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Every year, Al Gore pauses from his overscheduled itinerary of making a fool of himself at climate change speeches around the world to pause at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, where he drops by to make a fool of himself in front of hipsters, activists and a sizable jumble of uninterested partiers. This year, the rhetoric got harsh — as in “punish-the-deniers” harsh. While Gore was talking specifically about politicians who reject the idea that government should divert public funds to combat the effects of a changing climate, his tone toward anyone who thinks the jury’s still...

California is always honing its suicidal skills. In its continuous drive toward the ultimate sunset, the Golden State has made its war on America and what America stands for abundantly clear. It wants to become a territory of Mexico and a haven for illegal aliens supported by the dwindling number of actual American saps it can squeeze every nickel out of… bringing the state inexorably closer to its final demise. Among California’s most glaring self-inflicted wounds is its cap and trade program under which businesses, deemed to be enemies of the socialist utopian dream, must pay a tax above and...

The California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) plan to offer cap and trade offset credits to California rice farmers to change the way they farm is like chumming fish. The government’s upfront offer of cash is a scam to encourage rice farmers to invite bureaucrats into their business. CARB will undoubtedly later change the farming rules by mandating the type of severe regulations that will strangle rural community success. Sacramento Valley rice farming is a $5 billion industry that specializes in premium grains used in risotto, paella, and sushi. California rice commands a high price and is exported to more than...

Starting on January 1st some claim California drivers will start paying a new "Hidden Gas Tax." How much will you pay? We have a two part Special Report on Eyewitness News coming up tomorrow - Tuesday November 25th at Six and Eleven. When the story airs I'll send a link to Free Republic.

This lawless administration plans to bypass the two-thirds requirement for Senate ratification on a climate change treaty by entering into a "politically binding" hybrid agreement to "name and shame" climate scofflaws. Apparently letting the Environmental Protection Agency run amok with regulations fulfilling candidate Obama's pledge to bankrupt the coal industry, and enact a de facto cap-and-trade regime the president couldn't get through Congress, is not enough. The man who said his nomination was the moment the seas began to recede and the planet began to heal now plans to deal the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution yet another...

Arena Profile: Peter Goldmark Peter Goldmark currently directs the Climate and Air program for Environmental Defense Fund. Prior to joining Environmental Defense, he was Chairman and CEO of the International Herald Tribune. Peter has had exceptional careers in both the public and private sectors. His public service was highlighted by his tenure as Budget Director for the State of New York during the 1970s city- and state-wide fiscal crisis where he was an architect of its rescue; and as Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey through to 1983. He served as president of the...

The agencies said their needs are too different and manufacturers are not yet ready to build trains that can run on both Amtrak's 100-year-old rail lines and the high-speed corridors planned for California's system. ... Several unfavorable court rulings have also delayed work. In the most high-profile case, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge halted the sale of $8.6 billion in state rail bonds and ordered the state to write a new funding plan, delaying work on the first 28-mile segment from Madera to Fresno. The state has appealed. But the $108 billion budget that Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed...

This is how stupid we've become: Does Obama do one stupid thing to cover for the other stupid thing? Does he do the stupid prisoner exchange to make up for the stupid carbon plan? Or is all the stupidity organic? Getting past the fact that none of this makes anybody in United States look very good, I think these are legitimate questions. Because it seems to me that Obama has waved the red meat, and the conservative lions have attacked. The red meat in this case being the exchange of prisoner Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban terrorists. CNN...

The U.S. power sector must cut carbon dioxide emissions 30 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels, according to federal regulations unveiled on Monday that form the centerpiece of the Obama administration's climate change strategy. The Environmental Protection Agency's proposal is one of the most significant environmental rules proposed by the United States, and could transform the power sector, which relies on coal for nearly 38 percent of electricity. Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Monday that between 2020 and 2030, the U.S. amount of carbon dioxide the proposal would reduce under the plan would be more...

Having failed to get the Democrats’ cap-and-trade scheme through Congress, President Obama intends to create it through fiat, with the Environmental Protection Agency scheduled to issue today what amounts to a bill of attainder against coal-fired electricity generators. The regulation will set a national limit on greenhouse-gas emissions from coal plants and then offer states a phony menu of choices for meeting that standard, stacking the policy deck in such a way as to force them into cap-and-trade programs administered by multistate cartels. It is far from obvious that the Obama administration has anything like the legal authority for this;...

Despite being soundly rejected a few years ago, cap-and-trade will soon get its U.S. encore — but not in Congress. The Obama administration will likely use its executive power to unilaterally impose carbon dioxide emissions trading systems. The plan is being sold as a “flexible” one. By allowing states a menu of policy options to meet federal mandates, the standards will ostensibly meet the unique needs of each individual state. But the stark reality behind the proposal is that it will be a boon for states that have already imposed cap-and-trade systems — which are overwhelmingly Democratic states. “While President...

Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee is not waiting for the state legislature to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, but instead has issued an executive order to implement a cap-and-trade program, eliminate coal power and fund green energy projects. “This is the right time to act, the right place to act and we are the right people to act,” Inslee said. “We will engage the right people, consider the right options, ask the right questions and come to the right answers — answers that work for Washington.” Inlsee argues that more action is needed if the state is to meet climate goals passed by...

Once upon a time, Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration was blithely professing confidence that they wouldn’t need to hit up taxpaying Californians to continue financing his pet high-speed rail project beyond the initial $10 billion in bonds he asked for (not to mention a casual few billion in stimulus funds from the Obama administration), because private investors would almost assuredly come a’clamoring to drop major dollars in what he felt — and apparently still feels — is an amazingly practical and affordable transit project.How’s that working out? Via the WSJ: As envisioned, California’s $68 billion bullet-train system, the nation’s first, would...

California’s greenhouse gas reduction law already has shaken up the state’s industrial sector, costing it more than $1.5 billion in pollution permit fees. It’s now poised to hit the pocketbooks of everyday Californians. Starting next year, the law will force fuel distributors into the same cap-and-trade marketplace as utilities and major manufacturers. The oil industry says it will lead to price increases of at least 12 cents a gallon immediately, while state regulators say any price spikes could vary widely, from barely noticeable to double-digits. …

It is a basic principle of psychological warfare that the side that controls the language of the argument controls the argument. Barack Obama's own website is using this PsyWar technique by calling opponents of his cap and trade agenda "climate change deniers." He has also used the financial resources of the federal government, such as whitehouse.gov, to marginalize everybody who doesn't agree with him as a climate change denier. Democrats Sheldon Whitehouse, Harry Reid, and Peter DeFazio also have followed Joseph Goebbels's advice to the effect that if you tell a big lie vigorously and often enough, people will believe...

The Brayton Point Power Station, the largest coal-fired power plant in New England, is shutting down amid a prolonged slump in energy prices that is forcing power operators nationally to rejigger their budgets and seek out more affordable production strategies. The closure will result in 240 job losses at the Somerset, Mass.-based facility. Its owner, an affiliate of New Jersey-based private equity firm Energy Capital Partners, said in a statement that steps would be taken to mitigate the effects of the job cuts for Brayton Point’s former workers....

On Tuesday, four Democrats in Congress unveiled a brand-new proposal for a carbon tax. The set-up is simple: The U.S. government would slap a fee on fossil-fuel emissions and refund the revenue back to the public. But there’s a twist: The precise details of the carbon tax have yet to be thrashed out. The four lawmakers are soliciting public comments for how big the tax should be and how best to rebate the money. The proposal is being put forward by Reps. Henry Waxman and Earl Blumenauer, as well as Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Brian Schatz. Here are the key...

Taxes: The president may try to satisfy both environmentalists and pro-growth blocs by tying the shovel-ready project curiously left out of the State of the Union to just-introduced carbon-tax legislation. Having failed to lower the sea levels in his first term, President Obama, in the first SOTU of his second term, highlighted the need for fighting climate change and proposed an Energy Security Trust Fund to siphon off money from those who actually produce abundant and useable energy to fund alternative energy sources which constitute a rounding error in the percent of energy produced by various sources. Two days later,...

Energy: The president's proposed Energy Security Fund will stifle the private energy sector boom and provide permanent funding for future Solyndras and electric cars that nobody wants. And what about that pipeline, sir? A nonexistent crisis is a terrible thing to waste, and in justifying his proposal for a cap-and-tax scheme, President Obama claimed in his State Of The Union that "the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15." He was lying. The fact is, according to new data released quietly last October by Britain's Met Office, the world's natural post-Ice Age warming trend stopped...

NEW: Edison bailed out CA Cap & Trade auction The facts slowing coming out about the state’s first Cap and Trade auction seriously question whether the system is already being gamed by government, together with electric utilities. Edison International made an announcement on Dec. 20, 2012: At California’s first Cap and Trade auction held back on Nov. 14, 2012, it offered to buy 21 times more pollution permits than allowed. Edison’s overbidding error ended up amounting to 72 percent of all the bid offers and bailed out the Cap and Trade auction from failure. About a month later, Edison’s unregulated...