Critical Mass Takes Control of Washington

Critical Mass Takes Control of Washington

Critical Mass in San Francisco was one of those reminders that I didn't belong in California anymore. Every month or so, the arrogant, rude, and holier-than-thou bicycling sorts would intentionally create traffic jams by ignoring all the traffic rules at rush hour. It was part of liberalism's belief that if you don't do things our way, well, then you are some sort of immoral and depraved person who needs to get slapped across the face a few times.

Now I see that the same crowd is in charge of the U.S. Department of Transportation. From the March 27, 2010 New York Times is this report that Secretary of Transportation LaHood was announcing the end of "favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized":

The new policy, which was introduced a few days after Mr. LaHood gave a well-received speech from atop a table at the National Bike Summit, is said to reflect the Transportation Department’s support for the development of fully integrated transportation networks.

It calls on state and local governments to go beyond minimum planning and maintenance requirements to provide convenient and safe amenities for bikers and walkers. “Walking and biking should not be an afterthought in roadway design,” the policy states.

Look, I enjoy bicycling and walking. I occasionally bicycled to work when I worked for HP. When I lived in Irvine, I often walked the three miles to work--even though, in a liberal controlled city--there were often no sidewalks. (Everything had been "planned" for bicyclists--not pedestrians.)

I've found the experience of sharing the road with automobiles scary enough that I am generally sympathetic to laws requiring automobile drivers to behave as though bicyclists are humans, too. There's a place for bicycling and pedestrian travel as part of a city. But the arrogant assumption that anyone who drives an automobile is lazy, stupid, or an environmental criminal--that's the subtext of what Critical Mass and their friends like Secretary LaHood are saying.

Somehow, I'm not expecting bicycles to replace trucks for transporting merchandise anytime soon, nor is bicycling or walking a realistic alternative for most commuters. The only that it could be would involve the sort of totalitarian control that liberals seem to love: "You are going to live here. And if you find a job across town that works better--you are going to have to move--or arrive drenched in sweat (or snow) 90 minutes later."

I'm Done With CFLs

I'm Done With CFLs

Like almost everything that comes out of the environmental movement, they are a mixture of corrupt corporate dealings and fantasy.

I've previously mentioned the problems that I have had with CFLs in outdoor settings, where it is simply too cold for them to work reliably. But even the one area where I had some hope--that the purchase cost would be compensated for by their longer life as well as lower energy use--has turned out to be nonsense.

I bought a number of CFLs a few months after we moved into our current house in June of 2006. I bought some more in 2008. I have just replaced the fourth CFL--and in some cases, they are alongside the original incandescent bulbs that were installed in the house when it was built in late 2005.

I think I am going to buy a couple of the new LED light bulbs, and see if they last. I have some confidence. But the fact that environmentalists/corporate fatcats (pretty much the same thing) felt the need to pass a law to pretty much force us to stop buying incandescent bulbs shows how much hype is involved.

Another Monstrously Long Bill

Another Monstrously Long Bill

Passed the House also. H.R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 is 1427 pages long. There is some rather upset email going around about sections 202 and 204 imposing mandatory retrofit of existing houses for energy efficiency. I don't see anything mandatory in those sections. I do see an enormous amount of bureaucracy being created that serves no good purpose. If the cost of energy increase that this pig creates isn't enough to make you upgrade your insulation, then you are probably a Democrat with more money than you know what to do with, anyway.

Just the health care reform bill: there may well be some mildly good, or at least incredibly destructive stuff contained in H.R. 2454 that wouldn't be controversial. So why do we have to throw it all into a single incomprehensible bill, along with stuff that really is controversial? I'm sure that at least some of this bill is stuff to further enrich those who are already obscenely rich.

Market Opportunity?

Market Opportunity?

The mark of how environmentally responsible these days seems to be how little goes into a landfill--and this item about recycling batteries from San Francisco suggests a market opportunity:

According to Toxco Inc., they are the only company in North America that can recover zinc and manganese from alkaline batteries; they are one of two in North America that can recycle nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal-hydride batteries; and they are the only company in the world that can recover lithium from any size or type of lithium battery.

Only? Something tells me that they are taking full advantage of that opportunity in what they charge for recycling batteries. And from a carbon standpoint, does it really make sense to ship batteries this far for recycling?

What Happens to Alkaline Batteries?
We ship alkaline batteries to AERC in Hayward. AERC is a licensed facility that recycles universal waste (electronics, fluorescent lamps, batteries).

AERC ships the batteries to Kinsbursky Brothers Inc., a transfer storage and disposal facility. Kinsbursky Brothers Inc. is a co-owner of Toxco Inc.

Kinsbursky consolidates the batteries into full truckloads and sends the batteries to Toxco Inc in Trail, British Columbia, Canada, where they are recycled.

Talk About Muzzling Scientists

Talk About Muzzling Scientists

Remember when a NASA scientist claimed that the Bush Administration had "muzzled" him because he was an outspoken supporter of global warming? And then he admitted to Congress that he gave more 1400 on-the-job interviews on the subject while muzzled? The Competitive Enterprise Institute actually has copies of emails that tell one of EPA's scientists that he is not to talk to anyone about global warming, nor show anyone the research that he is done--because it doesn't fit their claims justifying regulation of carbon dioxide production. The CEI now wants a copy of the report that Obama's EPA suppressed, so that it can included as part of the public comment on the EPA's current rule making efforts.

Is there anything that environmentalists won't do to win? Of course, when you are dealing with religious fanatics, this is not a surprise.

Wind Power Generators

Wind Power Generators

Environmentalists are really big on wind power (as long as it isn't affecting their view from Cape Cod), but there are some significant issues that need to be worked out. One of those issues is that wind power is highly variable. This means that it really only makes sense if you have some practical way to store that energy. Another problem is that many of the places that have plenty of wind don't have enough customers to take advantage of that electricity--because the transmission lines don't exist to transfer power from places like West Texas to places like Los Angeles.

Now, I ran into a fascinating claim:

A power producer typically gets paid for the power it generates. In Texas, some wind energy generators are paying to have someone take power off their hands.

Because of intense competition, the way wind tax credits work, the location of the wind farms and the fact that the wind often blows at night, wind farms in Texas are generating power they can’t sell. To get rid of it, they are paying the state’s main grid operator to accept it. $40 a megawatt hour is roughly the going rate.

I first saw this at Classical Values, and followed the links. But the last link to the original story is now dead. The story apparently first appeared on Greentech Media, which appears to be a blog for promoting alternative energy. While other articles on the Greentech Media site still reference this broken link, and indicate that it did indeed show this absurd situation, the original story has disappeared.

There's nothing terribly surprising about this irrational situation where alternative energy producers are having to pay someone to take their product. As Simon at Classical Values points out:

What they really need to do is to find customers who are willing to be paid to use electricity. In other words we have set up a system where conservation is a bad idea.

Once you start screwing with the market ever more laws are required to make up for the distortions created by the previous set of laws. It never ends and only gets worse.

As much as I like the idea of alternative power, and finding a way to impoverish societies where they have their turbans wound too tight, the fact is that much of the alternative energy industry isn't really a business; it's a religion, a belief that anything that doesn't involve fossil fuels is fundamentally wise. It is a religion because it involves not evidence, but faith.

The government can encourage alternative power, but they need to be encouraging basic research. If you throw a few billion dollars at solving hard problems, such as how to create inexpensive photovolatics, or more efficient wind turbines, that doesn't distort the market badly, like subsidies and tax credits to producers and consumers do.

I don't know if the disappearance of the original article off the Greentech Media article was a mistake, or an attempt to hide an embarassing reminder that some of this Green obsession is actually a bad idea. But the core problem remains: societies that refuse to face reality when it comes to economics end up going broke.

Wolves Again

Wolves Again

A reader reminded of something that I knew, but didn't remember to add into my recent post about wolves: mountain lions in California appear to have become aggressive since hunting of the cute and cuddly little creatures was banned by initiative in 1996. This list of mountain lion attacks on people in California from the late 19th century to the present (assuming that it is correct and complete) strongly suggests mountain lions are like wolves: best managed by keeping them afraid of us.

Another reader reminded me that Willa Cather's My Antonia (1918), while set in the United States, has a subplot involving Ukrainian immigrants with a dark and horrific history behind them in the old country--a wedding party set upon by a large wolf pack, in which one of the groom, to save himself, lets them take his bride. Now, it is fiction, but as a general rule, when an author is writing what is intended as realistic fiction, he usually uses materials that are either realistic, or that his readers will consider realistic. That doesn't make it common, or even possible--but the burden of proof is generally on those who want to argue that such a tale was outlandish or absurd.

UPDATE: I read that excerpt a little too quickly. One of the groomsmen, to avoid being eaten himself, pushes the bride and groom out of the sledge to their deaths.

The Stimulus Package Won't Destroy America

The Stimulus Package Won't Destroy America

But there is something coming that will. Jonathan Adler over at Volokh Conspiracy points to the news accounts that EPA is probably going to go ahead and regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. (For example, this February 19, 2009 International Herald Tribune article.) He points out the likely consequences:

Regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act will create a regulatory train-wreck. It will impose substantial costs, and yet fail to meet the President's ambitious emission reduction targets (80% by 2050). For this reason, many believe that the prospect of loosing the Clean Air Act on carbon dioxide (combined with the unleashing of the Endangered Species Act as a consequence of the polar bear listing) will encourage Congress to enact climate legislation. That's when the real fun will begin. If, as the President has suggested, Congress puts forward a cap-and-trade proposal, it will unleash a feeding frenzy of rent-seeking, as every conceivable industry and interest group seeks to protect its own or gain competitive advantage. This is one reason why I would prefer a revenue-neutral carbon tax, combined with policies to accelerate technological innovation and adoption -- but I'm not holding my breath.

There is simply no strong argument for adopting any sort of regulation right now based on the current science. What is driving this is environmentalism as hair shirt--a bunch of comfortable and sometimes obscenely rich yuppies who feel terribly guilty, and are intent on doing something to alleviate their guilt. The polar ice pack is back to 1979 coverage (although not thickness). This is completely unnecessary.

Adler is right: if the choice was a straightforward carbon tax, vs. cap-and-trade, it is obvious which is the better choice. As I mentioned a couple of years ago, the European attempt at cap-and-trade, their "emissions trading system" failed to reduce carbon emissions.

Why? Because cap-and-trade locks into place the advantage of those who are already in position, burning coal, petroleum, or whatever. It will be like the tobacco allotment system, whereby some "tobacco farmers" who have never grown tobacco in their lives--but inherited the rights to grow it from a grandparent--sell those rights to people that actually grow it. Companies that have been producing carbon dioxide in vast quantities for decades will be allowed to sell the rights to continue burning coal to companies that have never received any benefit from it. You can see why Democrats are so partial to this scheme; it's perfect for their preferred strategy of using government to redistribute wealth upwards, and maintain the status quo.

There's also the gross dishonesty of the whole matter. The only way in which carbon dioxide can be accurately called a "pollutant" is by the same standard that oxygen or water vapor can be called a pollutant. Yes, in high enough concentrations, it would be a bad idea. A 90% oxygen atmosphere at current pressures would be a serious problem. So would a 95% water vapor atmosphere at current pressures.

Whether it is done through a carbon tax, or cap-and-trade, to actually make the difference the environmental extremists want will mean a dramatic slowing of the economy. The long-term negative effects of the porkulus bill will be utterly lost in the destruction of the U.S. economy. If this doesn't cause a change in control of Congress in 2010--or if the Republicans get up there, and get bought off with little girls and boys again--I can guarantee you that this is the sort of monkeywrenching of the economy that will bring the masses to armed revolution.

Revolutions are not caused by poor people; they are usually too hungry and listless to do anything that energetic. A slow decline in living standards usually doesn't drive the middle class to revolution; each individual cut is so small, that it doesn't provoke enough rage to risk everything. But sudden sharp jolts in living standards or expectations can make middle class people say, "It's now. Or we may be too poor in five years to make a real difference."

So Much for EnvironmentalismSo Much for Environmentalism

So Much for Environmentalism

Environmentalists have been screeching for some time about the importance of not using disposable diapers--that traditional cloth diapers are less destructive to Mother Earth. But the British government went ahead and studied the carbon footprint of disposable vs. cloth--and didn't get the Politically Correct results. From the October 19, 2008 Times of London:

A government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the £50,000 nappy research project and to adopt a “defensive” stance towards its conclusions.
The report found that using washable nappies, hailed by councils throughout Britain as a key way of saving the planet, have a higher carbon footprint than their disposable equivalents unless parents adopt an extreme approach to laundering them.
To reduce the impact of cloth nappies on climate change parents would have to hang wet nappies out to dry all year round, keep them for years for use on younger children, and make sure the water in their washing machines does not exceed 60C.
The conclusions will upset proponents of real nappies who have claimed they can help save the planet.
Restricted Whitehall documents, seen by The Sunday Times, show that the government is so concerned by the “negative laundry options” outlined in the report, it has told its media managers not to give its conclusions any publicity.

You see, one of the problems with the modern environmental movement is that it is more about forcing people to wear hair shirts and otherwise be miserable than saving the environment. Much of environmentalism today is the modern equivalent of medieval monks flagellating themselves.

Breaching Dams

Breaching Dams

The Sali for Congress campaign claims that Walt Minnick (the Democrat whose TV ads won't ever say that he is a Democrat) supported breaching the dams on the Lower Snake River back in 2003:

Minnick was quoted by the AP in 2003 as saying, “We only have hopefully one more lawsuit to say as a matter of law that if we’re going to recover the salmon that dams have to come down now.”

I can't find that quote anywhere online. I don't find it hard to believe--but I would like something a bit more authoritative than "quoted by the AP in 2003."

I understand the arguments about the dams. If we were deciding whether to build those dams today, the case for them might not be so strong. There is a strong argument that the land saved from flooding downstream isn't much more than the land flood upstream, and that if you look at the energy that went into building those dams, perhaps the total power output by hydroelectricity wouldn't be so compelling.

But we don't have the time machine option. The energy constructing those dams? It was spent. The power that comes out of them now is free. Breaching the dams won't get the energy that was spent back out.

There are environmental costs to having those dams. But not having them also has environmental costs, because we either start living in caves again, or we have to build some alternative power plants.

Right now, environmentalists want wind power (unless it interferes with their view of Cape Cod) and solar power. But I wouldn't count on that being their claim in ten or fifteen years, when they will come up with some new reason why today's "look the future" power sources are suddenly evil--and we have to go back to living in caves.

UPDATE: A reader handed me a AP article that appeared in the Twin Falls Times-News, August 20, 2003, p. B01, that discusses the efforts to breach the dams, and quotes Minnick:

KETCHUM -- Ten years ago Bruce Babbitt got taken to the woodshed by Bill Clinton for impulsively saying he wanted to see a dam destroyed before he left the Department of Interior. Tuesday night, Babbitt, the former Secretary of Interior, glanced out at the Big Wood River in Ketchum and proclaimed that the dams were about to come down to save wild salmon.  "They've got to come down," he said, adding that economic arguments are trivial. "The question is how. 

...

Steve Mashuda, attorney for Earthjustice, told those in attendance that his organization plans to bring litigation against Idaho Power Company and others to make them realize the cost of keeping dams in place. "We will have salmon recovery in the upper Snake River in the near future. And I don't just mean a few, but millions," added Walt Minnick, a salmon recovery advocate from Boise. "We only have hopefully one more lawsuit to say as a matter of law that if we're going to recover the salmon that dams have to come down now." 

That seems to settle the question. Minnick is part of the crowd that considers economic questions "trivial"--usually a sign that someone is so rich that they no longer understand that real people have to have real jobs.

UPDATE 2: I mentioned that in 10-15 years, environmentalists will be opposing what they theoretically support today, to force the peasants back into living in caves. A reader points me to evidence that we don't need to wait that long:

So far the federal Bureau of Land Management has received applications for more than 130 projects in the desert Southwest that could occupy more than 1 million acres of land. A million acres is more than 1,500 square miles. On the other hand, the Mojave Desert measures over 50,000 square miles. According to one estimate, if all these projects were built they could supply enough electricity to fuel 20 million homes.
While some national environmental groups recognize that such trade-offs are necessary, some local groups are fiercely fighting the development of utility-scale solar power generation in the desert. The California-based Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy argues that the push for Big Solar promotes the "permanent destruction of hundreds of thousands of acres of pristine public lands designated for multi-purpose use that belong to the people." The Alliance also accuses the development of solar power in the desert of "wilderness killing, unacceptable groundwater depletion and the erosion of hard fought protections of public lands and private rights."
The San Diego-based Desert Protective Council also opposes the construction of a high voltage power line that San Diego Gas & Electric says it needs to transmit renewable power from a solar generation project planned for California's Imperial Valley. The power line would run through an existing right-of-way in a state park, but each of its 141 new towers would average 130 feet in height. "Our take has been from day one, 'Here we go again,'" said Terry Weiner, Imperial County conservation coordinator for the Desert Protective Council to the San Diego Union-Tribune. "Here is where we can do everything out in the desert that we don't want to do in our own backyards in the city,'"
The Desert Protective Council has allies in this fight. "The idea that we're going to sacrifice critical pieces of our environment to protect other pieces of our environment seems a little ironic," said Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the nonprofit California Parks Foundation in the Los Angeles Times. "That's an irony I cannot accept. We have to find a way to do both." In other words, no trade-offs. These groups want renewable power to be generated locally, preferably by placing solar photovoltaic arrays on roofs.
"It's not just businesses that have slowed things down, it's not just Republicans that have slowed things down, it's also Democrats and also environmental activists sometimes that slow things down," declared a frustrated Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) during a speech at Yale University this past spring. "They say that we want renewable energy but we don't want you to put it anywhere, we don't want you to use it." Schwarzenegger added, "I don't know whether this is ironic or absurd. But, I mean, if we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it."

Outrageous Example of Environmental Despoilation

Outrageous Example of Environmental Despoilation

Can you believe that anyone would be this unconcerned about the environmental despoilation that this kind of tourism causes? A round the world jet trip! Someone needs to contact environmentalists, so that they can embarrass these spoiled rich, probably Republican sorts!

Whoops! It is environmentalists promoting it! The World Wildlife Fund!

Around the World: A Private Jet Expedition

April 6 - 30, 2009

From $64,950
See the brochure (pdf)

Trip Overview

Join us on a remarkable 25-day journey by private jet. Touch down in some of the most astonishing places on the planet to see the top wildlife, including gorillas, orangutans, rhinos, lemurs and toucans. Explore natural and cultural treasures in remote areas of South America, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and Africa.
To reach these remote corners, travel on a specially outfitted private jet that carries 88 passengers. World-class experts – including WWF's director of species conservation – will provide a series of lectures en route, and a professional staff will be devoted to making your global adventure seamless and memorable.

Trip Itinerary

Monday, April 6, 2009: Orlando, Florida
Meet fellow travelers, lecturers and expedition leaders at a festive welcome dinner at our hotel. Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes, Orlando
Tuesday-Wednesday, April 7-8: Amazon Rain Forest, Brazil
The Amazon rain forest—the world's largest—contains thousands of endemic plants and animals, many still unclassified. Board your private jet for Manaus to enjoy a choice of Amazon explorations. Take a chartered riverboat to explore the "meeting of the waters," where the dark, clear Rio Negro and the pale, silty Rio Solimões join to form the mighty Rio Amazonas. Or take jungle walks amid the Parque Ecólogico's flooded forests, giant floating lilies, and other extraordinary plants. In the heart of the Amazon basin, rubber barons erected a magnificent opera house in Manaus using imported European bronze, tile, and crystal. We enjoy a concert at the stunning Teatro Amazonas. Tiwa Ecoresort, Manaus

And just to add to the fun--there's an ad about global warming running (at the moment) at the top of the page. Of course, who but a liberal could afford a trip like that?

Spin, Not Green

Spin, Not Green

Here's another item out of the August 14, 2008 Inside Higher Education where again, a commenter immediately noticed what I had noticed:

As campuses across the country look for ways to reduce their own carbon footprint and the environmental impact of their staff and students, many have tried to add services (like offering loaner bicycles as an alternative to the use of gas guzzling vehicles) to change behavior. Few if any, however, are actually saying No.

But Bowdoin College is, by banning cars for freshmen.

Starting in the fall of 2009, first-year students, who like second-year students are required to live on campus, will no longer be allowed to keep a car on the Maine college’s grounds.

While some institutions have historically restricted freshmen from having cars to keep them involved in campus life or to minimize campus parking woes, Bowdoin’s ban, first raised by a member of the president’s Climate Commitment Advisory Committee, was specifically designed to make Bowdoin greener, says Tim Foster, dean of student affairs. “The driver for it, no pun intended, was really an environmental one,” he says.

Eighty-three first-year students had cars on the campus last year, Foster says, but most of those cars weren’t used much during the year. Instead, the freshmen primarily used their cars as a way to get home, especially on breaks and at the end of the semester.

Foster says Bowdoin has a number of transportation services either in the works or already in place on the campus. The Bowdoin Communal Bike Club provides community bikes for those wanting to ride from place to place. The college recently entered into an agreement with Zipcar and two vehicles will be available to students starting this fall. The Bowdoin Shuttle, which starts September 4, the first day of classes, will be an “on demand” service that will give rides to students from campus into town. (The campus is within walking distance to most needed things in Brunswick.)

So what, exactly, does this ban accomplish, except inconvenience students who will now drive to school at the start of the semester, force them to find a spot off campus to park their car, and then drive it home again at the end of the semester? Like most environmentalism today, it's about appearing righteous, not being protective of the environment.

UPDATE: A reader points out that the net effect is more likely that the freshman's parents will deliver their child to college, and then retrieve him from college. What was one round trip to school will now be two round trips to school--and with somewhat worse mileage, because the vehicle will have at least two, perhaps three persons in it for some legs.

Lynn Moses and the Clean Water Act

Lynn Moses and the Clean Water Act

Bryan Fischer at Idaho Values Alliance is championing Lynn Moses, a Driggs, Idaho developer who has been sentenced to eighteen months in prison for dredging an intermittent stream as part of building a real estate project--and that this work was required by the Driggs city government. I have been trying to make sense of what happened here, because as a general rule, our government doesn't normally send people to prison for things like this.

The Associated Press account that appeared in the June 24, 2008 Casper Star-Tribune doesn't put Moses in a very good light:

BOISE, Idaho -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal by an eastern Idaho developer who ignored federal government warnings to stop bulldozing a streambed, clearing the way for him to serve an 18-month prison sentence.

In 2005, Charles Lynn Moses was found guilty in U.S. District Court of felony violations of the federal Clean Water Act. It was the first time in Idaho that a person was convicted of criminal charges under the 1972 law.

Prosecutors alleged that as early as 1982, Moses began a pattern of ignoring U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials who told him he needed a permit to reshape Teton Creek where it ran through his Aspens subdivision on the outskirts of Driggs in Teton County.

The Environmental Protection Agency accused Moses of polluting a spawning area for Yellowstone cutthroat trout and exacerbating flooding danger by turning Teton Creek into a huge drainage ditch.

"Mr. Moses chose knowingly to destroy a major natural resource, and did it with the full knowledge that it was illegal," said Jim Werntz, director of EPA office in Idaho. His conviction "helps people understand how important it is to protect streams and the wetlands associated with them."

In August, Moses lost an appeal of his conviction before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Judges didn't accept his arguments that Teton Creek wasn't under the jurisdiction of the United States.

Bryan Fischer's argument is that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals erred in insisting that intermittent streams are protected by the Clean Water Act, and therefore, the Army Corps of Engineers had no authority to prohibit Moses from doing this dredging:

Although the director of the EPA in Idaho, Jim Wernitz, asserts that Mr. Moses had damaged “wetlands” associated with the stream, there are no wetlands there! The very word requires that land be, well, wet, but the stream bed is bone dry for at least 10 months out of every year. Wernitz is apparently ignorant of the fact that the Government had previously stipulated that there are no wetlands surrounding the storm channel, nor any “aquatic environment” that could be damaged.
In the plurality opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2006 Rapanos case, Justice Scalia wrote that the Clean Water Act in fact gives the federal government jurisdiction only over “relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water,” and explicitly added, “[T]he ‘waters of the United States’ does not include channels through which water flows intermittently or ephemerally, or channels that periodically provide drainage for rainfall.”

The claim is that the Ninth Circuit ignored the Rapanos plurality's decision (four justices) and focused on Justice Kennedy's decision which concurred in the result, but not the reasoning--and which argued that intermittent streams are protected by the Clean Water Act.

So I spent some time digging around. The Ninth Circuit decision, USA v. Moses, does indeed give Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion precedence over the opinion of the four judges who formed the plurality. The plurality decision is very clear on this:

The Corps' expansive approach might be arguable if the CSA defined "navigable waters" as "water of the United States." But "the waters of the United States" is something else. The use of the definite article ("the") and the plural number ("waters") show plainly that §1362(7) does not refer to water in general. In this form, "the waters" refers more narrowly to water "[a]s found in streams and bodies forming geographical features such as oceans, rivers, [and] lakes," or "the flowing or moving masses, as of waves or floods, making up such streams or bodies." Webster's New International Dictionary 2882 (2d ed. 1954) (hereinafter Webster's Second).⁴ On this definition, "the waters of the United States" include only relatively permanent, standing or flowing bodies of water.⁵ The definition refers to water as found in "streams," "oceans," "rivers," "lakes," and "bodies" of water "forming geographical features." Ibid. All of these terms connote continuously present, fixed bodies of water, as opposed to ordinarily dry channels through which water occasionally or intermittently flows. Even the least substantial of the definition's terms, namely "streams," connotes a continuous flow of water in a permanent channel--especially when used in company with other terms such as "rivers," "lakes," and "oceans."⁶ None of these terms encompasses transitory puddles or ephemeral flows of water.

The plurality opinion points out that:

In deciding whether to grant or deny a permit, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) exercises the discretion of an enlightened despot, relying on such factors as "economics," "aesthetics," "recreation," and "in general, the needs and welfare of the people," 33 CFR §320.4(a) (2004).¹ The average applicant for an individual permit spends 788 days and $271,596 in completing the process, and the average applicant for a nationwide permit spends 313 days and $28,915--not counting costs of mitigation or design changes.

Doubtless the "despot" part of this is why Idaho liberals are doing everything but crying that there's no death penalty available for Mr. Moses.

So why didn't the U.S. Supreme Court hear Moses's appeal from the Ninth Circuit decision? This guy is going to prison over this, and it would certainly appear from reading the Rapanos decision that Moses was technically in the right: the creekbed was not within the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers, a position that they seem to have taken in 1980, but reversed in 1982, and certainly by 1997, when they told Moses to stop work.

When you are dealing with the federal government, remember that you are dealing with people with enormous power. They resent being ignored. They resent being told that you aren't going to obey them. They are rather like an Egyptian pharoah (which makes the defendant's name especially ironic). Under the circumstances, Moses should have responded to the first cease and desist order by stopping work, and filing suit asking the federal courts to straighten this question out--before it became a felony criminal charge.

I am not at all sympathetic to the Army Corps of Engineers and their approach. Read the Rapanos decision for a discussion of how they have continually increased their jurisdiction far beyond what the Clean Water Act of 1972 intended, and how the federal courts have kept trying to rein them in. But fighting with federal bureaucrats has to be done in a manner that does not offend their dignity and sense of self-importance. A suit asking the courts to clarify whether they have the authority to regulate an intermittent stream does not offend them as much as just ignoring their orders.

How Large Does A Majority Need To Be...

How Large Does A Majority Need To Be...

before Democrats in Congress start listening? The June 17, 2008 Rasmussen Reports tells us the results of a recent survey of Americans:

Most voters favor the resumption of offshore drilling in the United States and expect it to lower prices at the pump, even as John McCain has announced his support for states that want to explore for oil and gas off their coasts.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey—conducted before McCain announced his intentions on the issue--finds that 67% of voters believe that drilling should be allowed off the coasts of California, Florida and other states. Only 18% disagree and 15% are undecided. Conservative and moderate voters strongly support this approach, while liberals are more evenly divided (46% of liberals favor drilling, 37% oppose).

Of course, the minority gets its way on this, because the millionaires and billionaires don't want their nice views obstructed, and that's who the Democrats represent.

Nuclear Power in Elmore County

Nuclear Power in Elmore County

I received the following announcement, and thought my readers in Idaho would find it of interest:

Public informational meetings to be held for proposed power plant

Meetings June 10 in Mountain Home and June 16 in Glenns Ferry to answer questions

June 2, 2008
For more information, contact:
Martin Johncox, IEC spokesman, 208-658-9100
Don Gillispie, CEO, 208-939-9311

Idaho Energy Complex representatives will hold public meetings on Tuesday, June 10 and Monday, June 16 to inform the public about their plans to build a 1,600-megawatt nuclear reactor in Elmore county.

The June 10 meeting will be held from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Mountain Home Junior High School Gym, 1600 East 6th South in Mountain Home. The June 16 meeting will be held from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Glenns Ferry Opera House, 208 East Idaho Avenue in Glenns Ferry. Boise City Councilman Jim Tibbs will moderate the meetings.

Don Gillispie, president and CEO of the Idaho Energy Complex, noted Idaho Power’s recent decision to raise rates by an average of nearly 11 percent, in part because the company was forced to buy electricity out-of-state to meet demand last year.

“Idaho seriously needs in-state generating capacity to keep our costs down,” Gillispie said. “Our homes, farms, factories and businesses need it and Elmore and surrounding counties will especially benefit from the economic impact of the plant.”

An economic study calculated the IEC would grow employment in Elmore and Owyhee counties by 25 percent and produce total annual labor income benefits in Owyhee and Elmore counties of $52.3 million during operation. Building one reactor would contribute $2.6 billion to the State’s economy, boosting it by nearly 6 percent, while its operation will generate $74 million in state tax revenues a year.

The Idaho Energy Complex (www.idahoenergycomplex.com) will be a 1,600-megawatt; $4.5-billion advanced nuclear reactor with low cooling water requirements located about 65 miles southeast of Boise, in Elmore County. The plant will also include a biofuels component, using excess reactor heat to produce fuels from local ag waste and crops. Company officials plan to submit a Combined Operating License Application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009. The approval process is expected to take three years and cost $80 million. Construction could begin as soon as 2012 and finish with power generation beginning in late 2016.

Remember that the 1% of the population of Elmore County that are raving leftist environmentalists will show up and start talking about three eyed fish and other evidence that their knowledge of nuclear power comes from 1950s science fiction movies and watching The Simpsons.

I've always thought that nuclear power could be done right. The environmentalists whine about carbon dioxide; they won't allow drilling for oil in ANWR; they want the existing hydropower dams breached; they won't allow drilling for oil off the coasts of California or Florida (although the Chinese are apparently slant drilling from international waters off Florida); this June 2, 2008 Associated Press story reports that the first new refinery in decades has been approved in South Dakota. Nuclear power is one of the few options left.

Italy Going Nuclear

Italy Going Nuclear

Italy has reversed a two decade old policy, and is again interested in nuclear power. From the May 25, 2008 Scotsman:

ITALY, which last week decided to embrace nuclear power two decades after a public referendum banned nuclear power and deactivated all its reactors, could be just the first of several European countries to reverse its stance on nuclear power, a leading industry group has said.

Ian Hore-Lacey, spokesman for the London-based World Nuclear Association, said: "Italy has had the most dramatic, the most public turnaround, but the sentiments against nuclear are reversing very quickly all across Europe."

When asked which nations were likely to join Britain and France as major producers of nuclear power, he replied: "Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Germany and more."

The article goes on to point out that much of the anti-nuclear power movement of Europe was in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster--where a reactor of a type limited to the Soviet Union and its satellites failed--and when oil prices were much lower:

The continent turned its back on nuclear power in the 1980s in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, but political and economic conditions are markedly different now. Oil was under $50 a barrel then, global warming was a fringe science and climate change had not been linked to manmade emissions.

Although economic considerations and global warming are driving the debate, energy security is also an issue never far from the surface. Few European countries have their own energy reserves and are completely reliant on imports. As well as escalating prices for oil and gas, plus the political upheaval in the Middle East, Europe watched in horror in 2006 as Russia's President Vladimir Putin cut off the natural gas supply to Ukraine in a price dispute, leaving it in darkness.

Not surprisingly, the environmentalists are terribly upset about the prospect of nuclear power plants.

Switzerland Loses It

Switzerland Loses It

At first glance, it reads like a really, really deadpan parody of animal rights. But it seems to be deadly serious. From the Swiss government's Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH), The dignity of living beings with regard to plants: Moral consideration of plants for their own sake:

The Federal Constitution has three forms of protection for plants: the protection of biodiversity, species protection, and the duty to take the dignity of living beings into consideration when handling plants.

Huh? The dignity of animals? No, they mean the dignity of plants.

It became clear, however, that for plants – unlike animals – it was almost impossible to refer to moral intuition. There is no social consensus on how to deal with plants. Even within the ECNH, the intuitions relating to the extent and justification of moral responsibilities towards plants were highly heterogeneous. Some members were of the opinion that plants are not part of the moral community, because they do not satisfy the conditions for belonging to this community. Others argued that plants should not belong to it, because otherwise human life would be morally over-regulated. A further group felt that there were particular situations in which people should refrain from something for the sake of a plant, unless there are sufficient grounds to the contrary. This opinion was justified either by arguing that plants strive after something, which should not be blocked without good reason, or that recent findings in natural science, such as the many commonalities between plants, animals and humans at molecular and cellular level, remove the reasons for excluding plants in principle from the moral community. The only criterion on which all the members could agree, despite their very differing intuitions, was that we should not harm or destroy plants arbitrarily.

G. K. Chesterton is often credited (perhaps incorrectly) with the saying, "When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing. They believe in anything." The proof is visible above. What next? Should we be concerned about mistreatment of rocks? Rocks might "strive after something" also.

I found this astonishing indication of where Europe is heading over at Volokh Conspiracy, where the winning comment has to be:

Can ‘Mineral Rights’ be far behind? I don’t know about moral equivalence, but this panel has clearly demonstrated that they are intellectually inferior to a box of rocks.

UPDATE: Oh yeah: here's the music video by the Arrogant Worms: "Carrot Juice is Murder."

Mercury, CFLs, Global Warming, Migraines, & Breast Cancer

Mercury, CFLs, Global Warming, Migraines, & Breast Cancer

What else can I drag into this seemingly implausible combination? I mentioned a couple of days ago in an posting about the connection between overillumination and breast cancer that some experts are concerned because compact fluorescent light bulbs are likely to actually aggravate the breast cancer issue relative to incandescents.

One of my readers told me that he had to remove the compact fluorescent bulbs from his home because they gave his wife migraine headaches--and when I searched scholar.google.com for articles, I was surprised to find quite a bit of discussion of how the non-visible flicker associated with fluorescent bulbs seems to be related to migraine headaches.

Of course, compact fluorescents have mercury in them--and this article over at FoxNews points out that many of the environmentalists who are now pushing CFLs, just a few years ago, were warning how dangerous they were because of mercury--and now that the environmentalists have persuaded Congress and President Bush to sign a mandatory CFL law (phasing out incandescent bulbs by 2012)--they are asking the lawyers to start suing:

But the partnership is about to implode. As predictable as Lucy pulling away the football from a determinedly charging Charlie Brown, the environmentalists are preparing to turn the tables on the CFL businesses and consumers.

The signal came in a Feb. 17 New York Times editorial entitled "That Newfangled Light Bulb."

The editorial read, in part, "Across the world, consumers are being urged to … switch to [CFLs]. ... Now the question is how to dispose of [CFLs] once they break or quit working … each [CFL] has a tiny bit of a dangerous toxin … almost 300 million CFLs were sold in the U.S. last year. That is already a lot of mercury to throw in the trash and the amounts will grow ever larger in coming years … the dangers are real and growing."

The Times piece continued, "Businesses and government recyclers need to start working on more efficient ways to deal with that added mercury. Ellen Silbergeld, a professor of environmental health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, is raising the cry about the moment when millions of these light bulbs start landing in landfills or incinerators all at once. The pig in the waste pipeline, she calls it."

Aside from the editorial’s implicit targeting instructions for eco-agitators and trial lawyers, I could only chuckle at the editorial’s nod to, and partial disclosure about, Silbergeld. For many years, she was a "senior scientist" with Environmental Defense who, before moving on to left-wing academia, excelled at fomenting dubious scares about "toxic" substances in the environment.

During Silbergeld’s days with Environmental Defense in the 1990s, the group’s pitch to the media was "when fluorescent bulbs are crushed, traces of mercury vaporize and enter the atmosphere. If the lamps are buried, the toxic element seeps into the soil."

Until the Times editorial, the activists and the media had been holding back their customary attacks against mercury-containing fluorescent light bulbs.

In lamenting the bulbs, Clean Water Action told the media in 1997, for example, that the mercury level in tuna is so high that a 35-pound child eating more than 2 ounces a week would exceed the EPA’s "safe" level.

But while CFL-mandating legislation was pending in Congress, the enviros did a temporary flip-flop: Environmental Defense began pooh-poohing mercury concerns stating, "In short, the exposure from breaking a CFL is in about the same range as the exposure from eating a can or two of tuna fish."

Two ounces of tuna used to be a horror, but in the name of CFLs, two cans became no problem.

Of course, the environmentalist about-face is because they decided that anthropogenic global warming (which may or may not be happening, and is likely not anthropogenic) is more important than mercury poisoning (which is very real).

One of these days, the environmentalist/ambulance chaser scam is going to become visible to the average American. I just hope that they haven't completely bankrupted the country paying for CFLs, the reduced productivity because of migraine headaches, treating hundreds of thousands of extra cases of breast cancer and caused massive mercury poisoning before that point is reached.

Big Government As Environmental Damager

I am not quite as enthusiastic about the "free markets will solve all environmental problems" idea as I once was, but there certainly plenty of reminders that the government is quite effective at impairing the environment, simply because when it does something stupid, everyone is required to participate in the idiocy.

My eldest sister called me this morning to wish me Happy Birthday (I'm 51 today), and she told me about a couple of truly stupid ordinances that Bandon, Oregon has. It seems that some of the local environmentalists wanted to set up rain barrels to catch water coming down from the roof gutters. These barrels are sealed up so that there's no way for mosquitoes to breed in them, and they have a valve at the bottom that lets you hook up a hose.

The idea is that you accumulate the water during the winter months, when it rains a lot, and then in summer, when water is in scarce supply, you use it for your lawn or garden. This water is free--unlike city water. I rather doubt that most people are going to install rain barrels, and even those that do are unlikely to make a major difference in their water consumption--but if it makes the environmentalists feel a little less guilty, what's the problem?

My sister tells me that Bandon has a city ordinance that requires water coming from the roof gutters to go into the sewer system. (Bandon, like a lot of small towns, still has a combination sewer and storm drain system.) Apparently this was originally because when it rains hard there, it is very easy for water to accumulate on the property of others. If you have an older house without roof gutters, you don't have to install gutters and hook up to the sewer system--but this idea of hooking up rain barrels to the roof gutters is unlawful.

I suppose if there's really a legitimate public purpose to requiring the gutters not to spill water onto the ground, they could rewrite the ordinance to allow people to use rain barrels, or some other method storing rainwater for later use. But it seems hard to believe that the public safety reasons explain this. Apparently a big chunk of the city's revenue comes from utilities--including the providing of water! (Be glad that they don't sell sunshine--they might require your house to be covered by an opaque covering.)

Not only is this stupidity a problem for the rain barrel enthusiasts, but it also strikes me that it increases demand on the sewage treatment plant as well. I don't know how much extra water goes through the treatment plant during heavy rainstorms, but I know that was one of the reasons that Los Angeles created a separate storm drain system some years back--because during heavy storms, the sewage treatment system would be overwhelmed, and they would often be forced to dump raw or partially treated sewage into the Pacific because of this.

I keep saying to myself, "Forget about ideological solutions--can we just have governments employ some common sense?" But alas, I don't think common sense is in very strong supply.

A Serious Suggestion For How To Save Mother Earth

Mounting refrigerators in houses on big lazy susans so that you could rotate the fridge outside at night and during the winter months. Where I live, the outside temperature from December 1 to about March 15 varies from 20 degrees to about 40 degrees (unlike the inside of the house, where it is usually 65 to 70 degrees). This substantially reduces the amount of work that the compressor has to do to keep the food at either icebox or main refrigerator temperatures.

Perhaps the complexity of providing an adequate seal to keep outside air from entering the house makes this impractical, but whatever money the government spent on this absurd study could have been better spent figuring out how to make this work.