrook, "Why Bush Gets A Bad Rap On Dirty Air; But he still needs to tackle the real problem: greenhouse gases," Time Magazine, September 29, 2003.

Energy Exploration in Wildlife Refuges

Environmentalists say drilling in wildlife refuges causes devastating damage while the energy industry says wildlife and drilling can thrive together. However, a new General Accounting Office's analysis of drilling in the lower 48 states concludes that environmental damage can be avoided.
Oil and gas exploration and drilling has or is taking place in hundreds of refuges, says the GAO:
--One-fourth of the nation's more than 500 refuges have a history of oil and gas activity, in some cases dating back to the 1920s.
--Wells on refuges are pumping nearly 24 million barrels of oil annually, more than 1 percent of the nation's total production.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is charged with protecting refuges, has not managed the process well. Among the federal shortcomings cited by the report:
--The Service didn't even know how many oil and gas wells are operating on its refuges.
--It does not keep records on oil spills and other damage, and has never assessed the cumulative effects of oil and gas operations on refuges.
--Refuge managers often lack the knowledge, resources, training and commitment to regulate oil-drilling operations effectively.
However, the records at some refuges is better than others. At Hopper Mountain Wildlife Refuge in California, for example, 15 active wells have caused only two oil spills in the past 30 years; each was cleaned up quickly with no detectable effects on wildlife. In Louisiana, where two refuges are strictly monitored, oil and gas operators pay fees to finance the costs of monitoring compliance.
But at Anahuac Wildlife Refuge in Texas, 50 active wells have caused at least seven spills just since 1991, and one killed more than 180,000 fish.
Source: Editorial, "Alaskan drilling debate ignores failures in lower 48," USA Today, October 9, 2003; National Wildlife Refuges: Opportunities to Improve the Management and Oversight of Oil and Gas Activities on Federal Lands GAO-03-517, September 23, 2003, General Accounting Office, Washington, D.C.
For text
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-10-08-our-view_x.htm For GAO report
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03517.pdf