Alcoa loves green, but not the environment

Alcoa is one of those "green" companies that lobbies for environmental policy. Of course, Alcoa also stands to profit from these policies, even while the planet might be suffering. My column:

Absent such regulations, an aluminum car frame is much more expensive than a steel car frame. With these regulations, aluminum, which is lighter, becomes more desirable.

So what's the problem? Alcoa is getting rich, but more people are driving lighter-weight, more efficient cars, right? Industry and the Earth both win, right? Hardly.

Making aluminum car frames requires much more energy than making steel car frames. One stage in the process -- dissolving the alumina to get pure aluminum -- inherently gives off carbon dioxide and the far more potent greenhouse gasses hexafluoroethane and tetrafluoromethane.

But Alcoa makes its aluminum in Australia, where Washington's CAFE and climate policies can't touch it. Down under, naturally, Alcoa's lobbying agenda isn't nearly so green. The Australian newspaper reported in 2008 that Alcoa "has warned that even a modest carbon cost on aluminum production could lead to plant closures in Australia and moves to higher-emitting plants in countries such as China."

Sorry, your Chinese-made iPad won’t save the planet

Did you get an iPad? Why? If your decision had anything to do with your perception of Apple as a "Green" company, my column this week has bad news for you:

Under cap-and-trade, Apple would pay for the 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide emitted annually by its U.S. buildings and domestic operations, and also for the 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide emitted by shipping its products. But the 3.8 million tons of CO2 emitted by its manufacturing — 81 percent of the company’s total — would be exempt from a carbon tax because the emissions would be in China.

Many of the companies who take the Chamber’s side against cap-and-trade schemes are in a different position from Apple. These companies actually make stuff here, and so they would actually pay the energy tax that is cap and trade.

So Apple is loudly and self-righteously lobbying for “green” taxes that it intends to continue avoiding.

Special interests dominate Obama's State of the Union

Obama's state of the Union reflected his belief in government aggressively steering the economy. In my column, I list who wins under Obama's proposals:

For instance, he called for more funding to build high-speed rail. Why rail? Rail is only one way to travel or to ship things.

A likely clue: lobbying. Lorenzo Simonelli, chief executive officer of GE Transportation, said in May, "We are ready to partner with the federal government and Amtrak to make high-speed rail a reality."

Subsequently, GE Transportation hired two new lobbying firms. One new GE lobbyist on high-speed rail: Linda Hall Daschle, the wife of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, an Obama confidant.

Samuel Whitehorn is another new addition to GE's train lobby. He served as senior counsel on the Senate commerce committee and a senior lawyer at Bill Clinton's Department of Transportation.

Global warming industry becomes too big to fail

My K Street column looks at the flap over the leaked/stolen emails from the Climate Research Unit:

"I'm in the process of trying to persuade Siemens Corp. (a company with half a million employees in 190 countries!) to donate me a little cash to do some CO2 measur[e]ments here in the UK -- looking promising," wrote Andrew Manning, a climate-science research fellow at the University of East Anglia, "so the last thing I need is news articles calling into question (again) observed temperature increases."

Manning's e-mail, written in October to a colleague at East Anglia University's Climate Research Unit, was one of the thousands of private communiques exposed to public view by a whistleblower or a hacker. The note and others like it reveal the intriguing relationship between industry giants like Siemens and the scientists driving climate change fears. More importantly, though, Manning's e-mail shows the incentives of climate scientists: Convince people there is a climate disaster coming, get more money.

A mining giant in bed with Boxer, Kerry

Adding to the gallery of climate bandits, my column today explores why mining giant Rio Tinto is lobbying for climate-change legislation:

Rio Tinto stands to profit in many ways from Boxer-Kerry, often in ways that provide no real benefit to consumers or the environment, while increasing costs for everyone.

In 2008, Rio Tinto mined more uranium than any company in the world, according to Chiaro. Uranium is the feedstock for nuclear power plants. Litigation and regulation have for decades blocked the expansion of nuclear power, and many companies see robust climate legislation as the way to knock down the regulatory barriers....

But Rio Tinto also sees profit in Boxer-Kerry in ways that harm the consumer. Boxer-Kerry would add to the cost of gasoline, heating oil, and electricity, and also force less efficient energy sources on American families and manufacturers, while imposing new costs on taxpayers. This would drive business to Rio Tinto's other ventures.

Rio Tinto and BP, for instance, have formed a joint venture called Hydrogen Energy, which is building plants in California, Abu Dhabi, and elsewhere that aim to combine the technologies of fueling a power plant by hydrogen and pumping carbon dioxide underground in order to keep the gas out of the atmosphere. These projects are already subsidized by taxpayers, and Rio Tinto is lobbying for the additional subsidies Boxer-Kerry would provide.

Nike's green lobbying: Corporate responsibility or regulatory robbery?

Nike, as an act of protest, relinquished its spot on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's board of directors. Nike supports federal laws restricting greenhouse-gas emissions while the Chamber opposes them. My column explores the angles:

Nike won't bear most of the costs of a cap-and-trade scheme in the U.S. because Nike doesn't make stuff in the U.S. Cap-and-trade adds to manufacturing costs by attaching a price to emissions, which makes energy more expensive. But "a vast majority" of Nike goods are made overseas, a company spokesman told me in an email.

While Nike outsources its manufacturing to factories in Vietnam and other poor countries where greenhouse gasses are unregulated, some of its competition makes their shoes here in the U.S., where Nike is lobbying to increase costs.

How a power giant profits from greenhouse regs

Big Coal is lining up behind the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. My column makes sense of it all:

"Without this bill, without a strict regime for controlling carbon emissions, Big Oil and Big Coal win," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif. "And the environment, endangered species, our kids, our grandkids, you, and I will be the losers."

Got that? It's Big Coal against the children.

A[merican] E[lectric] P[ower], however, qualifies as Big Coal. One of the biggest electricity producers in the country, AEP generates more than two-thirds of its electricity by burning coal. Many years, the company is the Western Hemisphere's largest consumer of coal.

So how come AEP is on the same side as Woolsey, Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, not to mention "our kids" and the "endangered species"?

Tire tariffs show another cost of cap and trade: Free trade

Obama's tire tariffs, I argue in my column today, show how cap-and-trade is the enemy of free trade:

And cap and trade makes a trade war a political necessity, because the policy otherwise will ship U.S. jobs overseas. A trade war may cost jobs, but in a way less traceable to specific policies. In this way -- when U.S. politicians claim China is subsidizing its exports by not taxing emissions -- carbon caps could become a net short-term winner for manufacturing companies.

Cap-and-trade legislation may not stop the oceans' rise, as Obama has suggested. On the contrary, it may cause a rising tide of prices that lifts the fortunes of the well-connected companies, leaving American taxpayers and consumers drowning.

Leaked e-mail shows how GE puts the government to work for GE

My column this week provides a look behind the scenes at the most prolific corporate lobbyist in the country--General Electric:

"The intersection between GE's interests and government action is clearer than ever," General Electric Vice Chairman John G. Rice wrote in an Aug. 19 e-mail to colleagues.

'Strange bedfellows' watch: Fred Krupp, Environmental Defense Fund

[From Beltway Confidential]

My pet beat is covering the cooperation between big business and big government, a phenomenon much more common than many journalists seem to think and than many politicians care to admit.

One of my hobbies, then, is collecting "strange bedfellow" remarks--when writers, businessmen, or politcians do notice big business lobbying for bigger government, they often accompany the observation with a declaration of "In an interesting twist..." or "strange bedfellows" or "an unusual alliance." Of course, a phenomenon should only be allowed to be "strange" or "unusual" so many times before it becomes commonplace.

Somehow, though, Big Business-Big Government collusion gets to be surprising every single time it shows up, which is every single day. So, today I am beginning an occasional feature on this blog, called " 'Strange Bedfellows' Watch," in which I chronicle the claims of "odd alliances" that are about as odd together as Ham and Cheese.

Today, from a piece worth reading on the tensions within the corporate alliance for climate change regulations, comes this quote:

What's significant is that USCAP has demonstrated that industry and environmentalists can agree on a framework for addressing climate change, said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund.

"It's very unusual for big corporations to raise their hands and say, 'We want to be regulated for something that we're not regulated for now,'" Mr. Krupp said. "When the history...is written, it will show USCAP to have played a very constructive role."

No, Mr. Krupp, it's not "very unusual," and neither is your claim that it is unusual.

Congress gives your money to T. Boone Pickens

This week, the Pickens Plan turns one year old, and so I revisit the lobbying and business jockeying behind it. Specifically, I report on how T. Boone Pickens has invested in natural gas cars, and how he is packaging his push for subsidies as some way to save the world:

Perversely, his recent shift—from selling stuff (such as oil) that people want to buy, to selling stuff (like gas cars and wind power) that people buy only when it’s subsidized or mandated—has elevated Pickens’ reputation from greedy capitalist to world-saver.

Pickens was one of the bad guys in a 1992 book Den of Thieves where he was derided as a “corporate raider” and named by one reviewer as oneof “the main players behind why the 1980’s were characterized as the ‘decade of greed.’ ” The offense back then—in addition to selling oil—was his penchant for “hostile takeovers.”

“Hostile takeovers” is an inaccurate term for what Pickens used to do. The management didn’t like them, sure, but the transactions in question consisted of shareholders voluntarily giving their stock to Pickens in exchange for Pickens’ money.

Pickens’ new bid actually is hostile. I don’t want to fund his windmills or methane cars. But if I refuse, the IRS will come after me. But instead of“greed” it’s dubbed as “green.”

Read the whole thing here.

Are plug-in electric cars the new ethanol?

In 2006, I wrote that large-scale ethanol use--although it was being promoted as a green fuel--would not be good for the planet. By 2009, that was nearly consensus.

Today, plug-in electric cars are the new miracle cure to our energy worries. My Examiner column today looks at some of the problems that could arise from widespread adoption of electric cars:

Back to the lithium: The GAO report warns that “extracting lithium from locations where it is abundant, such as in South America, could pose environmental challenges that would damage the ecosystems in those areas.”

Those more concerned with energy independence than green fuels also have reason to doubt electric cars: About half of the world’s lithium reserves are in Bolivia. A major shift to lithium-powered cars “could substitute reliance on one foreign resource [oil] for another [lithium],” the GAO writes.

Read the whole thing here.

Cheney coal plan gets $1B boost ... from Obama

My K Street column in Examiner today follows up on the largest earmark in history, and points out the entertaining fact Obama just directed a billion dollars at Big Coal's greatest prize from that Dick Cheney energy task force Obama spent the campaign season attacking. My column also looks at the lobbying effort behind this billion-dollar coal project called FutureGen:

In 2004, the Energy Department named former lobbyist Mark Maddox assistant secretary of fossil energy and assigned him to promote FutureGen to Congress, to companies and even to China.

But in early 2008, the Bush administration reversed course and pulled funding for the project, arguing there were better ways to test these technologies. Critics charged that Bush was angry Illinois had been chosen over Texas as the site for the FutureGen plant.

By the time the Senate took up Obama’s stimulus this year, that same Maddox was collecting a check from coalition member Anglo American, a mining and natural resource giant, lobbying to restore federal funding to FutureGen. Maddox was part of a lobbying blitzkrieg by the FutureGen coalition, its member companies and the state of Illinois

Read the whole thing here.

“Subsidymagination:” GE’s regulatory robbery

General Electric's "Ecomagination" initiative turned four years old this week. My Examiner column today digs into what this whole green thing is about.

Imagine a salesman comes to your door peddling composting barrels. You tell him that while composting would offer some benefits—good for the environment, free topsoil—you don’t think it’s worth the cost.

He replies, “Oh, sir, but I’m afraid you don’t really have a choice. You see, the county government just passed a law requiring everyone to use a composting barrel. I should know—I’m also a lobbyist, and I helped write the law.”

You’d call that a racket. On a far larger scale—peddling “greenhouse gas credits” and windmills instead of composting barrels—General Electric calls it “Ecomagination.”

Read the whole thing here.

AES and GE imitate Enron on coal and climate

Continuing on my theme of cap-and-trade as corporate welfare, my Examiner column this week looks at the new Enrons:

A global power company that inherited some of Enron’s coal-fired power plants in Africa has also followed the late energy giant in the effort to profit from climate change legislation.

Virginia-based AES Corp. has partnered with General Electric Co. in peddling greenhouse gas offsets while lobbying for policies to make those offsets valuable — the same buy-low, lobby-hard, sell-high strategy tried by Enron. AES simultaneous expansion of coal-fired power in Asia, South America and Africa, however, highlights how environmental regulations can yield profit without necessarily yielding environmental gains.

Read the whole thing here.

Who benefits from federal fuel efficiency mandates?

I find it important to point out that environmental policy usually enriches some business with powerful lobbyists. My Examiner column today digs into fuel efficiency regulations:

And the President’s fuel-efficiency mandates may not hurt struggling auto companies, because Obama’s philosophy is the one Ronald Reagan mocked: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.

Carmakers have long been able to make more efficient cars, but consumers haven’t been willing to pay enough to make them profitable. In the bailout era launched by President Bush, however, profitability is hardly a concern: If the government likes what you’re doing, taxpayers pick up the tab.

Read the whole thing here.

The mysterious death of the chicken-fat car

Did you hear the one about the federal subsidy for pouring chicken fat into diesel? The odd tale is unfurled in my Washington Examiner K Street column today:

As President Barack Obama unfurls his fuel-economy standards and Congress takes up global warming regulations, it’s useful to remember that what emerges from environmental policymaking is not necessarily what’s best for the planet, but instead what’s best for special interests.

Consider the epic and somewhat bizarre struggle over clean fuels that ended last week. As usual, special interests were central to the drama. But the antagonists seemed right out of a Monty Python sendup of Washington politics: An oil company, hoping to profit from making trucks run on chicken fat, was thwarted by the soap industry’s lobby.

Read the whole thing here.

Global warming bill becomes another Washington porkfest

I've been writing since Enron about how climate change legislation is a racket. My Examiner today column hits on one specific angle, the giveaway of emissions credits.

Considering the anti-business and pro-environment rhetoric of ruling Democrats, you might expect all businesses would have to pay for all emissions. But the rule of thumb in Washington—at least as true in Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi’s Washington as it was in George W. Bush and Tom DeLay’s Washington—is that no important bill passes unless a well-connected special interest benefits from it. Following the rule, climate change legislation is starting to look like the stimulus bill: a buffet of handouts.

Currently, Waxman’s bill gives away about half the credits, with most free credits going to the power industry. Edison Electric, the trade group representing these companies, has endorsed this bill.

It’s unsurprising the power companies should get their way. Data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show that the electric utility industry’s political action committees contributed $12.3 million to candidates last election—more than the PACs of the oil and gas, commercial bank, investment, real estate, or telecom industries—and nearly as much as all defense PACs.

Read the whole thing here.

Lobbying kings: Exxon, Chevron, Lockheed, Pfizer

First quarter lobbying reports are in, and my Examiner column today looks at the kings of the lobby:

Oil giant Exxon Mobil — the largest corporation in America — spent $9.32 million on lobbying in the first three months of 2009, more than any other company in the nation, according to recently released lobbying filings. Joining Exxon in the top four were competitor Chevron ($6.8 million), defense contractor Lockheed Martin ($6.35 million) and drug maker Pfizer ($6.14 million).

About 100 companies and about 20 trade groups spent more than $1 million on lobbying in the first quarter, about the same as last year, according to lobbying reports filed Monday. Most of these companies are in the energy, pharmaceutical, insurance and telecommunications industries.

Read the whole thing here.

The Clean Coal Lobby

[cross-posted at Beltway Confidential]
What do you do if environmentalists are gunning for you and want to use Washington to destroy or at least severely curb the use of the only project you sell? You call on Washington for billions in subsidies to make your product cleaner. Hence, the clean coal lobby.

The Center for Public Integrity's new initiative tracking the boom in climate change lobbying looks at the clean coal lobby in a new report, on the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity:

However one interprets ACCCE’s message, it has the power of well-heeled and politically engaged companies behind it. Amid the punishing economy of 2008, the top five U.S. coal mining companies saw their profits more than double to $1.9 billion. And the industry is determined to use a slice of those profits to deliver its message. Senate disclosure forms reveal that ACCCE spent $9.95 million on Washington lobbying last year, far more than any other group devoted to climate change — although ACCCE says the figure was inflated because it included advertising and grassroots advocacy that most groups don’t report.