“I do, however, believe that corporations which deliberately, purposefully, maliciously and systematically sponsor climate lies should be given the death penalty.”
“The Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation, the Cooler Heads Coalition, the Global Climate Coalition, The American Enterprise Institute (ALEC), Americans for Prosperity, Heartland Institute, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), George C. Marshall Institute, the State Policy Network, The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).… these front groups are snake pits for sociopaths.”
“Koch Industries and ExxonMobil have particularly distinguished themselves as candidates for corporate death.”
– Robert Kennedy Jr., “What States’ Attorneys General Can Do About Climate Deniers,” Huffington Post, October 1, 2014.
Robert Kennedy Jr.’s screed against great American corporations is an elitist indictment against consumer preferences for affordable, reliable energy. Kennedy’s hate speech is also a confirmation about how badly the climate fanatics are losing in the court of public opinion. They are not only selling sell snake-oil alarmism to citizens and voters, the Left’s policies to date have often worked against their own ends. As James Hansen noted recently: “Big Green had a big impact on the U.S. Administration in the 1990s, deserving much ‘credit’ for the Kyoto cap-and-trade-with-offsets, which led to sharply accelerated global carbon emissions.“
The “sociopaths” charge against a number of conservative, libertarian, and centrist think tanks is hate speech that the Left claims to abhor. (Michael Mann, your lawsuit has a friend–a rarity.) Robert Kennedy Jr. is in denial; peer-reviewed physical-science articles are building a case for lower climate sensitivity, as documented by Chip Knappenberger yesterday at MasterResource.
Ken Lay and Enron must be much more to Mr. Kennedy’s liking. Here are some climate-change quotations that Mr. Kennedy can use against ExxonMobil and Koch Industries. After all, “[Enron was] the company most responsible for sparking off the greenhouse civil war in the hydrocarbon business” [Jeremy Leggett, The Carbon War (London: Penguin Books, 1999), p. 204].
Ken Lay on Climate: 1992
“I don’t know of any evidence to suggest that larger and larger accumulations of greenhouse gases–and particularly CO2 emissions–in the atmosphere has any–and I do mean any–beneficial effects for our globe and mankind.”
– Ken Lay, “If Natural Gas is the Fuel of the Future, When Does the Future Start?” Presentation before the Independent Petroleum Association of America, May 7, 1992. p. 4.
“Global climate change is … potentially … a horrendous problem. We clearly need to do a lot more scientific research and analysis before we know exactly how bad the problem might be and how best to solve it. But while this research is being done, my company has proposed … a ‘no regrets’ policy.” (Ibid.)
“While we complete the research on global warming, we have a significant opportunity to reduce one of the major causes of global warming without paying any economic penalty.”
– Interview, “Kenneth Lay: Guiding a Sustainable Energy Future,” Woodlands Forum, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Houston Advanced Research Center: 1992), p. 4.
“[A] limit on CO2 emissions is good for natural gas. I’ve never known of any industry as reluctant as the natural gas industry to push things that are good for it.” (p. 5)
– Ken Lay, “If Natural Gas is the Fuel of the Future, When Does the Future Start?” Presentation before the Independent Petroleum Association of America, May 7, 1992.
“I encourage electric utilities to plan beyond Clean Air Act compliance [with CO2 in mind].”
– Ken Lay, “The Cost Effective Link Between Robust Economic Growth and Aggressive Environmental Protection.” Presentation to Global Warming and the Earth Summit, Alliance to Save Energy Conference, June 23, 1992, p. 8.
“Global warming and CO2 emissions will be the next environmental battleground ….”
– Ken Lay, “The Cost Effective Link Between Robust Economic Growth and Aggressive Environmental Protection.” Presentation to Global Warming and the Earth Summit, Alliance to Save Energy Conference, June 23, 1992, p. 7.
Ken Lay on Climate: 1997
“It’s time to stop debating the issues surrounding climate change initiatives and focus instead on simple, realistic, cost-effective solutions. This is one area where an ounce of near-term prevention will be worth considerably more than a pound of cure later on.”
– Ken Lay, “Let’s Have an Ounce of Global-Warming Prevention,” Houston Chronicle, December 5, 1997.
“To solve the climate change problem, we need to implement those systems that reward people for saving energy, reducing emissions, and building a culture that identifies and corrects inefficient use of resources.”
– Ken Lay, “Let’s Have an Ounce of Global-Warming Prevention,” Houston Chronicle, December 5, 1997.
“The international climate change treaty negotiations in Kyoto offer the chance to prevent … a global warming scenario that might otherwise prove extremely expensive.”
– Ken Lay, “Let’s Have an Ounce of Global-Warming Prevention,” Houston Chronicle, December 5, 1997.
But a Confession…
Privately, Ken Lay’s green postering on climate change was about money. He had previously been a coal-too man. [1] But beginning with natural gas, Enron came to have a half-dozen profit centers around CO2 pricing.
Most of all, Lay was playing a trend. “If there is one thing I have been impressed with over the last decades, it is that when the environmental community defines a number one priority, something happens,” he remarked in 1997. “Not always something good—but something.” [2]
And sure enough, the great global warming scare is confronted with flat temperatures rather than rising ones. Would Enron’s founder and architect be surprised that global temperatures were no higher today than back in Enron’s heyday?
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[1] See Bradley, Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies (2011), p. 298 (at Florida Gas Company) and p. 345 (at Transco Energy).
[2] Ken Lay, “The Energy Industry in the Next Century: Opportunities and Constraints,” in Irwin Stelzer. ed., Energy After 2000 (VIII Repsol-Harvard Seminar, June 1997), 21.
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