FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,
Contact: James Valvo (703) 224-3200

U.S. House Candidate Jim Waring Applauded for Signing No Climate Tax Pledge

PHOENIX—The Arizona chapter of the free market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity (AFP-AZ) and the Arizona Energy Forum today applauded U.S. House candidate Jim Waring (3rd District) for signing the group’s “No Climate Tax Pledge.” Waring joins more than 400 lawmakers and candidates on the federal, state and local levels pledging to “oppose legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.”

“The one thing elected officials should be able to agree on is that global warming shouldn’t be used as an excuse to hike taxes on citizens and businesses,” said AFP-AZ State Director Tom Jenney.  “We encourage all of Arizona’s elected officials and candidates for elected office to sign the pledge.”

Other Arizona signers include U.S. Representatives Trent Franks, John Shadegg, and Jeff Flake, as well as numerous federal candidates, state senators and state representatives.

“The Arizona Energy Forum is pleased Jim Waring has signed the pledge,” said Chairman Troy Hyde.  “His pledge is an excellent example for other candidates and lawmakers who oppose a climate tax.”

Cap-and-trade took its first step toward enactment last year when the U.S. House narrowly passed the Waxman-Markey energy tax bill, which escaped the lower chamber by a scant seven votes despite significant bipartisan opposition.  The U.S. Senate has struggled to pass companion legislation, with several key Democratic senators expressing opposition to the energy tax bill.

President Obama has made no secret of his support for the bill, which would be the largest tax increase in American history.  The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office scored the House plan as an $846 billion increase in federal revenue, a burden that will be borne by taxpayers and consumers for decades to come.

“Using the guise of climate change to transfer dollars from hard-working citizens to bureaucratic big government is unacceptable,” said Jenney. “Regardless of their stance on global warming, this should be common ground for all of our elected officials at all levels of government.”

The pledge is available online at www.NoClimateTax.com.  AFP does not endorse candidates.  All elected officials and candidates are encouraged to sign the pledge and go on the record in opposition to using the climate change issue to increase taxes and grow the size of government.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a nationwide organization of citizen leaders committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP believes reducing the size and scope of government is the best way to safeguard individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFP educates and engages citizens in support of restraining state and federal government growth, and returning government to its constitutional limits. AFP has more than 975,000 members, including members in all 50 states, and 30 state chapters and affiliates. More than 60,000 Americans in all 50 states have made a financial investment in AFP or AFP Foundation. For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org
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by Clint Bolick
Goldwater Institute
 
It was like a scene from Atlas Shrugged: Polly Shaw of China-based Suntech told an Arizona House Government Committee hearing that massive solar production subsidies and even bigger consumer subsidies were not enough. If the Legislature passed House Bill 2701 and repealed the Arizona Corporation Commission’s rules that require utility companies to purchase increasing amounts of solar energy over the next 15 years regardless of the projected $1.2 billion cost to consumers, her company would pull its operations and a few dozen jobs from the state.

The Committee rejected her threat, approving the bill 5-2. But the next day, Governor Jan Brewer and Speaker of the House Kirk Adams, who co-sponsored the bill before deciding to kill it, successfully pressured the primary sponsor, Representative Debbie Lesko, to withdraw it.

Solar may be the most-subsidized industry in America, and is perhaps the only product that the Arizona government forces people to buy regardless of cost or technological feasibility. Solar doesn’t yet make sense as a wide-spread energy policy, and the mandates vastly exceed the Commission’s rate-making authority. That is why the Goldwater Institute is challenging the rules in court and 51 legislators co-sponsored the bill that would repeal them.

So, the solar lobby invoked the one word that will make normally sensible elected officials do crazy things: jobs. Yes, Suntech will employ 75 people. But between the lavish subsidies and costly mandates these may be the most expensive jobs ever created. Nevertheless, the strategy eventually worked; the bill is dead for now.

Suntech’s Shaw claimed the bill would “obliterate the demand for solar,” which may be true if that demand primarily is government-created. Mandate-based industrial policy didn’t work out well in the Soviet Union and it won’t work in Arizona. What’s especially perplexing, though, are the supposedly “pro-market” politicians who think its time has come.

Arizona should stop spending more and more in a frenzied competition with other states over who can give the biggest subsidies to solar and instead create a favorable tax and regulatory climate for all businesses, large and small, in any industry.

Clint Bolick is director of the Goldwater Institute Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation.

This was too much fun to pass up!  Thank you Kyle-Anne Shiver!! Who wrote this delightful piece…

http://bigjournalism.com/kashiver/2010/02/28/former-veep-goes-girly-man-has-hissy-fit-in-pages-of-new-york-times/

This piece of pure, dribbling, drooling emoting is going to either make you collapse in a torrent of tears or retch into the nearest barf bag.  The only human beings on the planet to whom this editorial would appeal are a bunch of 13-year-old girls without a single clue between them.

With hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, Al is going all out to save his massive investment in the Global Warming hysteria.  Here, he comes up with histrionics befitting the amount of personal loss he stands to suffer.

Ok, so this isn’t totally about Arizona … or is it?

How about the AzCC’s Residential Energy Standards?  Or the AzCC’s stepping out from their legal role as rate-payer watchdog and into making energy policy for Arizona that is; A) out of its pay-grade by the Arizona Constitution, and B) totally based on a outright fraud.

The RES and subsequent foray into “Green Energy” at all costs, without a thought to the real cost per Kwh for fantasy sources of reliable energy is a dangerous road for Arizona’s economic future.

Cost per on demand 24/7 available Kwh of “green electric generation” cannot compare with *clean coal* and *clean nuclear* power period.  Windmills and acres of solar panels dotting the landscape with miles of transmission towers and lines crisscrossing the environment altering the patterns of migratory birds and thunderstorms might be a Quixotic vision of an environmentalists utopia, but unfortunately reality bites.  The sun doesn’t shine 24 hours a day, so you need environmentally unfriendly Lithium batteries to store the energy for later use.  The wind doesn’t blow 24 hours a day in exactly the right velocity and direction to provide on demand electricity for job producing industrial small businesses in a cost effective way.

Time to debunk the Green Dream.   We’ve even heard that schools in Arizona are spending unrestricted amounts of money to “green” up their classrooms.  Shouldn’t that be money better spent with the teachers and kids on real learning?

Anyway, until someone politically stands up and says “Look Mommy!  The Emperor is wearing NO clothes!!”  we will continue down the path to an “Olive Drab Green” future rather than the pretty green that Al Gore would have us believe in.

For Immediate Release: February 22, 2010

Nuclear Energy Could Generate 7,743 Construction and 3,000 Nuclear Engineering Jobs in Arizona

ASU Study Predicts Non-Carbon Energy Impacts

PHOENIX – According to a study by Arizona State University, Arizona could gain 7,743 highly paid construction jobs and 3,000 atomic engineering jobs if the plan proposed by Arizona House Leadership gets passed. ASU’s Steidman Institute prepared an economic impact report for industry leadership last week showing significant benefits to the high paying jobs that would be created by such a massive multi-billion dollar atomic energy construction project. If another atomic energy plant is constructed in Arizona, the 414 jobs could be created within 24 months and up to 7,743 jobs within the 7 year construction period.

Last Monday President Obama awarded a $9.3 billion loan guarantee to the Southern Cos., the main power provider in Georgia to simulate high tech jobs in the atomic energy sector. A request for Arizona’s share of atomic energy planning and development money was passed in the Arizona House Energy and Water committee last week on a straight party line vote in HCM 2014.

Governor Brewer came out in support of solar, atomic and other non-carbon sources of energy last month in speeches to industry groups.

House Bill 2767, which is an Energy Parks concept plan, includes tax incentives, tax exempt loans for solar, atomic, wind, geothermal, and other non carbon energy sources, as well as a 50 year strategic energy plan. This bill goes to Government committee and if passes, advances to the full House next week for consideration. “This Energy Park incentive bill closely matches the incentives Utah passed last June, with the addition of a 50 year statewide energy strategy plan. We can’t let Utah beat us in the non-carbon energy race, like they beat us in basketball,” Representative Warde Nichols said, the bill’s co-sponsor.

The construction and development of a new atomic energy facility in the State would provide Arizona families with $2.46 billion in new disposable income, and provide the state $457 million in new revenues according to the ASU study. “These are private sector jobs, private sector projects, and public sector benefits,” said Representative Tobin. “It only makes sense that we should grow private sector high energy physics projects in atomic energy just like we grew the high tech bio medical sector years ago.”

ARIZONA ENERGY FORUM PRAISES OBAMA’S PROPOSED ENERGY POLICY, PLEADS FOR SENATE SUPPORT 

PHOENIX, AZ:  Today, the Arizona Energy Forum (www.azenergyforum.com) praised President Obama’s pledge to pursue nuclear power and off-shore drilling in his State of the Union speech.

The organization, which is comprised of Arizonans concerned about our energy future, was formed to achieve energy security for the United States and hold the elected officials accountable for shaping energy policies.

Chairman Troy Hyde said, “We are greatly encouraged to have the President say that he wants to pursue these important energy issues and we will be writing to both Senator McCain and Senator Kyl encouraging them to push the President toward those goals.  We’ve been skeptical about the President’s interest in making the U.S. energy independent and secure, but since he put these issues on the table, we hope our Senators will use this opportunity to hold him to his pledge.  These energy sources are the best way to secure our nation’s future for jobs and clean energy.  Today we have hope that President Obama has finally seen that we have the resources, means and perhaps the will to move forward on these issues.  We’ll ask our Senators, who both support these efforts, to do all they can to get government out of the way so production can begin.  

The Arizona Energy Forum also encourages all who share their interest in energy security to contact the President and their elected officials to ask them to use the moment to push for off-shore drilling, building more nuclear power plants and expansion of the use of clean burning coal. Please visit www.azenergyforum.com and become a member by signing our pledge of support. 

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Reading like a poorly drafted high-school term paper, Gabby Giffords delivers this nonsensical letter to the Sierra Vista Herald. Gabby rambles incoherently about climate change, oil independence, military supply lines, global warming, and how solar panels will not only protect the United states but the US Military fighting in Afghanistan.  It is written so poorly that one would have to conclude that she hastily penned  it on the school bus in route to first period.   Please tell me Gabby, that you had a staffer ghost-write this one for you.  Since we now “grade” our elected officials, you definitely do not get a B+ for this term paper.

The safety and security of the United States will depend on how well we as a nation address the challenges of climate change. [Huh?]

That was reaffirmed for me at the recent United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen, which I attended as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation.

Opponents of climate action argue there is no proof that greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change and therefore we should not expend significant effort to reduce those emissions.

But many of the steps that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions are steps we must take to increase our national security — specifically by weaning ourselves off oil.

As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I am concerned about how our dependence on oil threatens our national security. As a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, I am confident that renewable energy, especially solar energy, can be a key solution.

The Department of Defense accounts for 80 percent of the federal government’s energy consumption. Three-quarters of the department’s energy is used for military operations — and 94 percent of that energy comes from petroleum.

Where does that petroleum come from? In 1970, we imported 24 percent of our oil. Today, it’s more than 65 percent and growing.  By depending on foreign sources for two-thirds of our oil, we are in a precarious position in an unpredictable world.

The impact of our oil dependence is more than just a vague, geopolitical risk — it is felt directly by our troops on the front lines every day, where they use petroleum for everything from armored vehicles to air conditioners.

A recent report by the Government Accountability Office determined that transporting fuel to the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan poses tremendous security risks and logistical burdens to U.S. armed forces.

For the military, greater fuel efficiency and solar power prove their worth with lives saved and battles won.

Our dependence on oil weakens us at home, as well. In his recent speech on Afghanistan, President Barack Obama noted that we cannot be militarily strong unless we are economically strong.

Yet our nation spends more than $400 billion a year on foreign sources of energy. That’s money taken out of our economy and sent to foreign nations — and it is draining the lifeblood from our economy.

However, a recent report by the Solar Energy Industries Association found that solar can meet 15 percent of our nation’s electricity demands by 2020. That would mean 800,000 new jobs for American workers.

Clearly, reducing our dependence on imported oil and switching to domestic, renewable energy sources would make our nation more secure.

Because it understands this, the Department of Defense is taking the lead on energy efficiency and renewables. The military has set an ambitious goal of obtaining 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

The results of this effort are apparent in Tucson at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. A vast array of 80,000 solar panels soon will provide power to 900 homes for Air Force personnel and their families.

Now the rest of our country must follow.

We in Congress recently took an important step to make solar power even more effective — and attractive — in the years ahead. The House of Representatives gave strong bipartisan approval to my Solar Technology Roadmap Act, a bill that would boost federal research for the development of improved solar energy technology.

This bill would advance solar research and help move new technologies from laboratories into our homes, businesses and military bases. I am hopeful the Senate soon will consider my bill and send it to the president.

Our dependence on oil is a threat to our national security — but we have the knowledge and the tools to address the challenge.

The United States military represents the paragon of American ingenuity, discipline and dedication. They are applying those traits to the development of a 21st century energy policy, one that will not only reduce emissions, but also make us and our men and women in uniform more secure.

In 1970 we imported 24% of our oil.  Jimmy Carter promised then to “wean us off of foreign oil?”  President Peanut created the Department of Energy, whose main goal was to gain energy independence for America.  30+ years later, the Dept of Energy has a budget of $24.2 billion, 16,000 employees, and  approximately 100,00 contract employees.  The results? Now we import 65% of our oil.  Job well done!

Gabby bounces back and forth between oil and solar as though they are interchangeable commodities.  “We have to get off of oil and the solution is solar”, is her theme and that is just plain lunacy.  We will NEVER not need oil.  For the last thirty years, I have heard day in and day out that solar is the answer and viable solutions are just around the corner [if we only spend enough money].  The idea that the government has to subsidize the solar energy industry for innovations to come to fruition is moronic at best.  The company that finally develops the big breakthrough in solar tech will become a multi-billion dollar global company overnight.  That is enough incentive for any business, not some tax-payer funded House bill.

Gabby states [and gets it wrong] that “Our dependence on oil is a threat to our national security”.  Our dependence on foreign oil is the threat to our national security.

Gabby should be made to answer the  questions that arise from her op-ed.  Such as; How will solar panels help our troops in war zones?  How has your Solar Initiatives helped us win battles on the war on terror?  As a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, can you please explain why our dependence on foriegn oil has increased under your watch?  The list of questions is long.  What questions do you want answered?

I can’t wait to see that new Humvee with solar panels on the top of it. You know, the one that’s saving lives and winning battles.

Grassroots to Protest “Carbon Crooks” Thursday in Scottsdale

SCOTTSDALE—The Arizona chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) announced today that it will team up with the Scottsdale Tea Party and FreedomWorks to protest economically damaging “cap-and-tax” legislation at the Edison Electric Institute’s annual board of directors meeting in Scottsdale on Thursday morning, January 7.

The protests will take place from 8:00 to 11:00 a.m. at the Scottsdale Road entrance to the Fairmont Scottsdale Hotel, at 7575 East Princess Drive, in Scottsdale (85255) and will feature marchers holding signs with slogans such as “Welcome, Carbon Crooks!” Above the Fairmont, an aerial protest banner will read, “EEI: Don’t wreck America with cap and tax.” AFP national policy director Phil Kerpen will be present to answer questions from the press and the public about the economic effects of the cap-and-trade proposals moving in Congress. Arizona Senator Sylvia Allen (R-Eastern Counties) is also scheduled to speak.

“The cap-and-tax bill would do serious damage to America’s economy and standard of living, said Kerpen. “The electric utility industry should be fighting the legislation with all its resources, but instead, it’s lobbying in favor of cap-and-tax in the vain hope of cutting a deal with the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress.”

The aerial banner will be sponsored by JunkScience.com publisher Steve Milloy, who explained that the electric utility industry is apparently giving up on efforts make profits by producing more electricity and selling it at competitive prices. “Instead,” Milloy said, “in exchange for supporting the Obama administration agenda, the utilities want government-guaranteed profits for selling less electricity. That means consumers and taxpayers will be picking up the tab—paying more for energy and getting less.”

The protests will occur as EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) address the utility CEOs inside the resort. “The presence of Administrator Jackson and Sen. Graham, along with such notorious rentseeking CEOs as John Rowe of Exelon and Jeff Sterba of PNM Resources should be of great interest to grassroots activists,” said AFP Arizona director Tom Jenney. “We need to expose the huge corporate welfare handouts hidden in the cap-and-trade legislation.”

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a nationwide organization of citizen leaders committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP believes reducing the size and scope of government is the best safeguard to ensuring individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFP educates and engages citizens in support of restraining state and federal government growth, and returning government to its constitutional limits. AFP has more than 500,000 members, including members in all 50 states, and 24 state chapters. For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org

By Byron Schlomach, Ph.D.
Goldwater Institute

Twenty years ago a biologist showed me a graph from a peer-reviewed scientific journal that showed an alarming increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Then I noticed the graph’s scale was logarithmic and made even small increases look exaggerated. I’ve been skeptical of the science behind global warming ever since.

Now there’s ClimateGate. Somebody hacked the University of East Anglia’s e-mail server in England and downloaded e-mails to and from scientists in the Climate Research Unit, perhaps the world’s premier climate research center. The messages show scientists engaged in politics over science. One damaging e-mail includes this remark:

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

“Mike” is Michael Mann, made famous by the “hockey stick” temperature diagram Al Gore helped popularize. It first appeared in a UN report on global warming and purports to show that earth’s recent temperature is the highest in a thousand years, using tree ring data to reconstruct past temperatures. Mann apparently grafted in data from unrelated modern sources to get the desired result when ring data didn’t cooperate.

Add to this the recent confession that raw temperature data have long been destroyed. These data are the basis of the two main datasets used by the UN for its policy reports. Now nobody can actually check the methodology of the data that’s being used to dictate international policy.

Given the lack of reliable, replicable, scientific evidence of global warming, it calls into question the wisdom behind the Arizona Corporation Commission renewable energy standards that will cost Arizona utility customers billions in the coming years. The Commission should rely on more than questionable science before they strike a multi-billion dollar blow to Arizona’s already fragile economy. I’ve got plenty of raw data to back that up, by the way.

Byron Schlomach, Ph.D., is the director of the Goldwater Institute’s Center for Economic Prosperity.

We’d heard so much great publicity about the new affordability of solar power we got a solar installer to give us an estimate during August this year.  Arizona’s sunshine seemed just too abundant to let go to waste.  Our house is roughly 3,000 sq feet, including a small, unfinished basement, so it’s a very typical, average sized residence.

The estimate for solarizing our house was $60,000.   We had to rub our eyes before reading  it again;  sixty thousand dollars and the word, “affordable,” didn’t naturally go together.    Plus, because of trees next to the house, we would need to set aside a piece of ground on the property the equivalent of the footprint of an ample  guest house to place the solar array.    Neighboring houses of the equivalent square footage have been on the market for $120,000, still unsold for two years, down from initial offers of over $200,000, $250,000 and $300,000.   How can anyone justify an outlay of $60,000 for house that might eventually sell for $110 – 100,000 or even LESS, when houses aren’t selling, and jobs are disappearing?

To further expose the problem, even with “sell-back electricity” sugar plum assurances, it’ll take far more than a decade to recover the cost thru “savings” – about the time the aged batteries will need to be completely replaced and well-advanced towards the end of the useful life of the solar panels, and the entire battery-panel combo also will have additional costs to be maintained and serviced, plus a weekly added chore to be kept clean of DUST – which in our Arizona region is pervasive.    And APS still will bill a fee because once on the grid, one stays on the grid, even if one isn’t using it.

If it was truly cost-effective, people would already be solarized without being forced to.  If it BECOMES truly cost-effective, not falsely thru subsidies, which don’t make anything cheaper, just shift costs around, people would be lined up to convert right over to it.   But it’s not, and it won’t be anytime soon.

How about a partial conversion?
$8,000 up front to solarize JUST the WATER HEATER.

What’s going to happen when people living hand-to-mouth in $120,000 homes are hit with higher electrical bills because they DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY to shell out $60 GRAND to convert their homes?   Or as the hopeful installer said, “It ends up to be only about $25,000 after tax rebates.” What? “Only?”

No one gets the tax rebate until the money’s been paid out.  Who is going to be able to get any energy loan approved when they can hardly meet their current obligations of mortgage, utilities and other monthly expenses, like … food?  Who is going to dare to stretch their shaky finances to take on more debt?   Scofflaws do it all the time, but more people who are more responsible than that will not add debt they think they cannot repay.

Solar rebates are ultimately funded through taxes, today’s reality is a shrinking tax base as people lose their jobs, so the government demands MORE money through higher taxes, a vicious cycle of increasing debt burdens on a public increasingly unable to pay.  Callously, the government, to force inefficient solar, is pushing punitive higher energy costs that the utility companies pass on to the consumer – people will be punished on both sides of the energy equation.   The sunny rhetoric for “sustainability” is eclipsed by unsustainable real-life costs.

New EU-US energy council to be set up early November

According to the EUObserver in a recent article:

The EU and the US will set up a joint energy council at ministerial and commissioner level to streamline policy initiatives relating to green technologies, research and energy security on both sides of the Atlantic, a US official told this website.

As soon as I hear that ministers and the kommisars from the US and EU are getting together to harmonize energy policy, I know what that means: hold onto my wallet.

“Energy is an important foreign policy priority for the US and a very important component of our bilateral relationship with the EU. We wanted to have a form of engagement with the Europeans to reflect that and to raise it to the policy level, to the cabinet level,” the US official said in a phone interview, under condition of anonymity…

However, it was released that the US will be represented by none other than (drumroll), Hillary Clinton.

We know the goal of Cap and Trade, Copenhagen and now this is heading in one direction: higher taxes for Joe SixPack, US citizen.  Get ready for energy price increases on the order of 20% over today before the end of Obama’s first term as well as at least a 20% increase in taxes on your energy uses.

Hey, why not take advantage of the solar industry subsidies passed by our conservative legislature?  Buy your solar panels now.  I hear even Phil Gordon is pawning some.