Rent Seeking with Global Warming: From Enron to California AB 32

By Tom Tanton -- August 24, 2010 6 Comments

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, is a co-chair of the committee supporting the California citizens’ ballot initiative, Proposition to suspend California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32).

The mainstream media has perpetuated a misperception that the Proposition 23 to suspend AB 32 is the work of, and funded by, sinsiter out-of-stater parties. That’s neither a real issue (what happens in California affects everybody) nor factually correct.

I can attest to the homegrown nature, having been involved for over four years—essentially since AB32 was first passed in 2006, as have others. The funding for opposition to the initiative has gotten very little attention by MSM, a phenomenon Mr. Coupal begins to correct in his featured column, reproduced below with permission, on the popular website FlashReport.

His editorial links Enron to regulating carbon dioxide (CO2).…

Continue Reading

Obama Gives Oil and Gas a Cold Shoulder (Ducking Houston on his recent visit)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 18, 2010 5 Comments

President Obama did not include Houston on his visit to Texas last week rallying his base and raising funds for Democrats for the November elections. The President was originally expected to be here but ended up in Austin and Dallas. Was this bypass a duck-out? After all, Congressman Kevin Brady (R. Tx.) pointedly invited the president to meet face-to-face with Houston energy workers on the other Gulf Crisis—the federal offshore drilling moratorium that threatens tens of thousands of jobs here and in much of the Gulf Coast region.

Sure, Obama’s Texas visit was not about helping Republican candidates or hosting a Tea Party event. But why couldn’t the president reserve an hour to talk to workers whose livelihoods depend on Houston’s largest industry – an industry that is being victimized by the President’s everyone-is-guilty drilling policy?…

Continue Reading

BP Fools the “Socially Responsible” Investors (‘Green’ Enron did too)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 20, 2010 3 Comments

“The BP incident highlights big differences in how socially responsible funds prioritize various causes. Some of these managers considered BP’s stance on climate change a strong positive. ‘BP was the first to break the logjam on climate change policy’ and had been a leader on alternative energy, says Mark Regier, director of stewardship investing for MMA Praxis.”

– Quoted in Eleanor Laise, “Oops: ‘Socially Responsible’ Funds Hold Big Stakes of BP,” Wall Street Journal, July 17–18, 2010.

The greenwashing strategy of BP and Enron has been the subject of three recent posts at MasterResource:

They Loved BP and Enron: Climate Alarmism as the Great Environmental Distraction (Part I: Worldwatch Institute quotations)

BP’s ‘Beyond Petroleum’: Climate Alarmism as the Great Environmental Distraction (Part II: Why the ‘greenwashing’?)

Harvard Business Review Article: BP as Environmental Role Model (Part III on global warming as the great environmental distraction)

Don’t believe that “Beyond Petroleum” BP fooled the politically correct after Enron and even all the way up to the Deepwater  Horizon explosion/Gulf spill of April 2010?…

Continue Reading

2Q-2010 MasterResource Update: The Progress Continues

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 3, 2010 1 Comment

MasterResource, a free-market energy blog, continues to attract new talent and a growing audience. We have had approximately 45 authors to date, and our cumulative views have exceeded one-half million.

We are not a mega-blog, but we are an important addition to the energy literature that will, like a good book, be accessed and referenced for years to come.

At Technorati, MasterResource has consistently been in the top 25 (out of 1,550) “green” blogs and has reached as high as #7. But more importantly, serious students of energy policy are regulars at our site, reading our once-a-day, in-depth post or tracking down material on what Enron/Ken Lay really did, what Jim Hansen or John Holdren really said, or what BP was doing under John Browne. We preserve the excesses of the smartest-guys-in-the-energy-room for posterity.…

Continue Reading

Harvard Business Review Article: BP as Environmental Role Model (Part III on global warming as the great environmental distraction)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 1, 2010 7 Comments Continue Reading

BP’s ‘Beyond Petroleum’: Climate Alarmism as the Great Environmental Distraction (Part II: Why the ‘greenwashing’?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 29, 2010 3 Comments Continue Reading

They Loved BP and Enron: Climate Alarmism as the Great Environmental Distraction (Part I: Worldwatch Institute quotations)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 28, 2010 12 Comments Continue Reading

Kerry–Lieberman: A “Simple” 987-page Bill? (Enron postmodernism in a Senator’s voice)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 19, 2010 6 Comments Continue Reading

ENRON APPLAUDS SENATE CAP-AND-TAX PROPOSAL

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 12, 2010 No Comments Continue Reading

The Insull Speech of 1898: Call for Public Utility Regulation of Electricity (The origins of EEI’s support for cap-and-trade in today’s energy/climate bill)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 29, 2010 12 Comments Continue Reading