“When the history of the global warming scare comes to be written, a chapter should be devoted to the way the message had to be altered to keep the show on the road. Global warming became climate change so as to be able to take the blame for cold spells and wet seasons as well as hot days. Then, to keep its options open, the movement began to talk about ‘extreme weather’.”

– Matt Ridley, “Nobody Even Calls the Weather Average,” July 9, 2013.

Last summer, global warming was blamed for firefighter deaths, more thunderstorms, and poor lobster catches.

Last fall and so far this winter, the list has grown to include:

• Trillions of dollars of storm-surge flooding
• Bigger snowfalls
• Future Winter Olympics cancellations
• Drying Great Lakes
• Increased severe U.S.

Upon a Congressional declaration of “the public interest” and to “promote the general welfare,” the Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977 centralized the federal government’s energy functions. The new agency was premised on five beliefs:

• an imminent exhaustion of oil and gas;
• problematic oil-import dependence;
• the efficacy of central planning;
• the need to commercialize renewable energy; and
• conservationism.

DOE’s rationale of market failure and government success has flipped. Today, it is government failure and market success. Oil and gas are more abundant now than 37 years ago; oil imports are decreasing to levels thought impossible just a decade ago; politically correct renewable energy remains uneconomic (note the wind industry’s dogged pursuit of the production tax credit); and mandated conservation has present costs and speculative future benefits (hence the coercion).…

• Effort to Expand California Green Power Mandate to 51% Fails
• Will California’s Green Energy Policies Fail Like Germany’s?
• Three Cities Oppose Gas Powered Plants to Replace San Onofre Nuke Plant
• Scientist Says No Reason to Shut Down San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant
• California Drought Means Less Hydropower and Higher Electricity Prices

Effort to Expand California Green Power Standard to 51% Fails

“Amendments made yesterday to state Assembly Bill 177 clarify that the 33 percent by 2020 current Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) is intended to be a floor, not a ceiling, for energy procurement. It directs all retail sellers of electricity to adopt a long-term procurement strategy to achieve a target of procuring 51 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by Dec. 31, 2030.”

– State Senator V.

[Ed. note: One of the most prolific citizen activists in the windpower-subsidy debate today is Kevon Martis, Director of the Interstate Informed Citizen’s Coalition. His testimony last week before the Ohio Senate Public Utilities Committee, with slight modification, follows.]

Senator Seitz, Vice Chairman LaRose, Ranking Member Gentile and members of the Ohio Senate Public Utilities Committee, my name is Kevon Martis. I am the volunteer director of the Interstate Informed Citizen’s Coalition, Inc. of Blissfield, MI (IICC), a bipartisan renewable energy citizen’s advocacy group.

In my role as director of IICC, I speak on behalf of the hundreds of Ohio citizens who are living on the front lines of industrial wind development that has directly resulted from the very complicated, highly intrusive mandates of Senate Bill 221 of 2008, which revised

state energy policy to address electric service price regulation, establish alternative energy benchmarks for electric distribution utilities and electric services companies, provide for the use of renewable energy credits, establish energy efficiency standards for electric distribution utilities, require greenhouse gas emission reporting and carbon dioxide control planning for utility-owned generating facilities, authorize energy price risk management contracts, and authorize for natural gas utilities revenue decoupling related to energy conservation and efficiency.