The Orange Menace Must Be Defeated-- Biden Needs To Rev Up The Democratic Base

I feel like Trump is slitting his own throat and, in fact, he's already a dead-man-walking in terms of the November election. That's my opinion and not everyone agrees with me. But polls show most voters have made up their minds and will not be swayed and a majority of them have made up their minds to oppose trump, whether they like Biden or not. In fact, stunning numbers of voters are just motivated to cast ballots against Trump, not for Biden. On his blog yesterday, David Sirota took it a step further and noted that "As Biden has ignored the Democratic base, polls now show he faces an enthusiasm gap. Progressive pressure is needed to force him to energize Democratic voters and defeat Trump. The survey data is clear: One of the biggest threats to defeating Donald Trump in the upcoming election is a Democratic enthusiasm gap. It exists, in part, because Democratic voters spent the last 12 years voting for change, and now they are exhausted after they kept getting a status quo that gratuitously kicks the face of humanity. The enthusiasm gap also exists because Joe Biden has seemed more focused on trying to court Republicans in ways that can demotivate Democratic voters. Progressives sounding alarms about these facts are periodically depicted as seditious Russian-backed assets nefariously trying to throw the election to Trump."

Most [progressives] criticize Biden not just because some of his policies are so wrong on the merits, but also because his wrongness is a clear and present danger to the effort to win the 2020 election.

A comparison of Biden’s positions and polling suggest that this danger is now very real, even though the Democratic ticket still could win.

Biden has continued to oppose Medicare for All, even as polls show the health care crisis has made that proposal even more popular.

Biden has used the wildfire season to declare that he won’t ban fracking-- a move portrayed in the media as a way to court Pennsylvania voters, even though a new poll shows a majority of voters there oppose fracking.

I remember when Matt Cartwright challenged Blue Dog incumbent, Rep. Tim Holden. Holden basically represented the fracking interests inside the House Democratic caucus and Cartwright made his own opposition to fracking the issue. Blue America put up anti-fracking billboards all over the district. Thewhole Democratic establishment-- especially Steny Hoyer-- came out strong for Holden. The Democratic establishment said an anti-fracking platform would never win in northeastern Pennsylvania. In a leans-Republican district, Cartwright beat Holden 33,255 (57.1%) to 24,953 (42.9%) and then went on to beat pro-fracking Republican Laureen Cummings 161,393 (60.3%) to 106,208 (39.7%). The GOP has been throwing candidates up against Cartwright-- whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus-- even since and, aside from screaming "Socialist!!!!" and "Pelosi" (and now "AOC and Ilhan"), they campaign against him on fracking as well. Since Cummings, he's beaten all 3 pro-fracking Republicans they ran against him-- even in 2016, when Trump won the district against Hillary by 10 points. They're trying again now and if you want to help Matt keep his seat, you can contribute here. 

Cartwright is backing Biden and I'm sure will be a good influence on him when he's in the White House. Back to Sirota:

Biden engineered a Democratic convention promoting GOP politicians as a way to try to make this “the year of the Biden Republican,” as Rahm Emanuel put it. And yet, a recent CBS/YouGov poll shows Biden is earning the support of just 5 percent of Republican voters and trailing Trump among independent swing voters.

The Biden-Sanders task forces produced some solid progressive economic policy recommendations, but Biden hasn’t campaigned on those proposals. Instead, his campaign publicly downplayed the recommendations, while Biden has continued to periodically echo his infamous “nothing would fundamentally change” theme by telling donors he may not actually push those policies. Now, one poll shows him underperforming among some Latino voters and another poll shows just 9 percent of his own voters say they are supporting him because of his position on issues.

...To be sure, enthusiasm may not determine the election outcomes-- an excited voter’s ballot is no less powerful than a depressed voter’s ballot, and as long as both ballots are turned in, then enthusiasm levels don’t matter. But enthusiasm tends to relate to turnout, and it could particularly determine turnout at a moment when some Americans will be required to be so psyched about the election that they are willing to venture out during a pandemic to cast their vote.

In that situation, enthusiasm probably matters a lot-- which means an enthusiasm gap could be a big problem.

...Voters aren’t unreasonable “purists” because they are unhappy that Democrats don’t seem to be offering policies that will prevent communities from being incinerated in climate-intensified wildfires. They aren’t “holier than thou” by expressing dissatisfaction with a Democratic Party still propping up a for-profit health care system that threatens to quickly bankrupt people when they need medical care.

At a moment of such pain and suffering, attempting to guilt, insult and bully voters into supporting the Democratic cause is moronic and ineffective-- and worse, it is ignorant of millions of Americans’ lived reality over the last 12 years. The Democratic electorate has voted over and over and over again for change, and their party’s leaders have returned the favor with bank bailouts, record oil exports during a climate emergency, an abandonment of the labor movement, corporate-written trade policies that crush workers and health care reform that props up insurance profits.

Who could experience the real-world consequences of that and not feel a wee bit frustrated?

Like? Click.

Yes, wanting voters to throw Trump out of office is totally understandable-- he is far more dangerous than Biden, he must be defeated, and there are plenty of constructive ways to make the case that voters should back the Democratic ticket (which I’ve said before is what I’ll be doing). But vote-shaming isn’t one of them. Indeed, throwing shade at voters for feeling burnt out and unenthused is the modern-day “let them eat cake”-- and the impulse to engage in as self-destructive a tactic as vote-shaming evinces the dangerous ideology at work here.

You’ll notice that Democratic vote-shamers rarely complain the other way. Typically, they lament progressive pressure, but don’t lament big donors constantly demanding ideological fealty to an incrementalist corporate agenda that makes sure nothing fundamentally changes-- which inevitably leads to voter disillusionment.

They celebrate efforts to policy pander to affluent conservatives, but scoff at the notion of having to do any work to secure support from disaffected lower income Americans who might consider sitting the election out or voting third party because they are so completely disgusted with both parties.

In this world view, Democrats promising tax breaks to wealthy suburbanites is seen as laudable pragmatism and shrewd politics to attract affluent Republicans. By contrast, the idea of having to promise a Green New Deal to young people who see a lifetime of climate dystopia and think about voting third party-- that’s seen as uncouth behavior and detestable pandering to petulant serfs who supposedly don’t deserve even minimal respect or attention. The political class tells us to pay them no mind-- they are the electoral arena’s “no real person involved.”

As an election strategy, this attitude presumes that Chuck Schumer was right in 2016 when he insisted that “for every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”

Of course, that theory has been electorally shellacked for a decade. And yet, these Democratic elites adhere to it-- and vote-shame anyone who questions it-- not because it has been successful and is the best strategy to win back Congress, expand health care or save the planet from climate change. They cling to the hypothesis because it at least provides a rationale-- however absurd-- to continue running campaigns whose number one directive is comforting the donor class.

More than even defeating Trump, satisfying the big contributors is the top priority because at least that is guaranteed to keep their checks going to Washington super PACs, consulting firms, think tanks and advocacy groups that are the permanent full-time employment machine for the entire Democratic political class, regardless of whether that political class ever actually wins elections or materially improves the lives of voters.

As long as donor maintenance is the prime directive and the money keeps flowing, that political class will be safely insulated in their second homes in the Hamptons, still getting the big TV invites and the fat corporate lobbying contracts even if Trump wins.

The rest of us, though, are screwed in a second Trump term. We don’t have vacation compounds, escape pods or endless cash reserves for the basic necessities of life-- and so we do not have the luxury and privilege of staying silent while Biden’s corporate-friendly politics and nothing-will-fundamentally-change message elicits an enthusiasm gap that could blow this election.

When, for instance, Bernie Sanders politely suggested that Biden needs to amplify a stronger economic message and “do more as a campaign than just go after Trump,” that wasn’t apostasy-- that was much-needed encouragement for Biden to do the most basic things to actually win the race.

When progressives criticized Biden for loading up his transition team with corporate cronies, that wasn’t some evil plot to tank the Democratic ticket-- it was an effort to root out the soft corruption that has defined Democratic politics for three decades and that has contributed to voters being unenthused about the party.

When progressives wondered aloud why Biden was giving a platform to unpopular Republican politicians like John Kasich at the Democratic convention, it wasn’t some pointless temper tantrum-- it was an attempt to steer Biden away from touting the GOP politicians who turn off Democratic voters and toward generating the massive Democratic turnout that will be necessary to defeat the current president.

When this newsletter spotlighted Biden’s campaign using GOP talking points and suggesting he will not follow through on his campaign promises, that wasn’t a display of purity trolling-- it was a warning that such messages were not only dishonest but potentially vote-depressing. And when Team Biden then backed off, that’s not something to complain about-- that’s a victory not just for better policy, but also for the campaign to defeat Trump.

That’s a different interpretation than you are probably used to seeing. After all, in our red-versus-blue, with-us-or-against-us tribalized politics, loyalty is venerated as the ultimate value. But here’s the thing: Loyalty is not falling in line and shutting up while leaders coddle donors and create a dangerous voter enthusiasm gap.

That’s political suicide-- and all of us who do not want to see another election-night disaster have an obligation to speak up and try to avert it before it happens.

Former Republican Congressman Joe Barton Proudly Explains How He And His Cronies Helped Destroy Planet Earth

Joe Barton (Villain-TX)

Republican former Congressman Joe Barton is a 70 year old energy lobbyist now. Once he was the all-powerful chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as the dean of the Texas congressional delegation. His dream was the deregulation of electric and gas-- and everything else. Barton, one of Congress' most corrupt members, was the ultimate climate change denier. After a trove of pornographic selfies of Barton surfaced in 2017, he announced he would not seek reelection in 2018. On Sunday, Barton wrote a long column, I knew my bill to lift the ban on U.S. oil exports was important. I hardly expected it to change the world for the Dallas Morning News. He has hardly reformed his views but the column condemns himself and his congressional cronies who seems to have set out to make global warming even worse.

To this day, the only person to serve in the House who solicited and accepted more bribes from the Energy Sector than Joe Barton ($4,626,327) was former Speaker John Boehner ($4,909,902). In 2014, his donors wanted one thing really badly-- and Barton delivered for them. In his own words: "I started hearing from oil companies about a new idea, to lift an old ban on oil exports... I agreed to try. As a longtime member of Congress, I knew this would be a long and difficult road that would require bipartisan cooperation, and I couldn’t guarantee success. At the time, I hardly understood how lifting this one rule could change the world."

Repeal was not initially popular, as many environmental groups wanted to restrict oil and gas production, not create new markets for it. Undaunted, several companies and individuals decided it was a job that needed to be done.

On Dec. 9, 2014, I introduced the bill. It had seven co-sponsors, all Republicans, including one Texan, Mike Conaway of Midland.

...On Feb. 4, 2015, I introduced HR 666. My staff immediately demanded I reintroduce the bill to get a better number. So I hurried back to the House floor and reintroduced the identical bill, but with a new number. HR 702 had 37 original co-sponsors, all Republicans.

Having only Republican sponsors was a big problem. In 2015, the Republicans had a comfortable majority in the House, but the bill would have to pass in the Senate and gain President Barack Obama’s signature. Obama was opposed to another energy issue of the time, the Keystone oil pipeline, and would later veto that bill when it came to his desk.

I needed Democratic support. Not just nominal support, but active participation in the effort to pass the bill. One of the seldom-discussed truths about Congress is that while most of the media attention goes to the bomb-throwers on both sides of the aisle, the way to actually pass law that improves the lives of everyday Americans is work together. Ideally, my Democratic leader should be a member of the Energy and Commerce committee, which had primary jurisdiction over the bill.

I asked Gene Green, from Houston, to be my primary Democrat sponsor. He was interested, but numerous refineries in his district were opposed to the bill, and he also was concerned about creating a totally open market for crude exports. My bill was only two pages long, and expressly prohibited any federal agency or official from imposing permits or restrictions on crude oil exports. The president would retain his emergency power to stop exports in an emergency.

So Green said no, as did Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas agreed to co-sponsor, but she didn’t want to be the lead Democrat. I turned to Henry Cuellar of Laredo, a member of the powerful appropriations committee with a history of working across the aisle. Plus, the Eagle Ford Shale was in his South Texas district. He needed time to consider the bill and communicate with people in his district. After about a month, he agreed to be the lead Democrat.

Of the 137 co-sponsors, 15 were scummy crooked Democrats, starting with Texas Blue Dog Henry Cuellar. He was followed by Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Ed Perlmutter (New Dem-CO), Marc Veasey (New Dem-TX), Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA), David Scott (Blue Dog-GA), Tim Ryan (D-OH), Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN), Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ), Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR), Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA), Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX), Tony Cárdenas (D-CA) and Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL). It passed on October 9, 2015, 261-159. 6 Republicans and 153 Democrats voted against it. 26 Democrats voted in favor, the co-sponsors and a batch of other corrupt, easily bought whores including-- Lacy Clay (D-MO), Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Ann Kirkpatrick (New Dem-AZ), Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY), Beto O'Rourke (New Dem-TX), Cedric Richmond (New Dem-LA), Albio Sires (D-NJ), Stephen Lynch (New Dem-MA) and Filemon Vela (Blue Dog-TX).

Milwaukie, Oregon's progressive mayor, Mark Gamba, is running for the seat held by Kurt Schrader, who backed Barton's efforts to repeal the export ban. "This," he told us today, "is a prime example of why blue dog, 'moderate democrats', are in some ways more dangerous than Republicans. This bill would not have passed without their capitulation. Billions of gallons of American Oil would not currently be filling our atmosphere with carbon and other pollutants. Please note also, this bill kept the price of crude oil down worldwide when the Iranians attacked the Saudi oil fields! That is exactly the opposite of what is called for if we hope to curb the worst effects of the looming climate catastrophe! This is a perfect example of the lies that Kurt Schrader tells when he pretends to care about climate change. Stopping this one bill would have made a world of difference and passing it did nothing to benefit his district and most certainly sped up the climate chaos. Keep in mind that he is the leader of the blue dog caucus, his decision to support this bill undoubtedly brought many more democrats in line with the republican’s wishes. When I get into office, one of my top priorities will be to reinstate the ban. It’s really unfortunate that real Democrats have to work to fix problems that supposed Democrats caused in the first place."

Boston conservative New Dem Stephen Lynch, a longtime Climate Crisis denier, voted with Barton as well. His progressive primary opponent, Brianna Wu," sees a pattern in Lynch's conservatism. "Even though Stephen Lynch was against impeachment from the beginning, I'm sure a part of him is glad the hearings are finally happening.  He's one of those conservative establishment Democrats who want to silence the majority of us who want a more progressive agenda.  The differences between Lynch and myself are probably too many to mention, but I'll try.  I was for impeachment since before the Mueller Report; Lynch said we hadn't "made the case" and we would get Trump re-elected.  I support a Green New Deal; Lynch says it's too aspirational and we have 100 years to address climate change.  I support Medicare For All; Lynch says he isn't convinced it will work.  I could go on, but you get the idea.  Take a look at Lynch's donors and you'll see why he is beholden to the establishment and is not going to waiver. Lynch actually had the audacity to run for chair of the House Oversight Committee after being against impeachment until the very end.  My campaign launched an effort to tell Congress to say no to Lynch, and we won.  We will defeat Lynch in 2020.  Whether the establishment wants to admit it or not, the progressive movement is alive and well, and we will win in 2020 and beyond."

HR 702 had a reasonable number of co-sponsors, and it was bipartisan. So far, so good. But, to become law, it needed much, much, more. It needed a Senate companion bill with bipartisan Senate leadership. It needed to be blessed, or at least not opposed, by House and Senate party leadership. It needed to be passed by at least one of the congressional chambers as a stand-alone bill. It needed support from as many outside groups as possible and, conversely, to be opposed by as few outside groups as possible.

Last, but not least, it would be very helpful if the president supported it, because it would take a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate to override his veto. What we needed, in short, was a coordinated, organized strategy and a plan to implement that strategy.

The first order of business was to get Fred Upton, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce committee, on board. He agreed to support the bill. House Speaker John Boehner didn’t promise active support, but he thought the bill was a good idea and should be given a chance. In a similar fashion, the republican majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, gave his approval.

On the Democrat side, Cuellar and I both knew we couldn’t get the support of Democratic House leadership, but we hoped we could persuade them to be neutral. Nancy Pelosi, minority leader at the time, and assistant minority leader Steny Hoyer both agreed to let the bill, if it came to the floor, be a “free” vote. What this meant was while they would vote against the bill, they wouldn’t ask the Democratic whip to recommend a “no” vote or the House Democratic caucus to make it a binding “no” vote. Persuading the House Democratic leadership to take a hands-off approach was a major tactical and strategic victory. It would not have happened without Cuellar’s active leadership.

Meanwhile, I met with my Texas senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and obtained their support. I also asked for and received the support of the chairwoman of the Senate energy committee, Lisa Murkowski.

Murkowski was trying to move a comprehensive energy bill through the Senate, and she felt adding the export ban repeal would strengthen her larger bill. As it turned out, her bill didn’t move, but including the export ban repeal helped with the Senate later at the end of the year. Cornyn got the endorsement of Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell.

On the Democratic side, Cuellar and I met with Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, another area of intense shale oil activity. She agreed to be the lead Senate Democrat, and she worked tirelessly to get her fellow Senate Democrats to vote yes.

...Environmental groups opposed the bill out of concern it would also inhibit switching to alternative, green energy. The environmentalists wanted to keep our oil in the ground. Luckily, their top legislative priority was stopping the Keystone oil pipeline, so while they opposed HR 702, they did not wage all-out war against it.

...What do oil executives think of the results? Pioneer’s Sheffield said, “When the Iranians attacked the Saudi oil fields, the world price of oil would have gone to over $200 a barrel,” if not for the repeal of the export ban.

And Jim Teague, chief executive of Enterprise Products, the country’s largest exporter of crude oil, said, “Without the crude oil export ban repeal, the United States would not be producing half of the oil it is today because it could not be exported.”

Justin Miller, who covers politics for the Texas Observer, noted in a series of tweets on Sunday that Bernie, Warren, Booker are among those who say they will reinstate the ban. Status Quo Joe, Mayo Pete, Kamala and Castro haven't announced their stands. "It's hard to overstate just how significant the effect of ending the crude oil export ban has been-- both as a huge boon for the ONG industry and as a huge blow to the keep-it-in-the-ground movement. Hard to put this boom back in the box," he wrote. "Interestingly, Barton contends that passage was much smoother than anticipated because enviro groups were focused mostly on the Keystone pipeline fight. (26 Dems ended up voting to lift the ban)... There's some interesting nuggets in this though. Barton explains how Henry Cuellar was critical to getting Dem leadership to stay neutral, freeing up ONG lobbying campaign to court dozens of House Dems."

"I Used To Think I Could Live With Fracking"-- Guest Post By Pennsylvania State Senator Daylin Leach

Recently, my staff and I toured fracking sites in Washington County near Pittsburgh. Our tour included well-heads, pipeline construction and related infrastructure. We also met with numerous residents and local officials effected by fracking. As a member of my state senate’s “Environmental Resource and Energy” Committee, I have read a great deal about fracking, and I have participated in dozens of hearings on the topic. Yet, until I actually flew out to see what was happening for myself, I didn’t fully grasp exactly what living in a hot-bed of fracking is like. In many ways, this trip was an epiphany for me.

I used to think I could live with fracking. We were told, by both Democratic and Republican administrations, that fracking was a much cleaner alternative to the coal my state produces so much of. It was a ramp down on the road towards a fully-renewable society. Plus, it was going to be an economic life-line for a part of the state that desperately needs one. I thought that as long as we taxed it for good purposes, fracking was a relatively benign form of energy.

However, over the past couple years, I’ve nursed growing doubts about my position. The more I read, the more I saw what was happening in other states and what those states were doing about it, and the more I spoke with the members of my staff who have toured western Pennsylvania repeatedly, the more suspicious I became that I had been sold a bill of goods. That’s why I decided to head out west to see for myself. As I took tour after tour in Washington County, I came to see that I was very wrong. After this tour, my growing concerns about fracking are an abstraction no more. What we saw was very real, and it was devastating.

As we toured well pads, the paths of pipelines, the “swimming pools” which held fracking water and the new roads winding through people’s property, it became clear how the thousands of wells dotting western Pennsylvania are decimating the environment and destroying lives. People can’t pull out of their driveways in the morning. People can’t sleep because the process is loud. People are being pitted against each other as the shale industry tells one neighbor that he can’t make any money because another neighbor won’t agree to let them use her property. Creeks and streams are being polluted. But most consequentially, people are getting sick.

While the environmental impact was troubling, the human impact was almost unbearable. We met a woman named Janis who lost her son to Ewing’s Sarcoma, one of the rare cancers appearing with shocking frequency throughout shale-country. And we met another woman who started losing her teeth shortly after fracking came to her neighborhood. Her skin is covered with pink splotches and her mouth always tastes of aluminum. Four of her cats have died young in the past year. We met numerous others who described similar symptoms.

Obviously, people who are dealing with a situation like this are almost always trapped. Their houses are virtually worthless, so they can’t sell them and move to a safer community. One of the most heartbreaking things we encountered were the tearful people who desperately want to move and stop exposing themselves and their families to what they perceive to be poison, but there is simply no way for them to do that.

It’s easy to understand why people are deceived. Most of the emissions are invisible to the naked eye. It all seems so clean. But if you look through the lens of an infrared camera, you see toxic discharge belching into the air. We also learned how the glut of methane means that the sale of ethane is how the wells really make money. Ethane is destined for the “cracker plant” in Potter Township along the Ohio River where it is converted into “nurdles”, tiny plastic pellets which last virtually forever and are the cause of much of the plastic pollution inundating our landfills and oceans.

We were also told that the industry also invests heavily in local supervisor and judicial elections, so people who complain have no redress from officials who owe their position to the frackers. They fracking companies also give donations to local libraries or little league teams to build good will in the community. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. But the people fighting to protect community health and the environment can’t match, so their voices are often drowned out.

This is only a small sample of what we saw in Washington County. I deeply regret my earlier belief that regulation and taxation could make fracking palatable for Pennsylvania. It’s clear to me now that we have no choice but to end it now, and I have just introduced legislation to do just that.

Will The Climate Crisis Be The Deciding Factor Of 2020?

The 10 most recent polls that measured the public's feelings about voting for Congress next year all came up with the same conclusion-- that the Democrats have this one. The polling average is about 6 points in the Democrats' favor with a Morning Consult poll from this week showing the Democrats ahead by 12 points, enough the flip the 50 seats we're looking for. Going all the way back to January, there have been 63 polls asking this question and only one showed a tie. The other 62 showed the Democrats ahead.

In part this is being pushed by an expected voter-turnout tsunami. If Bernie is the nominee... what's bigger than a tsunami? Other than Bernie, Trump fuels the eagerness for voters-- in this far out-- to get to the polls. And most have only one goal: to vote him and his Republican enablers out of office.

Most Democrats have nothing to offer other than "Trump is bad; we're not as bad." Conventional wisdom journalist Ron Brownstein reported in The Atlantic that "signs are growing that voter turnout in 2020 could reach the highest levels in decades-- if not the highest in the past century-- with a surge of new voters potentially producing the most diverse electorate in American history... In a recent paper, the Democratic voter-targeting firm Catalist projected that about 156 million people could vote in 2020, an enormous increase from the 139 million who cast ballots in 2016... [A]s many as two-thirds of eligible voters may vote next year. If that happens, it would represent the highest presidential-year turnout since 1908, when 65.7 percent of eligible Americans cast a ballot, according to McDonald’s figures. Since 18-year-olds were granted the vote, the highest showing was the 61.6 percent of eligible voters who showed up in 2008, leading to Barack Obama’s victory. And since World War II, the highest turnout level came in 1960, with John F. Kennedy’s win, when 63.8 percent of voters participated... [T]he clearest sign that high turnout may be approaching in 2020 is that it already arrived in 2018. In last year’s midterm, nearly 120 million people voted, about 35 million more than in the previous midterm, in 2014, with 51 percent of eligible voters participating-- a huge increase over the previous three midterms. The 2018 level represented the largest share of eligible voters to turn out in a midterm year since 1914, according to McDonald’s figures. Catalist estimated that about 14 million new voters who had not participated in 2016 turned out two years later, and they preferred Democrats by a roughly 20-percentage-point margin."

OK, now here's the important part:

The nature of the population eligible to vote is evolving in a way that should indeed help Democrats. McDonald estimates that the number of eligible voters increases by about 5 million each year, or about 20 million from one presidential election to the next. That increase predominantly flows from two sources: young people who turn 18 and immigrants who become citizens. Since people of color are now approaching a majority of the under-18 population-- and also constitute most immigrants-- McDonald and other experts believe it’s likely that minorities represent a majority of the people who have become eligible to vote since 2016.

The generational contrast in the eligible voting pool is also stark. States of Change, a nonpartisan project studying shifts in the electorate, projects that Millennials (born, according to the organization’s definition, from 1981 to 2000) will constitute 34.2 percent of eligible voters next year. Post-Millennials (born after 2000) will make up another 3.4 percent. That means those two groups combined will virtually equal the share of eligible voters composed of Baby Boomers (28.4 percent) and the Silent and Greatest Generations (another 9.4 percent).

These shifts have enormous implications because of the generational gulf in attitudes toward Trump and the parties more broadly. His approval rating has consistently lagged among the more racially diverse, socially tolerant younger generations. Though Trump and the GOP have shown some signs of weakness recently among seniors, he has generally polled much better among voters older than 50, in part because a much larger share of Americans in that cohort are white.

But it isn't just racial diversity and social tolerance that's working against conservatives. Among Millennials, the existential danger of Climate Change is the single most important issue and they're aware that Republicans-- and to a lesser extent conservative Democrats-- are not paying attention-- or worse-- to a world hurtling towards disaster. Earlier today we looked at the elections between 1928 and 1936, where Republican majorities in the Senate (56 Republicans to 39 Democrats) and House (270 Republicans to 164 Democrats) flipped to 74 Democrats, 17 Republicans and 4 Democratic allies in the Senate and an astonishing 334 Democrats and 88 Republicans and 13 Democratic allies in the House. In 4 consecutive election cycles the House Republicans went from 270 seats to 88 seats. That's when the Democrats knew who they were and what they were offering voters, long before they decided to go with flaccid, meaningless non-leaders like Pelosi, Hoyer, Bustos, Luján, Jeffries, Schumer and the rest of the garbage the Democrats have calling the shots.

The Green New Deal inspires millennial voters the way the turgid and lesser-of-two-evils Democratic Party couldn't hope to-- at least not under the geriatric and visionless leaders now guiding it. Pelosi is so clueless that she is openly fighting it-- as are the most clueless of the presidential candidates. That video up top was made by Action Network. Lauren Windsor was ta the Democratic Party State Convention a couple of weeks ago, interviewing politicians of all stripes about banning fracking and ending spending on fossil fuel infrastructure. "Democrats," she wrote, "historically have embraced the so-called 'bridge' fuel as a middle-ground approach to solving climate change, but methane leaks wipe out the emissions advantage over coal, and fracking pollutes water tables and causes earthquakes... Natural gas is a bridge fuel to nowhere in terms of solving the climate crisis."

First up was the easiest-- Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who is 100% there. Second looked like he might eb trouble. Adam Schiff is a Blue Dog who turned New Dem and who has been a career-long conservative... but one who has been moving with the times. Schiff told Windsor exactly what he's been telling his constituents. He signed on as an ordinal co-sponsor of AOC's Green New Deal Resolution and he supports a ban on fracking, which he said he "strongly" opposes. Cory Booker avoided the question clumsily but Katie Hill, reticently admitted she supports all the right anti-fracking measures. Mike Levin was more aggressively anti-fracking and "absolutely" agreed that we're in a climate crisis which he was comfortably able to expound upon. Same for Ro Khanna. It's interesting to watch politicians who are comfortable talking about the topic-- like Khanna and Levin and Hill once her handler got out of the way and let her be herself-- as compared to politicians less sure of themselves on the topic. It's kind of wonderful when you don't have to pressure politicians to do the right thing because they want to do the right thing. Her last interview was with the only real asshole she had to deal with Colorado's ex-Governor John Frackenlooper. "John Hickenlooper, she told me today "is known as 'Frackenlooper' by environmental activists for his love of natural gas as a bridge fuel. He once drank fracking fluid to prove that it was safe. Now that he’s running for president-- and climate change has become a focal point of the race due to the Green New Deal-- he’s tap dancing around that position by supporting essentially an 'all-of-the-above' energy strategy."

Fracking Has Brought the World to the Brink of Disaster

From this video. The original graph contained global warming data through 2010 and predictions after that. The video author added the red dots, which show actual global warming data for 2011–2017. Note that the red dots are not just above all of the scenarios, including the "reference" or "no countermeasures" scenario. They're also above the 5%–95% band of uncertainty around the reference scenario. In other words, in 2010 the authors of the study considered each recorded data point from 2011 to 2017 to be "highly unlikely" at the time the study was published, each one in the 5% least likely of outcomes.

by Gaius Publius

It's worth looking at two recent pieces from the climate front, not for what they say as their main points, but for two smaller points buried within them.

Two Degrees Warming Is a Ceiling, Not a Target

The first piece is by Jeffrey Sachs, writing in Canada's Globe and Mail. His main argument is that Canada should abandon its plans to build pipelines to carry doomed Alberta tar sands to market and instead build out a smart energy grid connected to the U.S. energy grid to leverage and store  both nation's renewable power capabilities.

About that, Sachs writes:

Oil seems to make politicians lose their bearings. The get-rich-quick mentality or too-much-to-lose thinking is very hard to overcome. Thus, two of Canada’s most progressive leaders, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, have both doubled down recently on Alberta oil sands and the pipelines to carry them to world markets. Whether Kinder Morgan’s controversial Trans Mountain expansion through British Columbia is built, or the company steps away from the project, remains uncertain. Either way, the truth is that Alberta oil sands have absolutely no place in a climate-safe world. Investing in them is almost surely to be investing in a future bankruptcy. [...]

One impulse wants to say to Kinder Morgan and TransCanada, “Okay, build the pipelines. Then we will bankrupt you.” But admirers and friends of Canada should speak honestly to friends. “Don’t waste your hard-earned money on the Trans Mountain and Keystone XL pipelines. Spend your money on sustainable projects tapping Canada’s abundant zero-carbon energy.”

Why is bankruptcy of these pipeline projects inevitable? In the long term, global warming will destroy all investment in fossil fuels (or fossil fuels will destroy us, I hasten to add). But in the short term, it's simple economics (my emphasis throughout):

The world already has vastly more proven reserves of oil and gas than it can safely burn, and a glut of reserves at far lower production costs than Alberta’s oil sands. The marginal costs of the oil sands are typically estimated to be around US$60 per barrel, yet the world will find itself awash in US$30-per-barrel oil as world demand is cut back in the future. There is no way that Alberta’s oil will maintain a profitable niche in a world that is ending its dependence on oil.

"Marginal cost" is the cost of producing additional oil after all needed infrastructure is in place. It's the cost of producing "the next barrel" in an ongoing operation. Clearly, $30 oil trumps $60 oil as energy producers chase each other in a desperate attempt to monetize as much of this doomed asset as they can.

Sachs points out that Canada is already a world leader in energy production from renewable sources: "The share of renewables in Canada’s power generation is already among the highest in the world, exceeded only by Norway, New Zealand, Brazil, and Austria, and roughly the same as Denmark. Yet far more is possible."

All good to know. Yet in that piece is this disturbing data point:

Even with the amount of global warming to date (1.1 degrees C above the preindustrial average temperature), the world is experiencing record hot temperatures, devastating heat waves, droughts, extreme floods, and increasingly frequent high-intensity storms and hurricanes. Climate attribution science links these extreme events to human-induced warming. With two degrees or more of warming, the world could well experience a devastating rise in the ocean level, as well as devastating losses and dislocations from crop failures, temperature-linked diseases, invasive species, forest fires, and mega-storms.

Ignore that Sachs' description of where global warming, as measured by atmospheric surface temperature, is today. "1.1 degrees C above the preindustrial average temperature" is way too low an estimation, as I and others have pointed out many times before. See "Global Warming Has Reached Nearly +1.5°C Already," or look at slides 2 and 3 here.

Slide 3 from this presentation showing global warming since 1850 relative to an 1850–1900 baseline. Slide 2 shows the same data as an animated GIF.

Concentrate instead on Sachs' description of a world with two degrees or more of warming: devastating sea level rise; devastating losses from famine, disease, fire and storms. He missed or under-emphasized other catastrophic effects, like economic collapses, the mass migrations we're already starting to see, and the endless wars they will inevitably cause (which we're also already starting to see).

In other words, two degrees of warming isn't a floor for our aspirations ("we hope to stay below two degrees warming"), but a ceiling for our safety ("above two degrees is a world of hurt").

Two Degrees Warming Is Less than a Decade Away

Which leads to the second piece I want to look at, one by Sharon Kelly at DeSmogBlog. It argues, quite effectively, that the "fracked gas" boom — oil and gas extraction from shale formations — took us down a deeply destructive path, not just because it revitalized a dying industry, but because it simultaneously tragically hobbled development of desperately needed renewable energy sources.

To see that point graphically, click to enlarge the two charts below and note what happened in each around 2008, or watch this brief video from the article for the fuller explanation.

What important for this discussion, though, is this (h/t Naked Capitalism for the find):

The most recent climate data suggests that the world is on track to cross the two degrees of warming threshold set in the Paris accord in just 10 to 15 years, says [Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, Professor of Engineering Emeritus at Cornell University] in a 13-minute lecture titled “Shale Gas: The Technological Gamble That Should Not Have Been Taken,” which was posted online on April 4.

That's if American energy policy follows the track predicted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which expects 1 million natural gas wells will be producing gas in the U.S. in 2050, up from roughly 100,000 today.

As drastic as that sounds, crossing the "two degree warming threshold" in "just 10 to 15 years" underestimates the problem by nearly a factor of two. Two degrees warming is more likely to come in less than a decade, perhaps a lot less.

First, note again that his pre-Industrial baseline is likely too high. The world is closer today to +1.3 or +1.4°C warming than it is to +1.1°C if the actual lows of the pre-Industrial period are considered or accounted for. Dr. Michael Mann's recalculated baseline puts the warming number at +1.2°C as of 2015, and we've seen a burst of warming since. My baseline is a bit lower than his, which means I put "current warming" even higher.

Second, consider the acceleration that no model has successfully predicted. Everything is happening faster than anyone predicted. Click the link in the previous sentence to see a selection of the numerous articles making that point. Among them you'll find this:

Dangerous climate tipping point is ‘about a century ahead of schedule’ warns scientist
 
A slowing Gulf Stream system means catastrophic East Coast flooding will get much worse.

New research provides strong evidence that one of the long-predicted worst-case impacts of climate change — a severe slow-down of the Gulf Stream system — has already started.

The system, also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), brings warmer water northward while pumping cooler water southward.

“I think we’re close to a tipping point,” climatologist Michael Mann told ThinkProgress in an email. The AMOC slow down “is without precedent” in more than a millennium he said, adding, “It’s happening about a century ahead of schedule relative to what the models predict.”

"A century ahead of schedule" is your takeaway. Everything in the global warming news is "ahead of schedule" — much of it by a lot. Dr. Ingraffea makes the same point starting at 8:30 in the video. Every scenario in the 2010 paper he discusses, including the "reference" (no intervention) scenario, entirely underestimated what would happen in just the next eight years.

And not by a little — by a lot. The key graph is reproduced at the top. The original graph from the paper contained global warming data through 2010 and predictions after that. Dr. Ingraffea added the red dots in the modified graph above to show global warming data for 2011–2017. The red dots are not just above all of the predictions, including the "reference" scenario. They're above the band of uncertainty around the reference predictions — each one outside the range of outcomes that the models predict are the 95% most certain.

Put another way, the model predicted that each one of the actual 2011–2017 results were less than 5% likely to happen. Each one.

Yet here we are, with "very unlikely" warming staring us in the face, as we poke at a ceiling we should never go above. That's the real message for today.

GP
 

U.S. Sanctions on Russia & The EU Market for Liquified Natural Gas

Russia's undersea Nord Stream pipeline, which carries LNG (liquified natural gas) to north European markets. The Nord Stream opening ceremony in November 2011 featured Angela Merkel, Dmitry Medvedev, Mark Rutte and François Fillon. Nord Stream 2, an expansion project that would double Nord Stream's original capacity, was agreed to and signed in June 2015 (source; click to enlarge).

by Gaius Publius

Are the U.S. sanctions on Russia just another pipeline war?

Like all large developed regions, the nations of the European Union are hungry for energy. Like all resource-rich countries, the Russian Federation is hungry for markets. One of the resources Russia is most rich in is oil and natural gas. Thanks in part to the Paris climate agreement, but also to the existing desire of Western European nations to transition from coal and oil to the so-called "bridge fuel" — methane or "natural gas" — there is an obvious interest in both parties, Russia and the EU, in reaching agreements for the sale of Russian natural gas to the west, and also agreements on funding and building pipelines to deliver it.

The graphic below shows the extent of those pipelines, both built and proposed, for delivery of LNG (liquified natural gas, its most transportable form) to European markets.

Major existing and planned natural gas pipelines supplying Russian gas to Europe (source; click to enlarge)

Three things are clear from looking at the map above. First, Russia is Western Europe's nearest neighbor, and energy purchases from Russia would by nature be less costly than purchases from farther way, from North America, for instance. LNG purchased from North America would have to be shipped by tanker.

Second, all pipelines from Russia to Western Europe go though NATO territory — except Nord Stream. Thus Nord Stream frees Russia from worrying about NATO threats to its land-based pipelines. Note also that if tensions between NATO (a U.S. proxy) and Russia heat up, Nord Stream gives Russia an alternate source of LNG revenue from Western Europe should the status of pipelines to and through Eastern Europe fall into dispute.

Third, Russia is almost completely surrounded by NATO nations on its western border, the two exceptions being Belarus and Ukraine. NATO has been steadily moving east since the breakup of the Soviet Union, and Ukraine, an ethnically divided nation with a large Russian minority population, is strongly considering joining the NATO alliance. The U.S. is currently considering arming Ukraine with U.S.-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, so tensions are clearly escalating, and the U.S. is a player in those escalations.

Is Nord Stream 2 the Target of the Latest Anti-Russia Sanctions?

One of the outcomes of the recently enacted sanctions on Russia is the closing off of Western funding and penalization of support for a major expansion of the Nord Stream pipeline (all emphasis mine):

Nord Stream (former names: North Transgas and North European Gas Pipeline; Russian: Северный поток, Severny potok) is an offshore natural gas pipeline from Vyborg in the Russian Federation to Greifswald in Germany that is owned and operated by Nord Stream AG. The project includes two parallel lines. The first line was laid by May 2011 and was inaugurated on 8 November 2011. The second line was laid in 2011–2012 and was inaugurated on 8 October 2012. At 1,222 kilometres (759 mi) in length, it is the longest sub-sea pipeline in the world, surpassing the Langeled pipeline. It has an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic metres (1.9 trillion cubic feet), but its capacity is planned to be doubled to 110 billion cubic metres (3.9 trillion cubic feet) by 2019, by laying two additional lines.

The expansion mentioned above has been labeled "Nord Stream 2," and the latest sanctions threaten to shut down further work on it. From the Financial Times (paywalled; quoted here):

Brussels [EU headquarters] has stepped up its diplomatic offensive against the US moves, warning that several oil and gas projects involving Shell, Eni and BP are at risk.

On Tuesday, officials said Brussels was “activating all diplomatic channels” in an effort to persuade lawmakers to dilute the bill’s impact on European companies and the continent’s energy security.

Note that Shell, Eni and BP are Dutch, Italian and British companies, respectively.

EU officials are concerned that the sanctions could damage multibillion-euro pipeline and infrastructure projects straddling Russian territory and beyond in areas as far apart as the Baltic and Black seas.

A list prepared for EU commissioners shows that projects at risk include the proposed Baltic liquefied natural gas plant on the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, in which the Anglo-Dutch group Shell has a stake alongside Russia’s Gazprom. The list also includes Blue Stream, the gas export pipeline linking Russia with Turkey in which Eni of Italy has a 50 per cent. The threat to this pipeline centres on penalties against the maintenance and repair of pipelines on Russian land or waters.

Documents seen by the Financial Times also state that BP “would not be able to engage” in its activities with Rosneft if the US penalties hit operations by European companies to maintain, repair or expand pipelines in Russia.

The last point is important. U.S. sanctions would penalize European companies that engage in projects to "maintain, repair or expand pipelines in Russia." This includes financing as well as construction:

The text of the Senate amendment, which was passed with 97 votes to 2 against, requires the imposition of sanctions against those who make an investment or sell, lease or provide "goods, services, technology, information, or support" to projects for the export of energy from Russia.

"It sanctions those who . . . invest or support the construction of Russian energy export pipelines," Mike Crapo, a senator from Idaho who co-authored the amendment, told the Senate.

Needless to say, more than just the Russians are upset about these sanctions. European foreign ministers are opposed as well (h/t Naked Capitalism for the link).

Germany issues stinging rebuke of US sanctions against Russia
By Johannes Stern
17 June 2017

Germany’s Foreign Ministry published a sharply-worded press release Thursday from Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (Social Democrats, SPD) and Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern (Social Democrats, SPÖ) denouncing the United States’ foreign and economic policies.

Note the American stated justification in the paragraph below, then the German and Austrian foreign ministers' rejection of that justification as describing what the bill was "really about":

Republicans and Democrats agreed almost unanimously, by 97 votes to 2, to impose new sanctions on Russia in the Senate on Wednesday. The Senate justified the measure as a punishment for Moscow’s alleged meddling in the US presidential election, the annexation of Crimea and its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. ...

Gabriel and Kern brusquely rejected the US Senate’s measure. The bill was really about “the sale of American liquefied gas and the sidelining of Russian gas supplies in the European market,” according to the two social democratic politicians. That emerges from the text “particularly explicitly.” The goal was “to secure jobs in the American oil and gas industries.”

Angela Merkel stands behind her foreign ministry's statements: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel explicitly backed her Foreign Minister on Friday. There was 'very strong agreement in terms of content with Gabriel’s statement,' stated government spokesman Stefan Seibert. 'It is, to put it mildly, an unconventional action by the US Senate.' It was troubling that European businesses were being targeted by sanctions to punish Russian behaviour. 'That cannot be allowed,' added Seibert."

"Europeans Targeted to Punish Russia"

Whichever way the (sorry to say it, but highly propagandized) U.S. public sees the sanctions bill, European leaders — including Angela Merkel — see it quite differently. For them it's not only an economic attack on Europe by the U.S. It's also a cynical attempt to prop up a struggling U.S. sector of the U.S. energy industry at Europe's expense. That sector, of course, is the inventory-swollen, over-leveraged U.S. oil and gas sector involved in the recent fracking boom.

(A note about the "heavy propagandization of the U.S. public": Consider that, after all the screaming in the U.S. press about how Russia "hacked the DNC" to steal the election from Hillary Clinton, forensics on that supposed "hack" now show it to have been a leak after all. For more, read this definitive and completely underpublicized piece in The Nation by Patrick Lawrence. It's one thing to get rid of Trump; it's another to falsify the trail of evidence to do it.)

There's More Here Than Meets the Eye

The bottom line in all this isn't simple, since as usual with U.S.-Russia relations, there's much more here than meets the eye.

On the U.S. side, the attempt to punish Russia may play well in the national press, but it's driving a wedge between American and European leaders. Already in the articles about European reactions, one can hear strains of "we did what you asked in your other fights with Russia — like Ukraine and Crimea — so why are you hurting us now?"

In fact the conflict with Russia over the Ukraine and Crimea was never black-and-white to begin with. One aspect of the Ukraine story is that, unlike what was reported in the U.S. press, the U.S. was a major instigator of the internal conflict, and the EU had to be dragged to support it.

Amy Goodman in 2014 (emphasis mine)

A New Cold War? Ukraine Violence Escalates, Leaked Tape Suggests US Was Plotting Coup

A short-lived truce has broken down in Ukraine as street battles have erupted between anti-government protesters and police. ... At least 50 people have died since Tuesday in the bloodiest period of Ukraine’s 22-year post-Soviet history. While President Obama has vowed to "continue to engage all sides," a recently leaked audio recording between two top U.S. officials reveal the Obama administration has been secretly plotting with the opposition....

The top State Department official has apologized to her European counterparts after she was caught cursing the European Union, the EU, in a leaked audio recording that was posted to YouTube. The recording captured an intercepted phone conversation between the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, and Victoria Nuland, the top U.S. diplomat for Europe. Nuland expresses frustration over Europe’s response to the political crisis in Ukraine, using frank terms.

VICTORIA NULAND [on tape]: "So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and have the U.N. help glue it. And, you know, [bleep] the EU."

Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton's Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, is a well-known neocon who during the campaign "figure[d] prominently among her current advisers" and is well known for her strong anti-Russian views. Her husband is Robert Kagan, another strong Clinton supporter during the campaign and co-founder of the Project for a New American Century, the neocon think tank that strongly advocated for the 2003 Iraq War.

The U.S. was a major player fomenting or adding to the conflict in Ukraine. However strongly the EU was in their public support, this current attack on Russia via the sanctions is too much even for them. Quoting the German Foreign Minister again:

the threat to impose extraterritorial sanctions which violate international law on European companies participating in the expansion of European energy supplies” could not be tolerated. Europe’s energy provision was “a European affair, and not one for the United States of America!”

It sounds like he means it.

The Players and the Game

As this evolves, keep the players and their interests in mind. The major players are:

• The U.S. foreign policy establishment, many of them Democrat-supporting neocons, most of them hardliners on Russia for decades

• Democratic Party leaders, eager to tar Donald Trump with the blackest brush they can find, in hopes that this will absolve them of the 2016 loss without having to make substantive policy changes going into 2018 and 2020

• The U.S. natural gas industry, desperate to open markets for product they are vastly oversupplied with

• The mainstream U.S. press, eager help the U.S. ruling establishment be rid of Trump, but also eager to cash in on the ratings that a years-long slow-motion Mueller-fueled train wreck will provide

• European leaders, turning away from U.S. international leadership as each day goes by — the Paris climate agreement and Trump's childish bellicosity toward North Korea are just two example of many — just as the U.S. is threatening Europe's right to make its own energy decisions

• Russia, which seems willing to patiently let all of this play out, knowing it doesn't need to drive a wedge between the U.S. and EU if the U.S. foreign policy establishment will drive that wedge for them

It's unlikely the U.S.-Russia conflict in Europe will end well. All of the American players listed above will continue to benefit from a ratcheting up of conflict with Russia over these sanctions, including the profit-hungry U.S. press.

Democratic Party leaders in particular will find an additional benefit to strong anti-Russia rhetoric and action — they can use it to further damage their strongest and most hated domestic opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who was one of just two senators to vote against the sanctions bill. The mainstream Democratic Party, it seems, is determined to give just lip service, if that, to progressive policies while trying to position themselves as the only policy alternative to the Trump regime.

(In my view, their latest attempt at triangulation will fail in 2018, just as it did in 2016. There is more than one policy alternative to the Trump regime — the "Sanders wing" alternative — and the public knows it. If the Party won't offer that alternative, the public may just vote with their feet, by not voting.)

In the U.S. press, one hears a doubling down on worries that increased Russian LNG sales to Europe will make Western Europe "dependent" and vulnerable to Russia. Clearly the Europeans define independence differently than the U.S. establishment does. With Trump in the White House and both Merkel and Macron openly distrustful of U.S. world leadership, I don't see either side backing down.

The irony is that even if the U.S. foreign policy establishment succeeds in forcing Europe to buy LNG from American companies, the price is unlikely to rise enough to save those companies — though the added revenue may buy them a bit more time before the next round of bankruptcies. Stay tuned.

GP
  

Climate Change in the Age of Trump: A Profit-First Energy Plan

Getting rich on "black gold" and moving into the mansion. It really is just about the money, isn't it? Plus the expectation of dying before the consequences show up. Unlike these fictional folks, most in Big Oil will see those consequences themselves.

by Gaius Publius

As you've noticed, we've turned our attention back to climate here at La Maison, and to the wreckage of the planet we may see manifest in the coming decade (singular).

The climate fight in the U.S. has entered a new phase. It's moved from dealing with a political party that tried to seem to care about the climate, and with which a certain amount of small cold-comfort progress could be made — to dealing with a political party intent on causing the most climate damage it can manage at the fastest rate it can muster ... before it's booted out of office or loses the consent of the governed. (Ponder that last; it's one of the items on offer.)

By now we're all aware that all pipelines will be built, or attempted to be built. But that doesn't encompass the full sweep of America's new climate plan. The party now in power intends to dig all the carbon it can, give all the profits to the already-rich oil and gas industry, which will then sell it at the fastest rate possible to be burned into the air. U.S. carbon emission rates should shoot through the roof.

They're calling that "An America First Energy Plan." Not that Americans will see a dime of profit or wealth from this black-gold rush. It should be renamed "A Profit-First Energy Plan (and the species be damned)."

From the White House website (my emphasis):

An America First Energy Plan

Energy is an essential part of American life and a staple of the world economy. The Trump Administration is committed to energy policies that lower costs for hardworking Americans and maximize the use of American resources, freeing us from dependence on foreign oil.

For too long, we’ve been held back by burdensome regulations on our energy industry. President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule. Lifting these restrictions will greatly help American workers, increasing wages by more than $30 billion over the next 7 years.

Sound energy policy begins with the recognition that we have vast untapped domestic energy reserves right here in America. The Trump Administration will embrace the shale oil and gas revolution to bring jobs and prosperity to millions of Americans. We must take advantage of the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, especially those on federal lands that the American people own. We will use the revenues from energy production to rebuild our roads, schools, bridges and public infrastructure. Less expensive energy will be a big boost to American agriculture, as well.

The Trump Administration is also committed to clean coal technology, and to reviving America’s coal industry, which has been hurting for too long.

In addition to being good for our economy, boosting domestic energy production is in America’s national security interest. President Trump is committed to achieving energy independence from the OPEC cartel and any nations hostile to our interests. At the same time, we will work with our Gulf allies to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy.

Lastly, our need for energy must go hand-in-hand with responsible stewardship of the environment. Protecting clean air and clean water, conserving our natural habitats, and preserving our natural reserves and resources will remain a high priority. President Trump will refocus the EPA on its essential mission of protecting our air and water.

A brighter future depends on energy policies that stimulate our economy, ensure our security, and protect our health. Under the Trump Administration’s energy policies, that future can become a reality.

Just a few notes; I'll have more to say on this at a later time:

• Wherever this plan says "jobs," substitute "profits." Wherever it says "wages," substitute "revenue."

• "Reviving the coal industry" means just that. Dig it fast, burn it fast, and sell it as widely as possible everywhere in the world. 

• "Energy independence" is a meaningless phrase unless the U.S. nationalizes its oil. All fossil fuel, wherever extracted, is sold at market prices on a small number of exchanges, and only the sellers reap profit. Because the U.S. government is not a seller, it sees not one dime. Because of these markets, oil is fungible. The price of Saudi-dug oil is the same as the price of Exxon-dug oil, all other things being equal. All sellers will charge as much money as they can get; all will hold you hostage to get it.

• "Refocus the EPA on ... protecting our air and water" means spending even more tax dollars on all the additional toxic waste cleanup effort this added drilling, fracking and mountaintop blasting will cause. The EPA will have only one role — the nation's janitor, sweeping up after the energy industry's mess-making.

And finally:

• This will roil the oil market, which is already glutted with supply at unsustainably low prices. Look for energy market crises — and business bankruptcies — to increase, perhaps exponentially. Many smaller fracked-oil companies will go bankrupt, and the banks that financed them may need another bailout.

How to address this? It's still an emergency, just a different kind.

At the Wheelhouse of the Titanic

A metaphor: During the Sanders campaign there was an opportunity to put a new captain in the wheelhouse of the Titanic, one who would actually try to turn the ship instead of just seeming to. Today, however, we're back on the deck, outside looking in. The effort to turn the wheel — mobilize the economy for a fast and radical change of energy source — now has a preliminary step, a preliminary act of mobilization.

To turn the wheel we first have to take command of the wheelhouse, and yes, there are many non-violent ways to do it. It's that or we have to give up, to relax and enjoy whatever days are left of this voyage. (I hear for many first-class passengers — many of those in first-world countries, in other words — the food and accommodations will be comfortable almost to the end, right before the fight for lifeboats begins.)

I mentioned "the coming decade (singular)" above as the window of time left to us. I don't think this is the moment yet to give up, to go dancing, according to our metaphor, one last time on the chilly moonlit deck, the icy mass looming before us.

There really are ways to proceed, and with the change of enemy, new opportunities, avenues of approach we didn't have before. More on that later. This is where we stand now.

GP
 

Big Oil In Trouble, Enters "No Man’s Land" of Collapsing Balance Sheets

A great many fracking companies are going out of business with carbon fuel prices this low, because revenue doesn't cover the cost of production. Big producers like Exxon are being affected as well, via their balance sheets (source).

by Gaius Publius

Just a reminder that there are many ways to stop the burning of carbon, in addition to negotiation and smooth, well-planned transitions. Those two are preferred, of course, but we don't seem to have those options any more, and yet we do need to stop burning carbon.

Other options include disrupting consumption and disrupting supply. Of these two, I prefer disrupting supply, since as I've noted before, if they extract it, someone will burn it. Both of these disruptions can be accomplished through legislation and/or executive action.

But one of the unique ways of disrupting supply is to disrupt (degrade, destroy) the financial health of the companies doing the extraction, for example, Exxon. Divestment campaigns — making the holding of Exxon stock morally toxic for institutional buyers like universities — are a form of disrupting supply by disrupting corporate financing. Unfortunately, though divestment campaigns do work — witness the divestment campaign against South African apartheid — they can be slow and spotty, not broad enough to effect an entire industry.

Enter the "magic of the market." If the price of oil is so cheap that it's not profitable to dig it, because it's so plentiful relative to demand, companies will collapse, go bankrupt. We've already seen that with small and mid-size U.S. fracking companies, many of which are so highly leveraged that they can't make a profit on sales and they can't finance their debt.

That method of disruption works for smaller companies, but what about the giants? There are actually two ways to financially "attack" a company like, say, Exxon. One is to attack the profit-and-loss statement by making sales unprofitable, as described above.

The other ... is to attack the balance sheet, the net worth of the company. In either case — bad balance sheet, bad earnings statement — no investor will will touch the stock until the stock price is revalued to reflect the "new realities."

What's the best way to attack the balance sheet of any company in the oil and gas industry? You make their in-the-ground assets worthless, and then make sure that until those "stranded assets" are properly revalued in the annual statement, the stock is, well, toxic.

That would disrupt any company that depends on "proven reserves" or unextracted assets for the bulk of its valuation. (That will also disrupt, as in panic, the companies' CEO classes, since generous stock grants are one of the three ways that CEO pocket the loot from companies they run.)

A pipe dream? Not at all. It's already happening. From EcoWatch and Oil Change International in October (emphasis added):

Big Oil Is in Big Trouble

Something significant happened on Friday [Oct 28] that warrants more than just a few column inches in a newspaper.

With the most divisive presidential election in U.S. history just days away from concluding, it is easy to understand why more is not being made of the news, but just to tell you something seismic happened on Friday last week.

The world's largest listed oil company, Exxon, announced that it was going to have to cut its reported proved reserves by just under a fifth—by 19 percent.

It would be the biggest reserve revision in the history of the oil industry. It is yet another sign that Big Oil is in big trouble.

The explanation why that's bad:

For years people have been warning that Big Oil's business model was fundamentally flawed and was not only putting the climate at risk, but millions of dollars of shareholders' money. ...

From the article, quoting the Chicago Tribune:

"Big oil companies have been solid investments for years, with a deceptively simple business model: Find at least as much new oil as you sell, book those barrels as future sales and reinvest in the hunt for new reserves. That made sense as long as oil prices went up, but it locked companies into a vicious cycle of replenishment, leading them to search for ever more extreme, and expensive, sources of crude oil in the Arctic and beneath the oceans. ...

"Cheap oil has stopped that business cold and the threat of climate action raises fundamental questions about whether it'll ever be viable again."

Back to the article itself:

In May this year, the London-based Chatham House warned in a report, entitled The Death of the Old Business Model, that the world's largest oil companies "Faced with the choice of managing a gentle decline by downsizing or risking a rapid collapse by trying to carry on business as usual."

Importantly, most of Exxon's de-booked reserves, about 3.6bn barrels, will be at the company's dirty Kearl oil sands project in Canada. The reduction would account for over three quarters of the reserves. Not only are tar sands very energy intensive, but they are expensive to produce.

In a low oil price, carbon-constrained world, they are stranded assets.

Notice the word "collapse" above. Collapses, like many stock market crashes, for example, often happen quickly. This one is happening slowly, for now. But still, no oil company will book more reserves than it now has on its balance sheet. Investors already believe that not all booked reserves will be sold. "Stranded assets," unsellable reserves, are a subtraction from balance sheets, and more and more assets are just waiting to be stranded. At what price point will Exxon stock cease to be an attractive investment? I think that's about to be tested.

Death by Market and What It Means for Us

We may be witnessing the "death by market" of the oil and gas industry. If so, cheer. But also, get energy lean as fast as you can, since that market will have to be replaced by something else. Renewables is the obvious choice, but that something else will just as obviously have to be in place in order to be available.

Will the Trump administration make renewable energy abundantly available before it's needed, or only after the carbon market falls terminally ill? I'm betting on the latter. The good news, however, is still the good news. We do have to get off of carbon at the fastest possible rate to keep the planet human-habitable ... and this may do it.

GP