EPA’s CO2 endangerment finding challenged today in the U.S. Senate

Why do you care what the EPA does? It won't affect you, unless you are wrong about climate change. :madgrin:

 

It was the Supreme Court that ruled CO2 is a pollutant under CAA. Mass v. EPA, 2007.

 

The same "this will ruin jobs" straw man argument is used whenever people are asked to clean up poor environmental stewardship (acid rain for example, wait...maybe you don't believe that either?)

If Murkowski was seriously concerned about jobs, she should be concerned more about outsourcing. (btw, you do know that each Alaskan resident gets a percentage of money from oil, right?)

 

A very small percentage yes

 

Very small! The only reason it is a "big" payout to us is because some smart politicians had a great idea to acutally put some of the money in a savings account which has now grown fairly large. We just get a small percentage of the gain (averaged over 5 years) each year.

 

The point of bringing up the payout is only to show that politicians are often motivated by local issues: the presence of the oil industry in Alaska will be influential in the politics.

 

There are those that were upset when I suggested to those that claimed that CO2 was "not harmful" that perhaps they would like to breathe nothing but CO2!

Another digression, but Alaska is a pretty good example of another Petro-Cleptocracy. The permanent fund could have/should have been a great thing, but instead, to a great extend it is used to buy folks off and support unsustainable Petro economy.

See also Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, the Congo, Alberta etc.

 

I wish that Purdue's Vulcan project would update their website, but one can see CO2 emissions density for 2002 in 'the lower 48' here:

The Vulcan Project | Plots

 

Well son, you managed to loose what little creditability you had with me. Its obvious that you are willing to talk with authority about something you obvious know very little or nothing about. "Buy folks off" Wth do you mean by that? Never mind, I don't want to know what you think you know.

 

As a primer for the vast majority of Americans who have no idea what we are talking about: [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund]Alaska Permanent Fund - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

I stand by my opinon

 

Icarus I hate to tell you but your opinion is wrong. Spiderman is 100% correct.

 

This is what the Norwegians did with their North Sea oil money, and it has worked well for them. Their politicians were smart enough to realize that the oil income would not continue forever.

Tom

 

My opquinion is not about the Alaskan Permanent fund per se, but more about how petro dollars has (historically and still does) a significant corrupting influence on economies and political institutions. In point of fact I applaud the idea of the permanent fund, what I quibble with the execution of the fund.

Oil bonanzas are almost always followed by busts, and rarely do ordinary working people benefit long term from these bonanzas except for the wage jobs during the boom. The evidence of this is scattered all over the globe.

What Alaska has attempted to do is recapture some portion of the oil revenue and preserve it for future generations ( a noble goal IMHO) but what happens is, the scope of dollars is so great and (in a relative sense) so fast, that it is hard for governments to properly manage it. The net result is huge potential for corruption on both a large as well as a smaller scale. One can argue that the choosing to "pay off" citizens on some annual basis is short sighted. (others may argue the opposite) My argument is that unless you have completely provided for the future in as iron clad way as possible, then paying out dividends to citizens is in essence, paying them off.

If Alaska has the best education system, the best, public health care system, the best transportation system, etc etc, then paying dividends so that residents can buy new snow machines or pickups is nearly nothing more than a bribe.

I know that I am going to get the argument that "We're Alaskans and we earned/deserve this money." While you may be Alaskans, the mere fact that you live in Alaska shouldn't make you any different than any other American. The resource is all of ours, and just because it happened to be found under your back yard doesn't entitle you to anything. It may entitle the state to something to recoup it's enormous costs to support the industry, but not the individual.

Contrary to what many people believe (or would like to believe) the Federal government spends more in Alaska on a per capita basis than any other state.

Alaska Tops in Federal Dollars, Census Says

Alaska, Virginia rank tops in grabbing federal dollars

I also suggest that Alaska receives far more money back from the federal government than it sends in tax revenue, somewhere ~$1.83 back for every dollar paid. Not bad return if you ask me!

Alaska 1st, Ariz. last in pork spending - USATODAY.com

Barack Obama - Salon.com

I don't wish this to devolve into a screaming contest about certain Alaskan politicians, nor how they have been treated, but rather a discussion as to whether or not the permanent fund is being properly managed and/or whether or Alaska is a good (or bad) example of a Petro-cleptocracy as I described it.

 

The supreme court upheld slavery at one time ... and "separate but equal" at one time. They're the final word ... until they change their minds. For that matter, Korematsu v. U.S. (323 U.S. 214) is still good law ... rounding up all Japanese descendants due to WWII, just because us white / non-Japanese descendant US citizens felt their "threat" was sufficient. Isn't that reassuring.

The beauty or dumbness of CO2 regulation (turning on which side of the fence you're faith is on) is this: Collaterally, when you stem CO2, you save fossil fuel for other generations, and their kids too ... "in case of emergency", and you encourage renewables, and you reduce smog/pollution, and you keep $$ from flowing to countries that want to destroy us, and you remove the lame excuse to fund a trillion dollar defense monster ... and on and on. Considering all that, why is everyone getting their shorts all bunched up ... man ... it's a win/win situation how ever you look at it. Or am I missing something. If CO2 reg's DO make a difference for C02's sake ... great. If CO2 reg's simply help cure all the other collateral issues, and CO2 has little bearing on warmer temps ... whoop-dee-doo. Certainly the anti CO2 folk's issues aren't wholly revolving around the idea that "we can't regulate until we're more certain" right? ... or, "we can't regulate because some of the data is fraudulent" right? Is it that CO2 reg's hurt certain industry? Didn't the lead mining industry & others industries take it in the shorts over the decades? Wasn't that for the greater good? I doubt today that the Write Brothers could invent, for all the nay-sayers, dialog, regulation & permits that would be required. It doesn't look like we'll ever hold hands singing cume by ya on big things any more.



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Hill,

Because in the political environment of the past couple of decades, certain folks don't want to pay for anything. This has morphed into a giant anti government campaign designed (at it's core) to avoid taxes of any sort at every level of government. I'll leave it at that, lest I be accused of baiting.

 

In all fairness, there are going to be money costs from moving away from fossil fuels. The Congressional Budget Office's projection is that the proposed carbon cap-and-trade would knock about 2% off GDP by 2050. I think they gave around 4% as the upper bound on their estimate, though how they arrive at their uncertainties, I cannot fathom. Really not much, if they're right, but not negligible either.

And, I think the EPA is broader than the proposed cap-and-trade legislation. The Congress left cars and houses alone under cap-and-trade. They only put large point-source emitters under the cap, accounting for about three-quarters of US GHG output. So, depending on what the EPA does, they could have a broader impact than the Congress intended.


Don't get me wrong. I think we need to start now with any one of a wide variety of reasonable policies. Heck, I'd settle for starting by having gasoline taxes high enough to pay for the road network, instead of subsidizing roads out of general revenues. (Most recent estimate: User fees and taxes pay for about 60% of the cost of the road network, shown here:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/2008cpr/pdfs/chap6.pdf

I'm good with any reasonable move in the right direction. But I do think this is likely to cost somebody something.

 

your post seems to imply that Alaskans would easily give up what they receive since its a mere pittance??

i know a few Alaskans, i will ask them what they think of that idea

 

i cant say i disagree with what you are saying because big money ALWAYS creates corruption no matter what period, end of discussion. we can say we prefer money over love, but...no...

what really need to do is provide pertinent facts. per capita spending on a state that is 20 times (or more in most cases) than the average state means absolutely nothing.

how much a mile of road cost in Alaska compared to cali??? is the fact that 9,455% more cars in cali will use that mile mean anything??

umm. not really. does the fact that environmental conditions means much more road maintenance is required, much higher expense, etc??? ya, even with massive use which does require more maintenance, the road will still cost more in Alaska.

so to talk about per capita spending is a useless fact. how about spending per square mile? now Alaska is the most forsaken state (i am guessing here) along with Nevada (which probably ranks 3rd behind VA which all the politicians live which of course would be well fed)

but...

i still agree with most of what you say. CO2 is like many things in our world. in sufficient quantities is bad for us... so to say a certain level of it in our environment is pollution i consider a very valid statement.

after all, it will kill us. trees love it, but we simply cant tolerate that much of it at one time....

its like drowning. we need water to survive, but....

 

Well I cannot talk for others, but I would give up mine if it went to cover essential government spending which is why the account was originally created. A rainy day savings account when revenues dropped. Of course now it has turned into entitlement and some lawmakers are proposing to write it into the state's constitution. There are many that have traveled up here just to get the check and now live on welfare.

In terms of a "little" I mean the amount the state collects in royalties/taxes on oil and other resources. Which the industry constantly balks at and tries to avoid. That little though has grown into a large account (~30Billion) now and a small percent of the gain (averaged over 5 years) is paid out as dividend to the people.

It was being implied that Alaskans were being bought out because of this. Pffft.

One other point I wanted to make is that the US government makes money off of lease sales, resource royalties, etc. and that goes to offset the federal taxes we all pay (some more than others). So that would imply that we are all being "bought out". This is not unique situation to Alaskans. The only difference is, a few smart politicians got the bright idea to put it into a savings account and it grew.

Ooooh, I am impressed. Be sure to ask them how long they have lived up here and if they actually consider themselves "Alaskans".