Despite claims that the theory of global warming is “irrefutable,” the science behind this theory is now being called into question. Al Gore and all the others who wanted the world to take the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report as untouchable science now have a problem as reports of flaws in both the methods and the data keep on coming.
The Washington Post laid out yesterday multiple flaws in the IPCC report. These include everything from misreporting critical dates, sloppy sourcing—including the use of anecdotal evidence from mountain climbers and a student’s dissertation – to the erroneous assertion that 55% of the Netherlands is below sea levels, when only 26% of the country is. Among the many travesties is that the Environmental Protection Agency used the IPCC to justify its recent ruling on CO2 emissions posing a danger.
And on that same day, the very scientist at the center of the “Climategate” affair, Phil Jones admitted to the UK’s Daily Mail that he has lost track of his data and that his lack of organization has made him reluctant to share his data with critics. So much for the scientific method.
Oh, and Jones also admitted that in the past 15 years there has not been any “statistically significant” global warming. This is the irrefutable evidence of global warming?
As Sens. James Inhofe (R-OK) and John Barrasso (R-WY) have pointed out, these errors are all the more reason to re-examine the evidence and block the mandatory CO2 limits the White House is pushing in the American people. While errors do not disprove a theory, neither does sloppy research buttress a hypothesis, especially when the results could cost our economy millions of lost jobs, our families thousands in disposable income, and our competitive standing in the world.
More than just the integrity of the world’s scientific community is at stake. So is our freedom and economic survival.
Rebecca Lefton, writing a report for the Center for American Progress, tries to debunk a study of the Boxer-Kerry bill published by The Heritage Foundation. Instead she demonstrates that she didn’t read the study or doesn’t understand the economic logic of the bill she supposedly supports. Further she offers as a substitute for Heritage’s work an analysis done by the Environmental Protection Agency. Either she didn’t read the EPA report, doesn’t understand it, or is willfully misrepresenting it.
The economic fallacies of Lefton’s review are many, but the primary one is her assertion that Heritage cost projections are “grossly overestimated.” In support of her assertion she claims the EPA projects an annual cost of between “$80 and $111 annually” per household. EPA’s actual, inflation-adjusted annual costs range up to $1,288 annually. Unlike Heritage, the EPA did not do a complete, new economic analysis of the Boxer-Kerry bill (S. 1733), but instead based their report on the economic analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill (H.R. 2454). So it is necessary to go to page 14 of EPA’s analysis of H.R. 2454 to find these inflation adjusted cost household cost projections. However, even these larger impacts would be an apples-to-oranges comparison next to the Heritage estimates.
Previously we have pointed out that converting from lost consumption per household to lost income per family of four (a more comprehensive and intuitive measure) would bump the range of EPA costs up to $2,700 or more per year. That’s a far cry from $111 dollars, but even this large number is dependent on several unreasonably generous assumptions concerning nuclear power, as yet undeveloped carbon capture-and-storage technology, and developing a world-wide market for offsets (paying others to cut CO2).
Lefton’s misunderstanding of what the $111 estimate actually represents is very common (though still mistaken) and was addressed here.
Lefton accuses Heritage of not adjusting the damaging economic impact of cap and trade to account for efficiency mandates. The implication being that such an adjustment would moderate the negative effects. In fact, the mandates add to the economic costs making the pain even greater.
Suppose your employer withheld your pay unless you shopped at a discount department store. This would be a mandate that might cut your consumption spending. Capping your pay at 20 percent of your current salary, like an energy or CO2 cap, would cut your consumption. However, telling you to shop at the discount store after you get the pay cut won’t lighten the burden of having 80 percent less income.
The Heritage report provides support for this clear result from multiple sources—including the current Congressional Budget Office, which said (pg. 4) the mandates would “result in a generally higher cost to the economy.”
Nevertheless, Lefton accuses us of failing to recognize the “key role” the mandates will play and with a quote implies the EPA analysis shows great savings from the mandates. What does the EPA actually say?
The resulting modeled economic impacts of the energy efficiency provisions [mandates] include modest reductions in allowance prices (~1.5%), fossil fuel prices (coal and natural gas ~1%), and electricity prices (<1%) from 2015-2050.
So, even according to the EPA the maximum effect of the mandates would be to moderate the higher energy prices by no more than one percent. The net impact of S. 1733, see page 17 of the EPA report, shows higher energy prices and higher total energy expenditure per household in 2030 and 2050.
In ignorance she shares with many others, Lefton asserts that electricity consumers will be protected from rate increases because “The pollution reduction program allocates 30 percent of revenues from the program to local electric distribution companies, which are required to ‘protect consumers from electricity price increases.’” It’s not clear what she is quoting but S. 1733 and H.R. 2454 contain identical language prohibiting the use of these revenues to lower consumer electric rates. The EPA even points out (pg. 49) that it would be counterproductive if the electric companies were to do so:
Returning the allowance value to consumers of electricity via local distribution companies in a non-lump sum fashion prevents electricity prices from rising but makes the cap-and-trade policy more costly overall.
–This form of redistribution makes the cap-and-trade more costly since greater emission reductions have to be achieved by other sectors of the economy.
–Resulting changes in prices of other energy-intensive goods also influence the overall distributional impacts of the policy.
In any event, the Heritage analysis assumed all the money designated was returned to citizens in cash, which gives the fullest restoration to any lost impacts on income.
Finally, Lefton brings out the decrepit green stimulus argument—pretending that cutting energy use can increase employment. Ignoring the EPA study she cites earlier, and similar studies from the Congressional Budget Office, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, all of which show a negative economic impact of S.1733, she refers to analysis from her own organization showing 1.7 million green jobs coming from a costless transfer of $150 billion (which would be a good trick in itself). This policy is no part of S.1733 or H.R. 2454 and it has been thoroughly debunked already.
Perhaps CAP is desperate to ignore the flagging support for global-warming taxes, to ignore the embarrassing collapse of the supposed scientific consensus necessary for a climate imperative, and to ignore the extraordinary growth in taxation, national debt, unemployment, and regulatory burden their pet policy would create. But, desperation doesn’t justify ignoring economic reality.
And one last item. Whether she meant to or not, by lumping Heritage and the Milken Institute together she implies the Heritage report was commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers. This is absolutely not the case. The Heritage Foundation does not do commissioned research and did not work with or for either the Milken Institute or the National Association of Manufacturers in preparing this or any other study.