OPINION/COMMENTARY

'Green' Politicians Add to Gas Price Woes

Amid the race between politicians to capitalize on consumer anger at high gas prices, at least one member of Congress, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn), expressed a much-needed perspective on the problem—these same politicians own a share of the blame. During an interview with Larry Kudlow earlier this week about rising gas prices, Rep. Blackburn observed, “If we're going to work toward [energy independence], we’re going to have to do some things differently. Now, I can tell you one of the things that I wish had been done differently is over the past 30 years, we have had environmental extremists driving energy policy in this country, saying no to everything.” Certainly increased demand for oil from the growing Chinese and Indian economies and instability in the Middle East are major pressures on oil prices, but both Republicans and Democrats have added to these pressures by allowing the environmental movement to tie our energy policy in knots. Bowing to environmentalist demands since the 1970s, Congress has blocked oil and gas drilling from sources like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (10.4 billion barrels of oil, according to the U.S. Geological Service) and the Outer Continental Shelf (86 billion barrels of oil, according to the Minerals Management Service). As Cuba works out deals with Canadian, Spanish and Chinese companies to explore for oil as close as 50 miles to Key West, Sen. Mel Martinez (R.-Fla.)—apparently trying to appease the League of Conservation Voters, which has given him a 10% rating—dubbed a proposal by Rep. John Peterson (R.-Pa.) to allow drilling 20 miles off the Florida coast as “crazy.” Sen. Bill Nelson (D.-Fla.) and Rep. Connie Mack (R.-Fla.) also oppose OCS drilling thanks to oil spill hysteria whipped up by the Sierra Club. Environmentalists pressured Congress in 1990 to require “reformulated” gasoline (RFG) supposedly to reduce the formation of ground-level ozone or smog. The RFG process requires use of additives such as ethanol or MTBE. The RFG requirement raised the price of gasoline not only because of the cost of the additives but because different areas of the country require different blends of fuel to address different air quality circumstances. The 17 so-called “boutique” fuels used around the country make the national gasoline supply less fungible, which causes supply bottlenecks. And for all this pain, there appears to be little gain from RFG. A 1999 report from the National Research Council reported that, “the net impact of RFG on ambient ozone concentrations...is a few percent. For this reason, it is difficult to quantify the specific contribution of the RFG program to the apparent downward trend in ozone.”....

How the Energy Bill Boosted Prices at the Pump

Prior to passage of the energy bill, corn-based ethanol enjoyed a number of advantages. Because it has been touted as a domestic and clean-burning fuel additive that can stretch the petroleum-based fuel supply and thus reduce imports, ethanol has for decades received special treatment from Washington. Most significantly, ethanol gets a 50 cent per gallon federal tax credit to help make it competitive with gasoline. Also, tariffs on foreign ethanol keep imports relatively low. Other provisions, such as tax credits for small ethanol producers and assistance to corn farmers, have given ethanol a big advantage in the motor fuels marketplace. Despite the special treatment of ethanol, the ethanol lobby was not happy with the size of the ethanol market, and it persuaded the federal government to mandate ethanol use in the energy bill. The law requires that four billion gallons of ethanol must be added to the fuel supply this year; that number will slowly rise to 7.5 billion gallons in 2012. While the ethanol mandate is good news for Midwestern corn farmers and ethanol producers such agri-business giant Archer Daniels Midland, it is bad news for the driving public. Since the mandate began on January 1st, ethanol has been more expensive than gasoline. Beyond its high price, ethanol also imposes costs in other ways. For example, it is more costly to ship than gasoline, which is especially troublesome now that ethanol use is expanding beyond the industry’s Midwestern base. Ethanol is currently adding several cents to the price at the pump and will likely do more damage in the months and years ahead....

Save Teddy Kennedy’s View

Congress is about to decide whether a developer whom the Senate last year handed the exclusive right to build a 24-square-mile array of 417-foot-high windmills in the middle of the Nantucket Sound—off Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket—should be allowed to proceed. The area’s most famous resident, Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D-Mass.), has teamed up with Alaska’s Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans, to stop it. They’re catching a lot of flak for doing so, but, while it doesn’t happen often, I am forced to the conclusion that this time Kennedy may be right. It is tempting to dismiss Kennedy’s opposition to the windmills as just another example of liberal hypocrisy. He and his neighbors may well be motivated mainly by the thought of anything so tacky being built in their back yards and haven’t expressed much concern with similar projects in other peoples’ neighborhoods. Indeed, Kennedy’s consistent opposition to oil exploration and nuclear power has diverted scarce resources to the development of dozens of even more exotic alternative-energy schemes over the years. On the other hand, while I’ve never opposed people tilting at or even building windmills on their own time and using their own money, I’m continually appalled by the billions of dollars politicians have wrung from taxpayers for such schemes. And it turns out that this one could cost taxpayers plenty. So if Kennedy and his buddies kill it, they’ll be doing all of us a favor and in the process could experience a “teaching moment” that might just convince them it’s time to rethink some of their long-held positions. Cape Wind, the brainchild of Massachusetts millionaire Jim Gordon, will cost over a billion dollars to build, produce an average of 170 megawatts of electricity, or barely 1 percent of New England’s electricity needs, and, if everything goes right, save the average consumer as much as a dime a month. However, since he will build it in the middle of the area’s most fertile fishing grounds and smack up against extremely busy shipping lanes, it will deprive commercial fishermen of their livelihood, create real hazards to sport and commercial vessels transiting the area, disrupt the radar on which the thousands of aircraft that pass through the area depend and, oh yes, ruin the view from the Kennedy compound....

PUBLIC INTEREST LAW FIRM FILES IN REHEARING OF ROAD CASE

A nonprofit, public interest law firm with a history of defending property owners who seek to protect their property from adverse action by the United States today filed a friend of the court brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) advised the court, as it prepares for rehearing en banc of a case decided earlier by a three-judge panel, that environmental groups may not intervene as parties in lawsuits filed against the United States to determine who owns disputed property. Earlier, MSLF had urged the Tenth Circuit to grant a rehearing after the panel ruled environmental groups, including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), could be parties in a lawsuit filed by Utah’s San Juan County regarding a road in the Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah. By a vote of 2-1, the panel allowed SUWA to intervene even though it admits it does not hold a property interest in the road but has only an interest in how the road is managed. “Congress allows property owners to sue the United States under the Quiet Title Act to get their property back from the federal government,” said William Perry Pendley, MSLF president and chief legal officer. “However, only two parties are allowed in those lawsuits: the U.S. and the property owner.” On June 14, 2004, San Juan County filed a Quiet Title Act lawsuit arguing that it owns an R.S. 2477 interest in Salt Creek Road, which provides public access to Angel Arch. When environmental groups asked to intervene in the litigation, a Utah federal district court ruled, on October 29, 2004, that, because they claimed no interest in the road, they could not intervene. On August 31, 2005, a Tenth Circuit panel held the groups were interested in the proceedings due to their interest in how the road would be managed and that interest allowed them to intervene. One Tenth Circuit judge dissented. On October 14, 2005, San Juan County filed for a rehearing en banc. On November 30, 2005, Mountain States Legal Foundation filed a friend of the court (amicus curiae) brief arguing that SUWA does not have “an interest relating to the property” at issue in San Juan County’s Quiet Title Act case and thus may not intervene. In fact, several Tenth Circuit rulings have rejected claims similar to those of SUWA’s interest in the management of the road as not an interest sufficient for intervention. On February 24, 2006, the Tenth Circuit granted San Juan County’s petition for rehearing....

Eminent Dominion

You’re at home and the doorbell rings. Two gentlemen are there to greet you, both in uniform. Their grooming is impeccable enough to make you insecure about yours. The head man shows you government authorization and asks to be taken to your personal library. Once there, they go through the titles of your books as you watch: one reading the titles out, the other entering them into a laptop. At the end of the inspection, as you’re frozen into acting like you’re not in your own home, some of the books are taken from your shelves. "Atlas Shrugged? I’m doing you a favor: you’ll read it too many times anyway. Same thing goes for the rest of the Rand.... Oh, you like that kind of economics? Well, it’s got to go too. Well, well – the scholar’s edition! Nice binding..... Yes, even Capitalism and Freedom, though it was iffy for a time there. Same thing with the Chomsky, even if he didn’t mind being the nutcase at times.... Oh! That’s Milton Friedman’s son, isn’t it? A pity he had to be so prodigal..." Lest you think that this is merely an updated version of Fahrenheit 451’s dark vision, consider this ending: "Now...as authorized by law, I am entitled to disburse you $280 for all of these books which are now being sold to the Government of the United States. Once you accept these funds as just compensation for the property you have turned over, they are now the property of the United States Government. What we do with them subsequently is up to us." Yes, Congress does have this power now, even though it is largely confined to real property, not personal property as yet. It’s called eminent domain, and it has been used to confiscate personal property in the past. Refusing to sell your gold coins to the U.S. government back in 1933 made you liable for a felony conviction. The law used to enforce the sale was the Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933, and it was deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court. The EBR Act extended powers under the Trading With The Enemy Act to times of "national emergency," as declared by the President, which President Roosevelt did in Executive Order 6260. The ultimate source of the authority for it, though, is in the Fifth Article of Amendment in the United States Constitution: "No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Note that the Fifth Amendment makes no distinction between real and personal property. This means: if the U.S. government can forcibly buy real property from U.S. citizens, then it can buy personal property also. Your real estate is just as vulnerable to a taking as your books, and vice versa. All it takes for eminent domain to be justified for a taking of personal property is a credible "public use" for it....

Chicagoans Force-Fed Animal Rights Nonsense

Ducking the opportunity to stand up to animal-rights extremists, the Chicago City Council voted on Wednesday to outlaw the sale of the delicacy foie gras. The New York Daily News reported that its own city's council had nothing but mockery for the decision ("I thought we were out of our minds, so I thank Chicago for what they did because it makes our Council look extra ordinary," said one New York councilman), and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley had some choice words for the vote against consumer freedom: Someone talks about foie gras this week. What's next week? What's on your menu ... You tell me what's next week we're gonna decide what you should eat and what you should do. Rick Tramonto, executive chef of one of the restaurants affected by the ban, told The New York Times: "Government shouldn't be dictating what we eat ... It's just not right." Gene Bauston of the animal-rights activist group Farm Sanctuary, on the other hand, was clearly pleased at having goosed meat-eaters, promising that the ban's effects "will be felt in other parts of the country." He's right. Beyond the violence already done to restaurants (foie gras seems to make some animal-rights folks a little smashy), activists are more than willing to use the precedent set in Chicago to do violence to our liberties in the name of their pet projects (including restrictions on pet ownership)....