Canyon Country Zephyr Page 13

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en. What is significant for boosting profits is that the company had been unable to persuade these women on its own.

The third party principle remains massively effective in the business of public and political persuasion; powerful people are in deadly earnest about cultivating credible but compliant experts to advocate for them.

Flash forward to January, 2009, when the 24 page USCAP Blueprint for global warming climate legislation was released by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a consortium of 26 honcho corporations, including two power companies. And also three environmental organizations: The National Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Getting major environmental groups to advocate, even indirectly, for dirty old coal plants was a masterful recruitment of expert opinion; every bit as snazzy as persuading the debutantes to fight up their torches of liberty. The irony is that it's unlikely that any of the environmental groups signed onto USCAP out of a desire to support dirty old coal, any more than the torch of liberty debutantes wanted millions of upscale women firing up Pall Malls.

"Promote replacement of existing coal-fired generating units and early reductions of C02 emissions by adopting additional incentives to replace high-emitting units with low and zero-emitting resources with similar availability and dispatchability."

The first passage here means that if you have a new power plant permitted before 1/1/09 it will treated as if it were a dirty old coal plant, even if you ain't built it yet. The second says that if an old coal plant is phased out under Waxman-Markey, it's the taxpayers who will - in some way - foot the bill to build a new and very expensive plant to replace it (which in theory will capture and store C02).

Bottom line for our purposes: under USCAP no financial or other pressure is placed upon power companies to phase out dirty old coal plants.

Thanks to the wiles of USCAP, by the time the other coal industry lobbyists marched into Congress with their hatchets held high, about 8596 of the work that was necessary to protect those dirty old coal plants had already been done.

The smooth tone and slippery lingo of the USCAP Blueprint, as well as its carefully arranged spectrum of prestigious backers, appears to have little in common with the flamboyant right wing rants on Fox News. But they do have a link: they're both effective engines of public and political influence and they both have crisply targeted audiences that they each understand well and influence in a precise, effectual manner.

More than anything else, they both rely on third party "experts" regarded as credible by their respective target audiences (for example, millions of die-hard Fox News fans believe they're watching a news channel).

When it comes to global warming, the major American engines of public influence, whatever their diverse aims, share another trait: so far none of their owners have been willing to surmount the wall of their own financial self-interest in order to deal with the climate crisis. The continuing saga of the dirty old coal plants is a prime example.

Unfortunately, avoiding the global warming tipping points will require each of us to surmount that very wall of self-interest. This will mean enduring stark economic upheaval, analogous to Allied efforts in World War II. It will mean living simply; possibly it will mean privation.

Waxman-Markey is a textbook example of an ineffective climate bill because its primary focus is protecting the financial hides of its proponents and beyond that the stability of the globalized growth economy. It is not focused on a no-bullshit phasing out of C02 emissions from coal, which will be necessary to avoid the tipping points, unless leaving huge reserves of oil and gas in the ground is somehow feasible (I can't imagine how).

As James Hansen says, "Again, you have to go back to this basic test. Are you continuing coal emissions?" (See "James Hansen on Obama, Climate Legislation, and the Scourge of Coal," 9/28/09 at www.grist.org).

Wyoming coal is booming.

Union Pacific and Burlington Northern trains,

pulling over a hundred coal cars each,

lumber across the sun-burnt grasslands

of South Dakota and Nebraska toward markets

as far away as Massachusetts and Georgia

- to old but massively profitable coal-fired power plants.

A further irony is that while the supporters of USCAP and many in the greater corporate world are willing to publicly acknowledge the dangers of global warming, most of the leaders of the coal industry, in sync with the right wing, thump their chests in defiance.

The target audience was Congress, especially the relevant members of Congressional committees considering the bill and policy wonks in the White House. The basic sell was that we can have our growth economy and deal with climate change as well; even environmental groups agree with us! It was an appealing strategy backed by an array of plausible experts.

Evidence of the Blueprint's success appears in following language from the House of Representatives' Discussion Draft Summary of the Waxman-Markey bill, issued in the spring of 2009: "The global warming provisions in the discussion draft are modeled closely on the recommendations of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of electric utilities, oil companies, chemical companies, automobile manufacturers, other manufacturers and energy companies, and environmental organizations." The House of Representatives could hardly have taken the Blueprint more seriously.

It's worth noting, however, that as far as the nitty-gritty is concerned, the general public was not the intended audience; the spidery, disingenuous language of the Blueprint is far too difficult for that. I doubt that the USCAP corporations were eager for a wide array of readers to focus on all the wiggle room for carbon emissions in their cap and trade plan - carefully placed there to protect profit margins - nor on the huge taxpayer subsidies to relevant corporations. And certainly not on their permissiveness toward old coal.

Here are three passages relevant to those dirty old coal plants:

"Electricity and Natural Gas Consumers: Because cost-of-service Local Distribution Companies (LDCs) are regulated, unlike other impacted sectors they will be required to pass through the entire value of allocated allowances to their end-use consumers...facilitating the transition for consumers and businesses as consumers of electricity. Consequently, USCAP recommends allocating a significant portion (e.g., 40%) of emission allowance value directly to these entities specifically to dampen the price impact of climate policy on electricity and small natural gas customers, particularly in the early years of the emission constraint." (p.13).

What this means in English is that it's OK for Congress to shovel out truck loads of free carbon permits for the benefit of dirty old coal plants because in theory the state gas and electric commissions or other regulatory agencies will keep power rates low to protect electricity customers. A splendid rationalization; there should be an award.

HEYMOAB...ITSME! PASTOR DON...

This much they accomplished in the Waxman-Markey climate bill, which passed the House of Representatives 219-212 on June 26, 2009

(obviously the coal industry prefers no climate legislation). In that bill the coal lobbyists and their allies in Congress protected the dirty old coal plants with three deft strokes:

And the Blueprint did all that permit shoveling without even mentioning those dirty old coal plants. Superb covert lingo; better make that two awards.

This passage ably set up the free carbon permits to cover dirty old coal in Waxman-Markey; all the legislative staffs had to do was follow the directions on the box.

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	en. What is significant for boosting profits is that the company had been unable to persuade these women on its own. The third party principle remains massively effective in the business of public and political persuasion; powerful people are in deadly earnest about cultivating credible but compliant experts to advocate for them. Flash forward to January, 2009, when the 24 page USCAP Blueprint for global warming climate legislation was released by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a consortium of 26 honcho corporations, including two power companies. And also three environmental organizations: The National Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, and the Environmental Defense Fund. Getting major environmental groups to advocate, even indirectly, for dirty old coal plants was a masterful recruitment of expert opinion; every bit as snazzy as persuading the debutantes to fight up their torches of liberty. The irony is that it's unlikely that any of the environmental groups signed onto USCAP out of a desire to support dirty old coal, any more than the torch of liberty debutantes wanted millions of upscale women firing up Pall Malls. "Promote replacement of existing coal-fired generating units and early reductions of C02 emissions by adopting additional incentives to replace high-emitting units with low and zero-emitting resources with similar availability and dispatchability." The first passage here means that if you have a new power plant permitted before 1/1/09 it will treated as if it were a dirty old coal plant, even if you ain't built it yet. The second says that if an old coal plant is phased out under Waxman-Markey, it's the taxpayers who will - in some way - foot the bill to build a new and very expensive plant to replace it (which in theory will capture and store C02). Bottom line for our purposes: under USCAP no financial or other pressure is placed upon power companies to phase out dirty old coal plants. Thanks to the wiles of USCAP, by the time the other coal industry lobbyists marched into Congress with their hatchets held high, about 8596 of the work that was necessary to protect those dirty old coal plants had already been done. The smooth tone and slippery lingo of the USCAP Blueprint, as well as its carefully arranged spectrum of prestigious backers, appears to have little in common with the flamboyant right wing rants on Fox News. But they do have a link: they're both effective engines of public and political influence and they both have crisply targeted audiences that they each understand well and influence in a precise, effectual manner. More than anything else, they both rely on third party "experts" regarded as credible by their respective target audiences (for example, millions of die-hard Fox News fans believe they're watching a news channel). When it comes to global warming, the major American engines of public influence, whatever their diverse aims, share another trait: so far none of their owners have been willing to surmount the wall of their own financial self-interest in order to deal with the climate crisis. The continuing saga of the dirty old coal plants is a prime example. Unfortunately, avoiding the global warming tipping points will require each of us to surmount that very wall of self-interest. This will mean enduring stark economic upheaval, analogous to Allied efforts in World War II. It will mean living simply; possibly it will mean privation. Waxman-Markey is a textbook example of an ineffective climate bill because its primary focus is protecting the financial hides of its proponents and beyond that the stability of the globalized growth economy. It is not focused on a no-bullshit phasing out of C02 emissions from coal, which will be necessary to avoid the tipping points, unless leaving huge reserves of oil and gas in the ground is somehow feasible (I can't imagine how). As James Hansen says, "Again, you have to go back to this basic test. Are you continuing coal emissions?" (See "James Hansen on Obama, Climate Legislation, and the Scourge of Coal," 9/28/09 at www.grist.org). Wyoming coal is booming. Union Pacific and Burlington Northern trains, pulling over a hundred coal cars each, lumber across the sun-burnt grasslands of South Dakota and Nebraska toward markets as far away as Massachusetts and Georgia - to old but massively profitable coal-fired power plants. A further irony is that while the supporters of USCAP and many in the greater corporate world are willing to publicly acknowledge the dangers of global warming, most of the leaders of the coal industry, in sync with the right wing, thump their chests in defiance. The target audience was Congress, especially the relevant members of Congressional committees considering the bill and policy wonks in the White House. The basic sell was that we can have our growth economy and deal with climate change as well; even environmental groups agree with us! It was an appealing strategy backed by an array of plausible experts. Evidence of the Blueprint's success appears in following language from the House of Representatives' Discussion Draft Summary of the Waxman-Markey bill, issued in the spring of 2009: "The global warming provisions in the discussion draft are modeled closely on the recommendations of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of electric utilities, oil companies, chemical companies, automobile manufacturers, other manufacturers and energy companies, and environmental organizations." The House of Representatives could hardly have taken the Blueprint more seriously. It's worth noting, however, that as far as the nitty-gritty is concerned, the general public was not the intended audience; the spidery, disingenuous language of the Blueprint is far too difficult for that. I doubt that the USCAP corporations were eager for a wide array of readers to focus on all the wiggle room for carbon emissions in their cap and trade plan - carefully placed there to protect profit margins - nor on the huge taxpayer subsidies to relevant corporations. And certainly not on their permissiveness toward old coal. Here are three passages relevant to those dirty old coal plants: "Electricity and Natural Gas Consumers: Because cost-of-service Local Distribution Companies (LDCs) are regulated, unlike other impacted sectors they will be required to pass through the entire value of allocated allowances to their end-use consumers...facilitating the transition for consumers and businesses as consumers of electricity. Consequently, USCAP recommends allocating a significant portion (e.g., 40%) of emission allowance value directly to these entities specifically to dampen the price impact of climate policy on electricity and small natural gas customers, particularly in the early years of the emission constraint." (p.13). What this means in English is that it's OK for Congress to shovel out truck loads of free carbon permits for the benefit of dirty old coal plants because in theory the state gas and electric commissions or other regulatory agencies will keep power rates low to protect electricity customers. A splendid rationalization; there should be an award. HEYMOAB...ITSME! PASTOR DON... This much they accomplished in the Waxman-Markey climate bill, which passed the House of Representatives 219-212 on June 26, 2009 (obviously the coal industry prefers no climate legislation). In that bill the coal lobbyists and their allies in Congress protected the dirty old coal plants with three deft strokes: And the Blueprint did all that permit shoveling without even mentioning those dirty old coal plants. Superb covert lingo; better make that two awards. This passage ably set up the free carbon permits to cover dirty old coal in Waxman-Markey; all the legislative staffs had to do was follow the directions on the box. More from the Blueprint: "Specifically, USCAP recommends Congress immediately: "Ensure no free allowances are provided for power generation that is associated with facilities that are initially permitted after January 1, 2009.

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