OPINION/COMMENTARY

Endangered Species Act Has Harmed Endangered Species

Today is the second annual "Endangered Species Day," as declared by the U.S. Senate in honor of the Endangered Species Act. Yet rather than a cause for celebration, animal lovers and private property owners should view this day with sadness, according to an expert with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). "The law of unintended consequences has wreaked havoc on wildlife and landowners due to the Endangered Species Act," said NCPA Adjunct Scholar Brian Seasholes. "The ESA punishes landowners for harboring endangered species, and the tragic result has been a scorched earth policy towards the very species the Act is supposed to protect." Seasholes notes that there is growing evidence that many landowners are actively managing their land so as to avoid potential endangered species problems. For example:
* The ESA's protections for the red-cockaded woodpecker, which locked-up more then $1.4 million worth of timber for a single landowner, inspired widespread "panic cutting" across North Carolina. Researchers from Montana State University and Towson State University found landowners preemptively cut 15,144 acres of trees, which could have supported 76 colonies of woodpeckers.
* Concern over protections for the spotted owl has led to "panic cutting" across the Pacific Northwest. For instance, a Washington state property owner clear-cut his 24-acres of land out of fear of owls being spotted taking residence in his trees.
* Researchers at the University of Michigan surveyed Colorado landowners whose property was located in the habitat for the jumping mouse. They found 26 percent of them managed their land so as to make it inhospitable to the mouse, and most would not let their land be surveyed for the mouse due to fear of ESA related land-use restrictions.
"If one had deliberately written legislation to harm endangered species, it would be almost impossible to top the ESA," said Seasholes. "The only way to reverse this is to remove the penalties. Unfortunately, most in Congress are more interested in gimmicks and so-called incentives, which will do little for America's wildlife and landowners.".

Think Tank Challenges Greenpeace to Meet Transparency Standards

Today The National Center for Public Policy Research is challenging Greenpeace and its affiliates to disclose the sources and amounts of its 2006 donations exceeding $50,000. If it does so, The National Center for Public Policy Research will do the same. We're making this challenge in light of allegations in Greenpeace's May 17 report, "ExxonMobil's Continued Funding of Global Warming Denial Industry," which suggests that it is improper for 41 groups, including The National Center for Public Policy Research, to accept contributions from ExxonMobil because the positions of at least some of them on climate issues is not precisely in accordance with those of Greenpeace. Most of the groups singled out for criticism in the Greenpeace report work on a wide variety of public policy issues. For most of the groups, climate policy is just a small fraction of their portfolio. Greenpeace - perhaps based on its own behavior - assumes that donations influence the stands groups such as ours take. They do not. So that the public can judge for themselves, we're challenging Greenpeace to complete transparency through disclosure of major gifts. Funding from energy companies is not what is fueling the vigorous climate debate. What is fueling the debate is genuine, sincere belief that great uncertainties remain - both on the science and on the appropriate public policy response....

Government Gouges You at the Pump

Democrats, seething at the injustice of gasoline prices, have sprung to the aid of embattled motorists. So resolute are Democrats about defending the downtrodden, they are undeterred by the fact that motorists, not acting like people trodden upon, are driving more than ever. Gasoline consumption has increased 2.14 percent during the past year. As Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute notes, there is no yearning for national self-sufficiency concerning other essential goods, such as food, automobiles, airplanes or medicines. Are Democrats worried about security of oil supplies? In some ways, Hayward says, America's energy supply is more secure than it was in the 1970s, partly because "since 1975, energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product has fallen 48 percent." Furthermore, "oil represents a shrinking share of total U.S. energy consumption—from 44 percent in 1970 to 40 percent in 2005." The oil America consumes—only one-eighth of which comes from the Middle East—is used almost entirely in transportation. Half of America's electricity is generated by coal, of which the United States has a huge abundance. Pelosi announced herself "particularly concerned" that the highest price of gasoline recently was in her San Francisco district—$3.49. So she endorses HR 1252 to protect consumers from "price gouging," defined, not altogether helpfully, by a blizzard of adjectives and adverbs. Gouging occurs when gasoline prices are "unconscionably" excessive, or sellers raise prices "unreasonably" by taking "unfair" advantage of "unusual" market conditions, or when the price charged represents a "gross" disparity from the price of crude oil, or when the amount charged "grossly" exceeds the price at which gasoline is obtainable in the same area. The bill does not explain how a gouger can gouge when his product is obtainable more cheaply nearby. Actually, Pelosi's constituents are being gouged by people like Pelosi—by government. While oil companies make about 13 cents on a gallon of gasoline, the federal government makes 18.4 cents (the federal tax) and California's various governments make 40.2 cents (the nation's third-highest gasoline tax). Pelosi's San Francisco collects a local sales tax of 8.5 percent—higher than the state's average for local sales taxes....

Global Warming Is Not a Threat But the Environmentalist Response to It Is

Early this winter, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the summary of its latest report on global warming. It’s most trumpeted finding was that the existence of global warming is now "unequivocal." Although such anecdotal evidence as January’s snowfall in Tucson, Arizona and freezing weather in Southern California, and February’s more than 100-inch snowfall in upstate New York, might suggest otherwise, global warming may indeed be a fact. It may also be a fact that it is a by-product of industrial civilization (despite two ice ages having apparently occurred in the face of carbon levels in the atmosphere 16 times greater than that of today, millions of years before mankind’s appearance on earth). If global warming and mankind’s responsibility for it really are facts, does anything automatically follow from them? Does it follow that there is a need to limit and/or reduce carbon emissions and the use of the fossil fuels – oil, coal, and natural gas – that gives rise to the emissions? The need for such limitation and/or rollback is the usual assumption. Nevertheless, the truth is that nothing whatever follows from these facts. Before any implication for action can be present, additional information is required. One essential piece of information is the comparative valuation attached to retaining industrial civilization versus avoiding global warming. If one values the benefits provided by industrial civilization above the avoidance of the losses alleged to result from global warming, it follows that nothing should be done to stop global warming that destroys or undermines industrial civilization. That is, it follows that global warming should simply be accepted as a byproduct of economic progress and that life should go on as normal in the face of it. (Of course, there are projections of unlikely but nevertheless possible extreme global warming in the face of which conditions would be intolerable. However, as I explain below, to deal with such a possibility, it is necessary merely to find a different method of cooling the earth than that of curtailing the use of fossil fuels; I also show that such methods are already at hand.)....

Things to Think About

Last week, Japan pledged $100 million in grants to fight global climate change. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the world's major leader in the struggle against climate change. The World Conservation Union has recently recognized the work of women from all over the world fighting against climate change. We might want to ask whether it's too late to worry about fighting climate change. Let's look at it. About 65 million years ago, the Earth experienced one of the most rapid and extreme global climate changes recorded in geologic history. The period has been named the "Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum." The ocean was 18 to 27 degrees hotter than it is today. Antarctica, which is today's coldest place on Earth, was home to temperate forests, beech trees and ferns. The Earth had no permanent polar ice caps. In the past 65 million years, the Earth's temperature has increased and decreased with no help from mankind. My questions to the anti-climate change warriors are: Can mankind really stop climate change, and what is the "correct" Earth temperature?....

The Many Myths of Ethanol

No doubt about it, if there were a Miss Energy Pageant, Miss Ethanol would win hands down. Everyone loves ethanol. "Ramp up the availability of ethanol," says Hillary Clinton. "Ethanol makes a lot of sense," says John McCain. "The economics of ethanol make more and more sense," says Mitt Romney. "We've got to get serious about ethanol," says Rudolph Giuliani. And the media love ethanol. "60 Minutes" called it "the solution." Clinton, Romney, Barack Obama and John Edwards not only believe ethanol is the elixir that will give us cheap energy, end our dependence on Middle East oil sheiks, and reverse global warming, they also want you and me -- as taxpayers -- to subsidize it. When everyone in politics jumps on a bandwagon like ethanol, I start to wonder if there's something wrong with it. And there is. Except for that fact that ethanol comes from corn, nothing you're told about it is true. As the Cato Institute's energy expert Jerry Taylor said on a recent "Myths" edition of "20/20," the case for ethanol is based on a baker's dozen myths. A simple question first. If ethanol's so good, why does it need government subsidies? Shouldn't producers be eager to make it, knowing that thrilled consumers will reward them with profits? But consumers won't reward them, because without subsidies, ethanol would cost much more than gasoline. The claim that using ethanol will save energy is another myth. Studies show that the amount of energy ethanol produces and the amount needed to make it are roughly the same. "It takes a lot of fossil fuels to make the fertilizer, to run the tractor, to build the silo, to get that corn to a processing plant, to run the processing plant," Taylor says. And because ethanol degrades, it can't be moved in pipelines the way that gasoline is. So many more big, polluting trucks will be needed to haul it. More bad news: The increased push for ethanol has already led to a sharp increase in corn growing -- which means much more land must be plowed. That means much more fertilizer, more water used on farms and more pesticides. This makes ethanol the "solution"?....

The problem of junk science

As regular readers know, I seldom review books in these columns, preferring to leave that important job to professional reviewers. But every once in a while a book comes along that illuminates a major political problem so effectively that I cannot resist calling it to the attention of thoughtful readers. That is the case with Tom Bethell's "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science," recently published by Regnery. As Bethell points out in an introduction, science is forever being used, like everything else, to reinforce political viewpoints. Normally, an advocate using something to support his point of view is promptly countered, more or less effectively, by an opponent citing something else that contradicts it. The rest of us can listen, with the help of the media, and decide for ourselves which viewpoint is better supported and therefore deserves to be believed. But, Bethell notes, "Scientists seem to enjoy a measure of immunity." If a statement is made by a scientist in his professional capacity, non-scientists are afraid to contradict him. Even the media, whom we can usually count on to report opposing points of view, seldom look for information contradicting what a seemingly impartial scientist has declared to be the case. Unfortunately however, scientists are human like the rest of us, with their full complement of opinions and biases on all sorts of subjects not squarely in their field of expertise. And not surprisingly, a lot of them are happy to rely on their reputations as unbiased experts to promote political causes of one sort or another. In many cases, they don't even recognize what they are doing; they simply confuse what they know with what they want. So Bethell has written an entire book to expose some of the liberal myths that are forever being foisted on us with the important help of scientists, who are forever laying down the law without ever being effectively challenged by the media....

Send Your Underwear to the Undersecretary

Dennis R. Spurgeon, U.S. Undersecretary of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20585 Top-loading laundry machines have long been a low-priced, dependable home appliance. But no more—the federal government has wrecked them with its energy-efficiency regulations. That’s the finding of the June 2007 issue of Consumer Reports. In its words: “Not so long ago you could count on most washers to get your clothes very clean. Not anymore. …What happened? As of January, the U.S. Department of Energy has required washers to use 21 percent less energy, a goal we wholeheartedly support. But our tests have found that traditional top-loaders … are having a tough time wringing out those savings without sacrificing cleaning ability, the main reason you buy a washer.” Some of the top-loaders tested had “the lowest scores we’ve seen in years.” In fact, out of the 21 new top-loader models that Consumer Reports tested, it couldn’t pick a single one as a “Best Buy”: “[F]or the first time in years we can’t call any washer a Best Buy because models that did a very good job getting laundry clean cost $1,000 or more.” Government mandates for higher efficiency are almost always accompanied by claims that the higher prices they cause will be more than offset by their alleged savings from lower energy costs. But that raises a fundamental question—if these new technologies are so good, then why do we need laws to force consumers to buy them?....