July 2011

Little Green Monsters, part 2

Page 1
Green Notes
Page 8
Little Green Monsters
Part 2: Louisiana Green Groups Promote Big Green Easy
Summary: John Mitchell, President Nixons
attorney general, once said Watch What
We Do, Not What We Say. Mitchells Ma-
chiavellian advice characterizes Obama
administration ofcials who say they want
to increase the supply of domestic energy but
then take actions to prevent it. Meanwhile,
the environmental movement is redirecting
its energies back to the states. With a Repub-
lican House of Representatives and Senate
rejection of cap-and-trade legislation last
year, little known grassroots green groups
are stepping up their efforts to advance their
agenda. But they are running up against en-
ergized Tea Party activists and Republican
state lawmakers.
D
on Briggs, president of
the Louisiana Oil and Gas
Association (LOGA), says he
no longer has any interest in talking to
Obama Administration ofcials about what
Americas domestic oil and gas industry
needs.
They talk about wanting to help, but its
like watching a magician who is doing
one thing with his hands but the action is
really somewhere else, he told a gathering
of industry ofcials in New Orleans a few
days after the one-year anniversary of the
BP oil spill disaster. Briggs was particularly
critical of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar
and Michael Bromwich, director of the
newly created Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management, Regulation and Enforcement
(BOEMRE), the successor agency to the
disgraced Minerals Management Service.
Both ofcials say they want increased
energy production in the Gulf Coast.
Briggs thinks their actions do not square
with their words: Been there, done
that. They tell you one thing and they do
another. We give them too much attention
and way too much credit because they do
not want us to go back to work.
Louisiana is the Aorta of America,
Briggs said. When we shut down our
By Kevin Mooney
reneries this means 60 to 70 percent of
the fuel that runs this country gets shut
down.
Briggs believes only a change in
administration can bring about the right
policies to revive the Gulf Coast economy.
He says there used to be 61 rigs in the
Gulf before the BP spill, but now there are
GREEN WATCH BANNER TO BE
INSERTED HERE
Louisiana Sen. David Vitter (left) has challenged Interior Sec. Ken Salazar (right) on Gulf drilling
permits
Green Watch July 2011 Page 2
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only 26. Where ve or six new deep-water
permit applications were being led every
month, there is now only one, according
to LOGA. Shallow water permits are also
down from about seven to under ve. You
have to understand one thing, Briggs
noted. If they [Obama administration
ofcials] wanted us to drill in the Gulf of
Mexico, we would be drilling.
Briggs is seconded by Sen. David Vitter
(R-La.) who called out top Obama
administration ofcials for what he says
are duplicitous and misleading statements
on the number of offshore drilling permits
under review. In a letter to Salazar
and Bromwich, Sen. Vitter details the
discrepancies:
Over the last several weeks and months,
you have indicated publicly, before
Congress, and privately to members,
including myself, that there are only
a handful of permits awaiting agency
actionIt is a mathematical impossibility
for your representations to be accurate,
as well as the lings of the Department of
Justice to be accurate. It is not possible
for there to be too few permits awaiting
review, and simultaneously too many
permits being reviewed to make issuing a
particular handful problematic.
In March, the Obama administration led
a motion to halt two federal court orders
directing BOEMRE ofcials to issue at
least seven drilling permits. In its ling
opposing the speed-up, the DOJ warned that
the court orders could force a potentially
harmful re-prioritization in authorizing
permits because there are 270 shallow
water permit applications pending and 52
deepwater permit applications pending.
This contradicts Secretary Salazars recent
Senate testimony before the Energy and
Natural Resources Committee. Salazar
said the Interior Department had received
only 47 shallow water permit applications
over the past nine months and only seven
deepwater permit applications were
pending. Michael Bromwich personally
told Vitter that deepwater permits would
be limited because only a handful
of completed applications have been
received.
Alliance for Affordable Energy
Critics say the Obama administration is
engaged in sleight-of-hand that is harming
the production of domestic energy in
the Gulf, and that local and state-based
Gulf Coast environmental groups are
abetting the administrations deception.
While green groups in Louisiana publicly
sympathize with those hurt by the collapse
of the Gulf Coasts energy-based economy,
they privately continue to push an anti-
energy agenda that will make oil and
gas production more costly. These well-
funded and politically potent Little Green
Monsters work tenaciously to make
energy less affordable and less accessible.
One in particular, the New Orleans-
based Alliance for Affordable Energy,
founded in 1985, is very adept at diverting
public attention away from the costs of
government regulation that have increased
unemployment and raised energy prices
in the Gulf Coast region. The Alliances
benign-sounding marketing campaigns
belie pernicious policy motives that work
against the same low-income constituents
the group claims to champion. But the
motivations are not difcult to discern. The
Alliance pushes the most expensive power
sources onto those who can least afford it,
while opposing the cheapest, because the
group has its marching orders.
The Alliances rst executive director was a
political activist named Gary Groesch who
started up the organization as part of an
unsuccessful protest against the Waterford
3 nuclear power plant located near New
Orleans, which is still operating. Groesch
passed away in 2002, but his projects now
have added momentum.
A key turning point came in 1992, when
the Surdna Foundation called on the
environmental movement to change its
focus more in the direction of reshaping
public policy. Ron Arnold, executive
director of the Center for the Defense of
Free Enterprise, knows the full story.
During a members-only retreat of the
Environmental Grant Makers Association,
a coalition of almost 200 donor foundations,
the Surdna member said too much money
was being wasted on green groups that did
not yield results. And by results he meant
laws, regulations and election outcomes.
We have to get prescriptive, he said. By
this he meant, projects are created by the
foundations, and the recipients are then
held accountable for a return on those
investments. The Alliance took this to heart
and began to grow in inuence.
In 1997, the Louisiana Legislature
appointed Groesch to a commission
July 2011 Green Watch Page 3
studying the effects of global climate
change on the state, which then initiated the
Alliances campaign to replace low-cost
fossil energy -- oil, natural gas and coal --
with high-cost (and unreliable) wind and
solar power.
The grant records of the Blue Moon Fund
are particularly telling. Between 1999 and
2000, it gave the Alliance $50,000 to To
focus attention on the need for action to
address climate disruption, including its
impacts on sea level along the Louisiana
coast.
In 2000, the Energy Foundation, which
was founded as a consortium of seven big
foundations, including the Pew Charitable
Trusts and its Sun Oil fortune, began
directing grants to the Alliance:
This includes $25,000 in 2000, To support
an advocacy effort to rapidly advance
low-income energy efciency efforts in
Louisiana.
The Energy Foundation pumped $50,000
more into the energy efciency campaign,
in an effort to get government and utilities
(not the foundation) to pay for the home
improvements.
When Hurricane Katrina devastated
New Orleans in 2005, the Big Green
grants strangely vanished, Arnold said.
Actually xing things didnt interest them.
But they reappeared in 2008, when the
Surdna Foundation, guring the Alliance
for Affordable Energy was now powerful
enough, sent $100,000 for an undisclosed
purpose. But we can guess.
He explained: Surdnas companion in arms,
the Energy Foundation, simultaneously
sent $97,000 along with instructions To
oppose new conventional coal-red power
plants in Louisiana.
It is difcult to overstate how well-
connected The Alliance is with some of
the most inuential environmental actors at
the national level and with key government
agencies: The following organizations are
identied as nancial backers: ARC of
Greater New Orleans, Azby Fund, Booth-
Bricker Fund, Civil Sheriffs Reserve
Deputies Association Corps Network, Doerr
Furniture, Ella West Freeman Foundation,
Energy Foundation, Fertel Foundation,
Greater New Orleans Foundation, Gulf
Coast Fund, Rockefeller Philanthropy
Advisors, Louisiana Association of Non-
prot Organizations (LANO), Louisiana
Department of Labor, Lowenburg Family
Foundation, Mary Freeman Wisdom
Foundation, Mercy Corps New Orleans
Neighborhood Development Collaborative,
Oreck Vacuum Cleaners, Prentice
Foundation, RosaMary Foundation, Sharp
Solar, Sierra Club, Sun Power, Surdna
Foundation, The Occasional Wife, Train-
2-Rebuild, Union of Concerned Scientists,
US Department of Energy.
The Surdna Foundation donated $100,000
in 2008, The Mary Freeman Wisdom
Foundation donated $5,000 in 2009, The
Prentice Foundation donated $5,000 in
2009, and the Rosemary Foundation
donated $5,000 in 2009.
The Alliance also has a major hand in
operating The Louisiana Green Groups,
launched by a U.S. Department of Labor
National Emergency Grant in May 2008.
It is set up to benet unemployed or low
income youth age 17 to 24. Participants
complete environmental restoration
projects and learn the language of green
propaganda.
Green Homes But No Jobs
The plan now is for hundreds of green
homes to be built in the New Orleans
neighborhoods that received the worst of
the damage from Hurricane Katrina.
The destruction caused by Katrina
necessitated almost everyone to rethink
how to rebuild their home, Forest Bradley-
Wright, a member of the Alliance has said.
Make it Right, the initiative started by
Hollywood actor Brad Pitt aims to build
150 eco-friendly homes in the lower 9th
ward of New Orleans.
The provisos, restrictions and mandates
that are typically attached to green building
efforts are worth considering in a state that
has taken a beating from the economic
recession, Arnold observed.
Although the national unemployment
rate dropped in the past year, Louisianas
employment picture has deteriorated.
In New Orleans, the impact has been
dramatic, as the unemployment rate has
increased from 6.6% to 7.9% in the past
year. The situation is even worse in Baton
Rouge, which has experienced the largest
12-month unemployment rate increase in
the country, from 6.6% to 8.2%. Statewide,
the unemployment rate has jumped
from 7.2% to 8.1% in the past year. The
correlation between the administrations
moratorium and the states bleak economic
climate is inescapable.
Production in the Gulf of Mexico is
projected to fall by 130,000 barrels per
day in 2011 and by an additional 190,000
in 2012, according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration (EIA) thanks
to the moratorium, which was imposed
just over one year ago. EIA also expects
Green Watch July 2011 Page 4
the retail price of regular-grade gasoline
to average $3.56/gallon in 2011, 77 cents/
gallon higher than 2010 and about 40
cents higher than previous projections.
Moreover, gasoline is expected to average
$3.70 in the peak summer driving months.
The Alliance has promoted an alternative
energy campaign in New Orleans and
throughout Louisiana, citing the dangers
of global warming. Despite the production
cutbacks since the BP oil spill last year,
which have cost jobs and crippled the
areas economy, the Alliance continues to
sell the pipe dreams of conservation and
renewable energy. Last year it worked with
New Orleans Councilwoman Susan Guidry
on an Energy Smart program that offers
rebates and other nancial inducements to
city residents and business owners if they
will invest in high efciency products
to lower their greenhouse gas emissions.
Guidrys initiative was approved by the
city council.
Guidry sits on the Utility Commission,
which oversees the city councils regulatory
authority over two utilities, Entergy
Louisiana and Entergy New Orleans. At
the direction of the council, Entergy New
Orleans has committed $3.1 million to the
Energy Smart project.
The Louisiana Association of Business
and Industry (LABI) doubts the economic
benets of high efciency products such as
compact uorescent lighting, solar water
heaters and solar screens. Says LABI vice
president Ginger Sawyer: I dont see the
residential consumers beneting from
these arrangements. This is particularly
true for lower-income people. Even if
they are supposedly going to get a payout
sometime down the road, you have to keep
in mind that similar programs have gone
by the wayside and are now subsidized
through federal grants. They are just not
economically viable.
The Obama Campaign for Renewable
Energy: Restrict Gulf Drilling
Councilwoman Guidry and the Alliance
for Affordable Energy are very much
partners, Guidry chief of staff Deborah
Langhoff says. Now that the program
has been passed she is working with the
Alliance to take the next step. The next
step appears to be a renewable portfolio
standard.
In 2010, the Louisiana Public Service
Commission (LPSC) approved a statewide
pilot program to test the feasibility of
renewable energy. Between now and 2014,
the program seeks to create up to 350
megawatts of long-term renewable power
within the next three years, which is
enough to supply 2 percent of the states
energy needs. The idea is to spur research
and development of renewable energy
technologies, such as biomass, geothermal,
hydro, solar or wind.
In contrast to the Alliance and other Gulf
Coast environmental activists, the LPSC
takes a pragmatic approach to the issue
of renewable energy. The Commission
may ultimately decide that a long term
[renewables program] is not appropriate
for the State of Louisiana, says Melanie
Verzwyvelt, an LPSC staff attorney. She
notes that commission members can deny
certication to any particular renewables
project if it proves too costly, even before
the pilot period expires in 2014.
But this cautious approach assumes
that facts and data take precedence over
politics. In fact, so-called renewables
are almost always the product of political
pressure because they are not economically
competitive in a free market. The only way
that renewable energy sources can become
competitive in price with gasoline and
natural gas is if the federal government
deliberately restricts supply by not granting
the permit applications that the petroleum
industry needs to begin producing more
energy. And thats what the oil associations
John Briggs and Senator Vitter think the
Obama administration is up to.
The Jig Is Up
The emphasis on renewables is part of a
new green campaign thats been engineered
by the Obama White House. President
Obama realizes that the American public
rejects the idea that there is overwhelming
scientic evidence for global warming. Al
Gore got an Oscar in 2006 and the Nobel
Prize in 2007 for warning that the planet
will be destroyed if the U.S. and other
developed nations continue to use energy
that emits greenhouse gases. But the
American public isnt buying Gores gloom
and doom scenario thanks in no small part
to some recent developments.
For starters, there is the Climate-Gate
scandal, the discovery of emails from the
University East Anglias Climate Research
Unit in Great Britain suggesting that
scientic data on climate change had been
manipulated. The failure of an international
climate change conference in Copenhagen
and the U.S. Senates unwillingness to
support climate change legislation that had
passed the Democrat-controlled House
in 2009 also signaled that the alarmist
campaign has failed.
Opinion polls show there is now substantial
public doubt that human activity causes
climate change or that it is a very serious
problem. And Team Obama recognizes that
it must adapt to this new political reality.
July 2011 Green Watch Page 5
In his 2010 State of the Union speech,
President Obama asked Congress to
mandate that 80 percent of the U.S.
electricity come from clean energy by
2035. He told the American people that
they should accept alternative energy
sourceseven if they are not convinced
that man-made global warming is a real
problem.
I know that there are those who disagree
with the overwhelming scientic evidence
on climate change, he said. But heres
the thingeven if you doubt the evidence,
providing incentives for energy-efciency
and clean energy are the right thing to do
for our futurebecause the nation that
leads the clean energy economy will be
the nation that leads the global economy.
And America must be that nation.
Some national environmental groups
have adapted their marketing campaigns
to reect updated research that debunks
alarmist claims. There is for example, the
Pew Center on Global Climate Change
(not global warming). The Union of
Concerned Scientists (UCS) has also
adopted the same language.
These groups have largely abandoned the
term global warming and the imagery
of rising sea levels and expanding deserts.
Instead they use the vague phrase climate
change and, like President Obama,
moralize that it is the right thing to do.
Did Global Warming Cause Hurricane
Katrina?
But the Alliance for Affordable Energy
prefers the old rhetoric. Every generation
faces its historical challenge and is dened
by how it responds. For all of humanity
alive today that challenge is the crisis
we call Global Warming, declares the
Alliance on its website. Thousands of
studies have made it clear that Global
Warming is not only real, but ultimately
is the result of human activity through
greenhouse gas emissions which come
from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil
and natural gas. Most of the greenhouse
gas pollution is produced by generating
electricity or by vehicles.
Because it is based in New Orleans the
Alliance works tenaciously to exploit
Hurricane Katrina for political gain.We
are already experiencing some serious
affects of Global Warming, including
stronger hurricanes, the organization
claims. The work of hurricane expert
Dr. Kerry Emanuel indicates that Global
Warming provided the extra margin of
energy that gave Hurricane Katrina enough
power to break the levees in New Orleans.
Really?
Just last year, a team of researchers with
the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO) published a peer-reviewed paper
for Nature Geosciences that concluded
there is no hard evidence to link tropical
cyclones with anthropogenic (i.e. human-
based) activity. On his blog, Roger Pielke,
a University of Colorado professor of
environmental studies, commented:
The latest WMO statement should
indicate denitively (and once again) that
it is scientically untenable to associate
trends (i.e., in the past) in hurricane activity
or damage to anthropogenic causes.
The reports key ndings cut to the heart
of alarmist arguements that the Alliance
continues to peddle:
There is no conclusive evidence that
any observed changes in tropical cyclone
genesis, tracks, duration and surge
ooding exceed the variability expected
from natural causes, the report says. We
cannot at this time conclusively identify
anthropogenic signals in past tropical
cyclone data.
Never let the facts get in the way of a good
scare campaign. Thus far, the Alliance has
not yielded any ground in its initiatives
against global warming. In fact, as the
science that underpins their arguments
unravels, groups like the Alliance sound
more and more frantic. But theres no
denying that its policy preferences are still
gaining traction.

Louisiana Tea-Party Set to Challenge
Little Green Monsters
Robin Edwards, a co-founder of the
Louisiana Tea Party Federation and
president of the Baton Rouge Tea Party, has
watched in frustration as environmentalists
in the Gulf Coast have held their conferences
and organized their coalitions. She thinks
they only help increase energy prices and
impose costly restrictions on existing job-
creating industries. But Edwards sees an
opening for free market activists to go on
the offensive.
Everyone is thinking about budgets and
expenses here in Louisiana, she said.
People are losing patience with green
schemes that have more to do with a
political agenda than they do with genuine
environmental concerns. I think we can
make ourselves heard here and call attention
the economic fallout average Louisiana
residents will experience if these mandates
and restrictions become locked in.
The Louisiana Tea Party will have more
exibility and dexterity to confront
and expose the costs associated with
Green Watch July 2011 Page 6
environmentalism over the coming months,
she added. Up until now the Alliance has
been permitted to cajole and pressure
government ofcials without an organized
push back from free market groups.
Edwards is determined to help change the
equation.
A Nationwide Grassroots Backlash
Louisianas Edwards has plenty of
company across the country as Tea Party
activists push back against well-funded
green pressure groups. Since the 2010
elections, Republican governors and new
majorities of Republican state lawmakers
have aligned with the Tea Party. They are
working in coalition with the business
community to unwind burdensome
environmental regulations that undermine
property rights and stie entrepreneurship.
When George W. Bush was president,
environmental activists tried to circumvent
federal policymakers by promoting
regional global warming initiatives that
would link adjoining states to one another
in projects to curtail carbon emissions. But
the Republican takeover of statehouses in
2010 is reversing this trend. For instance,
Susana Martinez, the Republican governor
of New Mexico, has moved aggressively
to roll back environmental regulations
since taking ofce in January. In 2007 the
governors of California, Arizona, New
Mexico, Oregon and Washington jointly
signed an agreement creating a Western
Climate Change Initiative (WCCI)
committed to tracking and reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. Martinez
opposes her states participation in the
WCCI.
Similar regional initiatives exist in the
Northeast and Midwest. In May New
Jersey governor Chris Christie withdrew
his state from the Regional Greenhouse
Gas Initiative (RGGI), which covers New
England and the Mid-Atlantic states. The
legislature in New Hampshire is also
trying to modify that states participation
in RGGI.
Instead of xating on Washington D.C.
politics, key players in the Tea Party
network are focusing on the states and
directing their energies to combat state-
level green pressure groups. Ned Ryun,
executive director of American Majority,
a grassroots organization headquartered
in Virginia, urges the Tea Party take full
advantage of its decentralized character
and local roots.
* In Florida, Republican Governor Rick
Scott has moved to cut staff members at the
Department of Community Affairs, which
oversees regulation for land use. Scott also
favors cutbacks in land use initiatives.
* Republicans took control of the North
Carolina legislature for the rst time in 140
years. They are eyeing signicant budget
cuts to the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources.
As Maine Goes
In Maine Tea Party-backed Republican
governor Paul LePage is rolling back
environmental regulations with support
from new Republican majorities in both
houses of the state legislature. He faces
a green iron triangle that is deeply
entrenched, lavishly funded and closely
aligned with state and federal government
agencies. Interviewed by this reporter,
Arnold, the executive director of the Center
for the Defense of Free Enterprise, had this
to say:
The Big Green disaster thats destroying
Maine has been gnawing away at every
state for years. The inuence and reach of
green pressure groups has gone unchecked
and unchallenged far too long, crushing
private citizens and business owners
nationwide. The Iron Triangle, as I describe
it in Maine, shows rank collusion between
the Maine Audubon Society and the DEP
[Dept. of Environmental Protection],
jointly concocting false science to justify
catastrophic regulations.
Gov.-elect Page and incoming lawmakers
need to show some guts and throttle
these cabals so they can never hurt
anyone again. There is no reason to let
ctitious ecological concerns continue
to overwhelm the states economy. Its
time to strip Maine of its anti-business
regulations and regulators, restructuring
the bureaucracy to promote economic
development and force environmental
protection to help growth, not demolish it.
LePage has a 63-point plan to cut
environmental regulations and open up 3
million acres of the states North Woods to
development. But the governor has a long
road to travel. Erich Vehyl, a local free
market activist and landowner, notes that
environmental groups have collaborated
with state ofcials for decades in framing
laws and in stafng agencies devoted
to regulating land use and prohibiting
natural resource development. An umbrella
organization known as the Northern Forest
Alliance, which operates throughout New
England, coordinates many government
takeover efforts, Vehyl said. Other key
players include the Maine Audubon
Society, the Natural Resources Council of
Maine and the Maine Coast Heritage Trust
(MCHT).
July 2011 Green Watch Page 7
Maine is best described as an
environmental dictatorship, Vehyl said.
It is difcult to overstate how intertwined
the local level green groups are with state
and federal government agencies. He
points to Theodore S. Koffman, a former
state representative from Bar Harbor, who
was also a trustee to the Maine Audubon
Society. Said Vehyl:
It began when Audubon and other
pressure groups like the Maine Coast
Heritage Trust, Natural Resources Council
of Maine, and the State Planning Ofce led
by ex-Nature Conservancy president Henry
Tyler, were attempting to arrange for the
National Park Service to come in and
take over most of our county and much of
rural Maine, while greenline controlling
everything else. They are still maneuvering
for that. Audubons Executive Director
Koffman pulled off the stunt of slipping
in legislation for bird habitat overlays
on private property as House chair of the
legislative committee by inserting a brief,
incomprehensible provision indirectly
referring to the DEP mapping.
Unfortunately, no one but Koffmans
supporters understood his intentions.
Each provision by itself was intended
to look innocuous while sounding
poetically protective, but were absolutely
devastating when accumulated and the pin
was pulled, Vehyl said. Throughout the
nal legislative process DEP had the rst
set of maps it intended to launch, but didnt
tell anyone and kept them secret until it was
too late to stop them. Audubon has been
putting together maps of bird and other
habitat for this purpose for decades.
Audubons Koffman, who is working with
the Obama administration to transfer to
federal control millions of acres of private
property in Maine, taught for years at the
College of the Atlantic, an environmental
liberal arts college. At a legislative hearing
Koffman said he told students that property
owners should not complain about the loss
of property values because regulatory land
use prohibitions are an economic risk like
the stock market.
Audubon does not mean bird watching,
Vehyl argues. The enviros want you to
believe that whatever they say is science
because they say it. They are not scientists
but they have real political power. Stop
giving them money and stop funding
state land use planning in the name of
protection.
ECOS: Protector of the State
One little green monster has begun to
take notice of the Tea Party activism,
and it is stands ready to help state
environmental agencies under attack by
grassroots defenders of property rights and
development. The Environmental Council
of the States (ECOS) is a 501 (c)(6) non-
prot founded in 1993 to improve the
capability of State environmental agencies
and their leaders to protect and improve
human health and the environment of the
United States of America.
As a mission statement that seems
innocuous enough. But read more closely.
Our belief is that State government
agencies are the keys to delivering
environmental protection afforded by both
Federal and State law. Further, ECOS
provides leadership on environmental
issues of national importance, and plays
a critical role in facilitating a quality
relationship among and between Federal
and State agencies.
It would seem ECOS is the Phantom
Menace standing behind bloated state
environmental agencies that have bedeviled
businesses and private landowners for
decades. The Tea Party may want to give
this organization a closer look as it may be
the key to unraveling how local and state-
level green campaigns get started.
Stay tuned for further installments of
Little Green Monsters to learn more
about the collusion between green actors
and government agents.
Kevin Mooney is an investigative journalist
and frequent contributor to Green Watch.
GW
Correction: In the May 2011 issue of
Green Watch, Robert Fisher was mis-
identied as the founder of Gap, Inc.
Mr. Fisher is in fact the son of Gap
founders Donald and Doris Fisher.
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Green Watch July 2011 Page 8
File under unintended consequences: According to a new report from the Institute of Medicine,
weatherizing your home to make it more environmentally friendly may be hazardous to your health.
A report from FOXNews.com summarizes nicely: By making buildings more airtight, building own-
ers could increase indoor-air contaminant concentrations and indoor-air humidity, the report said. By
adding insulation, they could trigger moisture problems. By making improvements to older homes,
crews could stir up hazardous material ranging from asbestos to harmful caulking.
Kill a camel, save the planet? Thats a suggestion included in a consultation paper by Australias De-
partment of Climate Change and Energy Efciency. The problem: Over one million feral camels
roam the Outback, and like a lot of large herbivorous animals, they produce a lot of methane. One
camel, in fact, can be responsible for the annual methane equivalent of up to one ton of carbon diox-
ide. Northwest Carbon, an Adelaide-based company, has generously offered to shoot [the cam-
els] from helicopters or muster them and send them to an abattoir for either human or pet consump-
tion, according to AFP. How much carbon dioxide would be produced by enough helicopter fuel to
slaughter a million camels has not been noted, as far as Green Notes can tell.
Welcome to the new Dark Ages; at least, if the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has its way.
The EPAs war on coal-red power plants continues apace as the Ohio-based utility American Elec-
tric Power (AEP) warns that stringent EPA regulations will force it to close ve of its power plants.
The Hill reports: The utility said Thursday that EPA rules will hike prices, kill jobs and lead to the clo-
sure in the next few years of ve coal-plants, and require costly changes at other plants. Millions of
people who light and heat their homes thanks to AEP plants in West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan and
Ohio could now face higher energy prices at a time when many families are struggling nancially all
thanks to the busybodies at the EPA.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has warmed the cockles of conservative hearts with his battle
against the Garden States public-sector unions. Now he has the green movement in his sights: As
The New York Times reports, Christie has decided to pull the Garden State out of the nations only
operating cap-and-trade system, spurring environmental anger, conservative cheers and specula-
tion about his national ambitions. Christie called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI),
which mandates that energy producers buy and sell permits for the right to emit CO2, a failure
because it has done little since the program began in 2008 to curb emissions. Says Christie: We
remain completely committed to the idea that we have a responsibility to make the environment of our
state and world better, but, Were not going to do it by participating in gimmicky programs that dont
work. Be still our hearts.
The dunes sagebrush lizard is only ve inches long, but thats big enough to be a major pain in the
side of oil producers. Reports the Wall Street Journal: The federal government is considering
whether to put [the lizard] on the endangered species list, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
arguing that oil and gas development in the Permian Basin, a rich oil-producing area in West Texas
and Southeast New Mexico, is destroying parts of the lizards home, a unique sand dune ecosystem.
But the oil industry is warning that listing the little critter as endangered could have huge repercus-
sions for Americas energy portfolio and pocketbook. According to Ben Shepperd, president of the
Permian Basin Petroleum Association, This is the most prolic oil-producing region in onshore
AmericaIf you are to knock out a big portion of that, it clearly would drive prices up at the gasoline
pump. Of course, environmentalists love high gas prices because they think it encourages less driv-
ing, and lizards dont (usually) drive at all. For the rest of us, however, it will be just another deleteri-
ous economic consequence of green do-gooderism.
GreenNotes