Congress' Folly...

I've been perusing the recently passed House Bill HR 111 1476 IH, aka "'American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009'', which is indeed 1201 pages long.

No one in the House of Representatives has read the bill.

Whilst perusing, I came across this on Page 120, Section 127:

the status of oil as a strategic commodity, which derives from its domination of the transportation sector, presents a clear and present danger to the United States

That stopped me right there.

That oil is a strategic commodity presents a clear and present danger to the United States?

Ah: the alcohol lobby at work, right on the page 122:

the United States has an urgent national security interest to develop alcohol fuels technology, production, and distribution systems as rapidly as possible

An urgent national security interest? This is madness. Plain and simple.


Further down the road: Peak Demand Reduction Programs using a "Smart Grid", which I read as basically saying that rather than providing energy for peak demand use, the grid will react to peak demands by ... reducing peak demand. Sorry, I really did try to figure that one out, but all that is talked about is reducing peak demand. Not how, except by inference by cutting power to users.

In other words, what are now called brownouts.

Now down on pages 192-193, we see the end of incandescent light bulbs by 2012 for bulbs greater than 70 Watts, and all by 2014. Replacement? Not a word.

Florescent? Out in between 18 and 36 months.

I can't even begin to figure out the appliance regulations, but it looks like automobile manufacturers get no more than three years to change designs for new cars based on whatever regulations the government gives them: in other words, model changes will increasingly be determined by changes in government regulations, as those three years is pretty much the absolute minimum time needed to make a new model and get it into production. Given the very long lead times for engines and the like, this is going to gut what is left of the automobile industry, reducing it to executors of government regulations regarding what they are allowed to sell. Watch out for further cuts of this time period to force the industry to become proactive in second-guessing what environmental folly will be put through next...

Reading further, manufacturers of machinery using electrical motors will have to design them so that the motors can be retrofitted or replaced when the regulators deem this necessary. While modular design is all fine and good, deciding what that design will be is going to put a damper of design work.

I'm only up to page 500...

On page 506: energy efficiency target goal is 2.5% per year, measured as energy used per unit of GDP, to be kept up through 2030, starting in 2012.

On page 521, the real fun starts: Titel III, "Reducing Global Warming Pollution"

A modest proposal: stop politicians from talking, especially about global warming.

Goal: in 2050, the US economy may not exceed greenhouse gas emissions of the baseline economy (2005) by more than 17%.

17%?

How?

Emission allowances.

Here the IPCC report, with all of its errors, omissions and hairy little problems,  has become the Holy Bible.

What emissions are covered?

Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexaflouride, hydrocarbons from industry, perfluorocarbons, nitrogen triflouride, and any other gas so designated. Each of these gases will be indexed against carbon dioxide in terms of its greenhouse effect. But how?

By the effect that this gas will have over the next 100 years.

In other words, by forecast. Oh, this one is gonna be fun.

Emissions allowances start in 2012 with 4627 million tons, climbs to 5482 in 2016 (with an odd jump from 5003 in 2015) and then declines to 1035 in 2050.

In other words, there is a built-in reduction of ... 2.941% from the peak in 2016 to 2050, which is greater than the mandated energy efficiency of 2.5% for the same time period.

But actually, this is worse: this means that the pool of available allowances for emissions allowances will decline, on average, by around 3% per year, meaning that, ceteris paribus, if an emissions allowance for 1 ton was priced at 1000 USD in 2016, it will cost ... 2697.20 USD in 2050.

Ouch. Built-in inflation, did anyone ask someone at the Fed about this?

As of 2012, emissions in excess of the emissions allowances are forbidden. Not fined, not compensated for, but forbidden. As in do this, you go to jail.

There is something called the Strategic Reserves Auction, the purpose of which I don't understand at all, other than this: it starts out with a minimum price of $28, but this minimum increases by 5% plus the CPI per year through 2015; thereafter, it increases at 60% above the rolling three year average of the daily prices for emissions allowances. Again: built-in inflation, did anyone ask someone at the Fed about this? Sixty percent per year post 2015??? And in constant dollars, not current dollars?

First auction of emission allowances is Mar 31 2012, quarterly auctions, single-round, sealed-bid, uniform price format. Get in line now.



At around page 700, my ability to read, let alone comprehend, was severely limited.

But at least I did more than any Representative did. At least I tried to read Congress' Folly...folly because it sets goals that cannot be reached, foresees massive reductions in civilization (after all, civilization is energy in our modern societies), and all because the IPCC says the sky is falling.

Truly Congress' Folly.