Latest Polling Finds Strong Support For Clean Energy And Stricter Carbon Pollution Standards

Evidence of a striking shift in public opinion has begun to crystalize over the last few months: Poll after poll is finding staunch majorities of Americans view global warming as a “serious problem” and that human activity is a major driving cause.

In defiance of received Beltway wisdom, voters even told a recent Yale poll that a candidate’s views on global warming will affect their vote, and that the issue should be a top priority for the President and the Congress. Majorities have even stated that when it comes to deficit reduction, they prefer a tax on carbon emissions to cuts in education, Social Security, Medicare, or environmental protection.

Yesterday, Pew Research released new poll research that re-confirms the trend. When asked to choose between developing “alternative sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen” and expanding “exploration and production of oil, coal and natural” gas as their preferred priority for addressing America’s energy needs, 54 percent of Americans went with alternative energy. Only 34 percent chose continued prioritization of fossil fuels. That’s a drop from the 63 percent high in 2011, but an uptick over the 52 percent response last year.

Furthermore, Independents and Democrats were largely in concert, preferring alternative energy sources by 64 and 59 percent, respectively. Only 33 percent of Republicans went with solar and wind, in contrast to the 54 percent who preferred expanded fossil fuel use. But the distance between the two positions within the Republican group was smaller than the distance in the other two collections of voters.

And that wasn’t all. 62 percent of overall voters favored “setting stricter emission limits on power plants to address climate change,” with Democrats once again taking that position by a wide margin of 72 percent, and Independents coming in at a lower-but-still-impressive 64 percent. Republicans opposed the stricter standards by a 48 percent majority, but were again much more evenly split — the minority of GOP voters who favored the emissions limits close at the majority’s heels with 42 percent.

The age divide also stood out: Voters 18 to 29 supported alternative energy by a whopping 71 percent, and it wasn’t until voters crossed the age 65 that majorities flipped in favor of coal, oil and natural gas expansion.

And if the recent behavior and pronouncements of top lawmakers are any indication, this shift in the national mood is being felt. Newly minted Secretary of State John Kerry, who will shortly decide the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline, declared in his first big speech since his confirmation that, “We as a nation must have the foresight and courage to make the investments necessary to safeguard the most sacred trust we keep for our children and grandchildren: an environment not ravaged by rising seas, deadly superstorms, devastating droughts, and the other hallmarks of a dramatically changing climate.” President Obama came out swinging on the issue of climate change in both his Second Inaugural address and the State of the Union speech calling for new renewable electricity and energy efficiency targets, and warming that “if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations [from climate change] I will.”

The latest signs from the White House are that Obama may very well use his executive authority to limit the carbon existing power plants may emit, on top of the regulations the Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing for new power plants.

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Supreme Court Won’t Raise Standards For Drug-Sniffing Dogs

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the validity of an alert by a drug-sniffing dog whose certification had expired. In a unanimous decision on one of two drug-sniffing dog cases before the court this term, Justice Elena Kagan said the Florida Supreme Court imposed requirements far too onerous on police to establish the reliability of police dogs. She wrote:

The question—similar to every inquiry into probable cause—is whether all the facts surrounding a dog’s alert, viewed through the lens of common sense, would make a reasonably prudent person think that a search would reveal contraband or evidence of a crime. A sniff is up to snuff when it meets that test.

The decision was narrow in its scope, holding only that Florida’s “strict evidentiary checklist” for establishing the reliability of a dog was inconsistent with flexible standards for establishing the probable cause necessary to justify an arrest. In particular, it criticized the court’s reliance on records of a dog’s performance, noting that determinations of “success” may not account for dogs’ sniffing of trace amounts of drugs or well-hidden drugs that the police never find. Justice Souter found otherwise when he documented the pervasive use of dogs with error rates as high as 60 percent in a 2005 dissent. He wrote then:

The infallible dog … is a creature of legal fiction. Although the Supreme Court of Illinois did not get into the sniffing averages of drug dogs, their supposed infallibility is belied by judicial opinions describing well-trained animals sniffing and alerting with less than perfect accuracy, whether owing to errors by their handlers, the limitations of the dogs themselves, or even the pervasive contamination of currency by cocaine. … In practical terms, the evidence is clear that the dog that alerts hundreds of times will be wrong dozens of times.

Today’s decision does not revisit the majority’s opinion in that 2005 case, and thus does not question the expansive police authority to use the dogs without reasonable suspicion of drug offenses. Another police dog case coming down the pike this term, however, will question whether use of such dogs can be expanded to the front door of someone’s home without probable cause.

While today’s decision is narrow and reasonable, holding only that the court may not impose a too-onerous requirement on police, it leaves open the policy concern that police maintain broad discretion in their use of dog sniffs, with no national standards and little oversight to ensure that these dogs are even reliable. In 2011, more people were arrested for drugs than for anything else, according to FBI statistics. And without more rigorous standards, police maintain the discretion to use drug sniffs as a cover for stops and searches that could not otherwise be justified by police.

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Presidential Memorandum -- Rulemaking Concerning the Standards for Designating Positions in the Competitive Service as National Security Sensitive and Related Matters

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

MEMORANDUM FOR THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

SUBJECT: Rulemaking Concerning the Standards for Designating Positions in the Competitive Service as National Security Sensitive and Related Matters

The Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management shall jointly propose the amended regulations contained in the Office of Personnel Management's notice of proposed rulemaking in 75 Fed. Reg. 77783 (December 14, 2010), with such modifications as are necessary to permit their joint publication, without prejudice to the authorities of the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management under any Executive Order, and to the extent permitted by law.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

The Director of the Office of Personnel Management is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

President Obama discusses his nomination of Mary Jo White to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission and Richard Cordray to continue as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Here’s a quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov.

President Obama taps Denis McDonough to serve as his chief of staff and lead the team at the White House.

view all related blog posts

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Despite Conservative Attacks, States Continue to Realize the Benefits of Renewable Energy Standards

by Matt Kasper and Tom Kenworthy, Center for American Progress

States’ adoption of renewable energy standards—which require electric utility companies to produce a portion of their electricity from wind, solar, and other renewable sources—has considerably driven clean energy advances in recent years. Though Congress has failed to enact a nationwide standard, policymakers at the state level have enthusiastically filled the void, with 29 states and the District of Columbia adopting hard targets for renewable energy production and another eight states setting renewable energy goals. Standards place an obligation on electricity-supply companies to reach set targets, while renewable energy goals are voluntary for companies—although states might incentivize a utility for reaching a set goal.

Those mandates have brought a wide range of benefits, ranging from robust clean energy economies to lower carbon emissions and improved public health. Since the beginning of 2009, eight states—California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, New Jersey, and New York—have increased their standards, while three states—Indiana, Oklahoma, and West Virginia—have established voluntary goals. Six other states—Colorado, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington state—have beaten back attempts to repeal their standards. Most of the states with renewable energy standards on the books are meeting or are close to meeting their interim targets.

Nonetheless, conservative attacks on state renewable energy standards are on the rise.

Two conservative organizations looking to repeal state renewable energy standard policies are the Heartland Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. These two organizations worked together to write model legislation—the Electricity Freedom Act—to roll back state standards. The policy, which ALEC’s board of directors adopted last October, argues that “a renewable energy mandate is essentially a tax on consumers of electricity that forces the use of renewable energy sources beyond what would be called for by real market forces and under conditions of real competition in generation resources.”

ALEC is known for helping advance corporate interests by writing and pushing for passage of conservative legislation at the state level. The organization has been a force in shaping conservative agendas, including voter identification laws and right-to-work policies. In the environmental sphere, ALEC has targeted states that regulate greenhouse gases and has promoted bills supporting hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”; offshore drilling of oil and natural gas; and nuclear energy. Tax documents show that Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, and other energy companies pay membership fees in order to help write legislation repealing carbon-pollution reduction programs in states across the country.

The Heartland Institute is a think tank that promotes skepticism about climate change. Recently, the organization launched a billboard campaign that linked people who care about global warming to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, murderer Charles Manson, and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. One specific billboard featured a mug shot of Kaczynski with the words, “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” In a statement, the president of Heartland unapologetically called the billboard campaign an “experiment.”

With ALEC’s ability to successfully pass conservative legislation at the state level and the Heartland Institute’s intentions to attack policies that combat climate change, the threat that state renewable energy standard policies could be repealed needs to be taken seriously and aggressively contested.

ALEC and Heartland seem to be targeting North Carolina first. North Carolina State Rep. Mike Hager (R), a member of ALEC, says he is confident that in the upcoming session in his state’s general assembly, the votes exist to repeal or weaken the state’s renewable energy standard. Rep. Hager is the majority whip and the chairman of the Public Utilities Committee in the North Carolina General Assembly. But the bill that implemented the state’s standard passed 107-9 in the House in 2007—a resounding message Rep. Hager should recognize.

Last fall, however, fossil fuel interests funded a successful effort to defeat a constitutional amendment in Michigan that would have increased the state’s renewable energy standard from 10 percent in 2015 to 25 percent in 2025.

But voters in the eight states that have strengthened standards understand that these policies improve the environment and stimulate their state economies. California went from a 20 percent standard by 2010 to a 33 percent standard by 2020—and is currently on track to meet that 33 percent target. California’s three investor-owned utilities, or IOUs, achieved 18 percent of 2010 retail electricity sales with renewable energy. The three investor-owned utilities hit 20.6 percent renewables at the end of 2011. When California, the ninth-largest economy in the world, establishes a 33 percent renewable energy standard, it sends a clear message to every other state that renewable energy provides reliable, cost-effective clean electricity and strengthens the economy.

Long-term commitments to purchase renewable energy from wind, solar, or geothermal sources enable developers to secure financing for such facilities, allowing the market for renewable energy to stabilize and grow. Long-term commitments also lock in electricity prices, helping shield ratepayers from price volatility that is typical of electricity purchased from coal and natural gas facilities.

And California is not the only state in recent years to set a higher standard. Colorado has increased its standard twice since 2004, rising from 10 percent to its current level of 30 percent by 2020. New York originally had a 25 percent renewable energy standard by 2013, but lawmakers in 2010 increased the standard to 30 percent by 2015.

The renewable energy standard program in New York continues to yield significant economic benefits—as it does in all the states that create standards. The planning, development, construction, and operation of renewable energy facilities create short-term and long-term jobs while benefiting local governments and school districts through property taxes and other leases or royalty payments. An analysis conducted in 2009 concluded that $6 billion in direct economic benefits are expected if New York meets its 30 percent target—and this analysis did not even include estimates of the multiplier effects that can accompany direct economic impacts.

In January 2012 London Economics International LLC prepared an in-depth analysis of Maine’s renewable energy standard, required by legislation enacted in 2011. The report found that policies in Maine and New England would create 11,700 jobs in Maine alone over several years. In addition, $1.14 billion of new investment will occur in Maine as more renewable energy facilities are constructed. The report also found that electricity prices will lower for consumers as more wind energy is developed in New England.

Some politically conservative states also recognize the benefits from these standards. In Kansas, for example, House Bill 2369, enacted in May 2009 but finalized in 2010, established the state’s first renewable energy standard. The law requires investor-owned utilities to generate or purchase 20 percent of peak demand capacity electricity from renewable energy facilities by 2020. The eligible generation sources include wind, solar energy (both thermal and photovoltaics), methane from landfills or wastewater treatment, hydropower, and biomass.

The American Wind Energy Association highlights Kansas’s renewable energy standard policy as a driving factor in helping the state attract wind projects and manufacturers like Siemens. According to the Kansas Energy Information Network, 11 of Kansas’s 21 wind farms began operating between 2010 and 2012—eight of them in 2012 alone.

Empire District Electric, a Kansas utility, had already decided to purchase wind power due to the high natural gas prices at the time, and also purchased a high percentage of natural gas base load generation. Empire wrote to its shareholders, “[Wind energy power purchase agreements] decrease our exposure to natural gas, provide a hedge against any future global warming legislation and help us give our customers lower, more stable prices.”

Also prior to the renewable energy standard legislation, the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities saw wind power as “a hedge against high market purchase prices” and estimated that their 20-year power purchase agreement for wind power would save the utility $3 million during the first decade.

The Kansas Corporation Commission, which established the rules and regulations in 2010 for the state’s renewable energy standard, recognized the problems caused by volatile fossil fuel prices, noting that wind energy in a state’s energy portfolio protects consumers. The commission stated:

Natural gas, coal, and wholesale power prices have all experienced significant volatility and upward trending costs. Wind generation provides value as insurance for customers from some of the effects of unexpectedly high and volatile fuel and wholesale energy prices.

In upcoming state battles, ALEC and the Heartland Institute will almost certainly claim that renewable electricity standards raise power rates for consumers compared to states without clean energy requirements. That claim is false, however, as Richard Caperton, Director for Clean Energy Investment at the Center for American Progress, demonstrated in a CAP issue brief last April.

Therefore, with no price impact on consumers of electricity, tremendous economic benefits, and utility companies praising renewable energy standard laws, it would be a mistake for state lawmakers to enact legislation written by ALEC and the Heartland Institute that repeals such standards.

Why we should enact a nationwide renewable energy standard

In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama proposed a federal “clean energy standard,” which would require utility companies to produce 80 percent of their electricity from no- or low-carbon sources by 2035. CAP has recommended that an 80 percent clean energy standard should also include a requirement that 35 percent of electricity generation come from renewable sources and efficiency measures. This standard should be met by requiring a national target of 25 percent renewable electricity generation alongside a requirement that utilities reduce demand to save energy by 10 percent.

An analysis conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that a national standard that requires all electric utilities to increase usage of renewable electricity to at least 25 percent by 2025 would create jobs, lower energy bills, and reduce harmful pollution. The analysis specifically found that 297,000 jobs would be created, $263.4 billion in new capital investment would occur with an additional $11.5 billion going to local communities from new property taxes, and consumers would save $64.3 billion in lower electricity and natural gas bills by 2025.

Matt Kasper is a Special Assistant for the Energy Policy team at the Center for American Progress. Tom Kenworthy is a Senior Fellow at the Center.

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By Even Academic Standards, David Dewhurst is “centrist”

 

In the race for U.S. Senate in Texas, the conservative candidate clearly is Ted Cruz. His record of fighting for conservative ideals is clear, as I have noted before. Senator DeMint has endorsed him, as has Senator Mike Lee, the Club for Growth and a number of other important conservative voices.

But the establishment and conventional wisdom remains behind Lt. Gov Dewhurst as the favorite – despite the fact he has shown relatively poor polling, mediocre fundraising and is relying on his personal wealth to try to persuade Texans he is actually conservative. But the truth is hard to hide. I have pointed out before that Dewhurst is a moderate in the mold of Florida Governor Charlie Crist. Thus, we affectionately refer to him as Dewcrist.

Everyone in Austin knows DewCrist is a moderate. Everyone in Austin knows he stands in the way of conservative policy. Everyone in Austin knows he would be the first guy in the U.S. Senate to join the “club” and saddle up to Mitch McConnell to be a “team player,” no matter what principle dictates or what the people of Texas actually want.

But now, even academic research is making this crystal clear. In the Texas Tribune, Rice University Professor Mark Jones explains his rather detailed analysis of Dewcrist and his ideological placement among those in the Texas Senate, the body over which he presides as Lt. Governor. Jones describes him as follows:

“Is Dewhurst a “moderate?” Yes, if by that one means that he would appear to be significantly less conservative than approximately one-third of the Republican delegation in the Texas Senate.”

and

“The [data] reveals a Dewhurst-run Senate where the senators who enjoyed the most success were in the moderate and center wings of the Republican Party. Bills opposed by these senators rarely were passed — a sharp contrast with both their more conservative colleagues as well as the most liberal members of the Democratic delegation.”

Reports of cheering from Mitch McConnell’s office just came in…

The problem with the race for Senate in Texas is that no one is focusing on it and too many people believe Dewcrist is actually conservative because he can hide behind Governor Perry’s conservative leadership and he is ostensibly pro-life. But when push comes to shove, Dewcrist has consistently been a “centrist” – which is not-too-tricky-code for future establishment hack in Washington if we don’t stand up for the only real conservative in the race, Ted Cruz.

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