State of Alabama secondary Archives: on Energy & Oil


Dick Cheney: 2000: Energy Task Force studied Iraqi oilfield maps

There is now far more evidence than was available at the time of the invasion to suggest that Iraqi oil supplies may have played a much bigger role in the administration's overall decision than anyone realized. We now know, for example, from a document dated just two weeks after Bush's inauguration, that his National Security Council was ordered to meld its review of operational policy toward "rogue states" (including Iraq) with the secretive Cheney Energy Task Force's "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields."

We know that one of the documents that was receiving scrutiny by the task force during that same time period was a highly detailed map of Iraq--showing none of the cities, none of the places where people lived, but showing in great detail the location of every single oil deposit known to exist in the country, with dotted lines demarcating blocks for promising exploration.

Source: The Assault on Reason, by Al Gore, p.117-118 Jul 1, 2008

George W. Bush: OpEd: Melded energy policy with Iraq policy

There is now far more evidence than was available at the time of the invasion to suggest that Iraqi oil supplies may have played a much bigger role in the administration's overall decision than anyone realized.

We know that one of the documents that was receiving scrutiny by the Energy Task Force in 2001 was a highly detailed map of Iraq--showing none of the cities, none of the places where people lived, but showing in great detail the location of every single oil deposit known to exist in the country, with dotted lines demarcating blocks for promising exploration.

In 2001, Bush melded the national energy policy with his foreign policy toward rogue states like Iraq. One of the few facilities in the entire country that was secured by US troops following the invasion was Iraq's oil ministry. Moreover, in 2007, the Iraqi government enacted legislation that was written in Washington to give US and British oil companies the dominant role in exploiting the massive oil reserves of Iraq.

Source: The Assault on Reason, by Al Gore, p.117-119 Jul 1, 2008

Alan Schlesinger: Energy Bill had 3-mile LNG platform in Long Island Sound

Q: Let’s talk about the Energy Bill.

LAMONT: Dick Cheney invited 100 of his favorite energy CEOs and lobbyists behind closed doors, and they passed the Energy Bill. It provided billions of dollars in subsidies to Exxon-Mobil. Sen. Lieberman was one of the only New England Senators to sign onto that bill. It was a bad bill.

SCHLESINGER: I can’t believe this, Ned, I finally agree with you on something. But I would have voted against that bill for entirely different reasons, because it would have developed a 3-mile platform in the middle of Long Island Sound as a fuel depot for natural gas. We can’t have it, and that vetoed the bill for me.

LIEBERMAN: The Energy Bill last year was criticized for one part. But it has the most substantial incentives for energy conservation and alternative energy that Congress has ever adopted.

LAMONT: For Sen. Lieberman to sign onto that bill, we lost that opportunity to put in efficiency standards, and to put together a comprehensive energy plan.

Source: CT 2006 Debate with Al Terzi, moderator Oct 19, 2006

Alan Schlesinger: Suspend the gas tax during the driving months

I am the only one up here that asked for a suspension of the federal gas tax, during the driving months. I asked the state to look at a state suspension also. Mr. Lieberman did not ask.
Source: CT 2006 Debate with Al Terzi, moderator Oct 19, 2006

Alan Schlesinger: 1980s Excess Profits Tax caused skyrocketing oil prices

Q: Energy cost increases averaged 6.3% in the Northeast this season. What should we do?

LIEBERMAN: This is an outrage. People are being cheated. Last December, in the midst of the heating oil season, I submitted legislation that would impose a 50% Excess Profits Tax on oil companies for really undeserved profits and return that money to low- and middle-income consumers to help them pay bills.

SCHLESINGER: With all due respect, Joe, been there, done that. The last time we did, interest rates was to 14%, you couldn’t get a mortgage, oil prices skyrocketed, and it just didn’t work. Pres. Reagan repealed that Excess Profits Tax, and immediately oil prices fell to a 20-year low, and stayed therefore about 20 years. So that’s not the solution.

LAMONT: Front and center to deal with energy prices is that we’ve got to deal with our dependence on oil, with incentives and conservation to allow that to happen.

Source: CT 2006 Debate with Al Terzi, moderator (X-ref Lieberman) Oct 19, 2006

Alan Schlesinger: Declaration of Energy Independence: 2-tiered oil profit tax

Q: What should we do about energy needs in the long run?

LIEBERMAN: In the long run we’ve got to break our dependence on foreign oil from countries that are unstable or hostile to us. I’m now co-sponsoring a bill called Set America Free, which will reduce our consumption of oil by 10 million barrels a day. It would develop an American biofuels refinery and distribution network.

SCHLESINGER: We have to accept the fact that we’re moving from fossil fuel to eventually solar, we’re in a probably 30 or 40 year transition process. We have to put incentives into alternative fuel sources. I call it my Declaration of Energy Independence. And we have a two-tiered process for oil company profits: One for fossil fuels, which is a higher tax, and one for alternatives. That way you direct the funds where they’re needed and you get results.

LIEBERMAN: There’s been no greater failure of leadership in our government over the last 30 years than our failure to do something about our dependence on foreign oil

Source: CT 2006 Debate with Al Terzi, moderator (X-ref Lieberman) Oct 19, 2006

Joseph Lieberman: 50% Excess Profits Tax on oil companies’ undeserved profit

Q: Energy cost increases averaged 6.3% in the Northeast this season. What should we do?

LIEBERMAN: This is an outrage. People are being cheated. Last December, in the midst of the heating oil season, I submitted legislation that would impose a 50% Excess Profits Tax on oil companies for really undeserved profits and return that money to low- and middle-income consumers to help them pay bills.

SCHLESINGER: With all due respect, Joe, been there, done that. The last time we did, interest rates was to 14%, you couldn’t get a mortgage, oil prices skyrocketed, and it just didn’t work. Pres. Reagan repealed that Excess Profits Tax, and immediately oil prices fell to a 20-year low, and stayed therefore about 20 years. So that’s not the solution.

LAMONT: Front and center to deal with energy prices is that we’ve got to deal with our dependence on oil, with incentives and conservation to allow that to happen.

Source: CT 2006 Debate with Al Terzi, moderator Oct 19, 2006

Joseph Lieberman: Set America Free Act: reduce oil from unstable countries

Q: What should we do about energy needs in the long run?

LIEBERMAN: In the long run we’ve got to break our dependence on foreign oil from countries that are unstable or hostile to us. I’m now co-sponsoring a bill called Set America Free, which will reduce our consumption of oil by 10 million barrels a day. It would develop an American biofuels refinery and distribution network.

SCHLESINGER: We have to accept the fact that we’re moving from fossil fuel to eventually solar, we’re in a probably 30 or 40 year transition process. We have to put incentives into alternative fuel sources. I call it my Declaration of Energy Independence. And we have a two-tiered process for oil company profits: One for fossil fuels, which is a higher tax, and one for alternatives. That way you direct the funds where they’re needed and you get results.

LIEBERMAN: There’s been no greater failure of leadership in our government over the last 30 years than our failure to do something about our dependence on foreign oil

Source: CT 2006 Debate with Al Terzi, moderator Oct 19, 2006

Joseph Lieberman: Energy Bill included incentives for conservation

Q: Let’s talk about the Energy Bill.

LAMONT: Dick Cheney invited 100 of his favorite energy CEOs and lobbyists behind closed doors, and they passed the Energy Bill. It provided billions of dollars in subsidies to Exxon-Mobil. Sen. Lieberman was one of the only New England Senators to sign onto that bill. It was a bad bill.

SCHLESINGER: I can’t believe this, Ned, I finally agree with you on something. But I would have voted against that bill for entirely different reasons, because it would have developed a 3-mile platform in the middle of Long Island Sound as a fuel depot for natural gas. We can’t have it, and that vetoed the bill for me.

LIEBERMAN: The Energy Bill last year was criticized for one part. But it has the most substantial incentives for energy conservation and alternative energy that Congress has ever adopted.

LAMONT: For Sen. Lieberman to sign onto that bill, we lost that opportunity to put in efficiency standards, and to put together a comprehensive energy plan.

Source: CT 2006 Debate with Al Terzi, moderator (X-ref Schlesinger) Oct 19, 2006

Ned Lamont: Cheney Energy Bill lost chance for comprehensive energy plan

LAMONT: After 9/11, there was a sense that people were ready to do the right thing for energy independence. Instead Dick Cheney invited 100 of his favorite energy CEOs and lobbyists behind closed doors, and they passed the Energy Bill. It provided billions of dollars in subsidies to Exxon-Mobil, but did nothing in terms of weaning us from foreign oil; did nothing in terms of fuel economy standards; nothing in terms of conservation that would reduce our need. Sen. Lieberman was one of the only New England Senators to sign onto that bill. It was a bad bill.

LIEBERMAN: The Energy Bill has the most substantial incentives for energy conservation and alternative energy that Congress has ever adopted.

LAMONT: The real problem with that energy bill was along with production incentives, that was the time to put efficiency standards, to put together a comprehensive energy plan that would have meant real energy independence. For Sen. Lieberman to sign onto that bill we lost that opportunity.

Source: CT 2006 Debate with Al Terzi, moderator Oct 19, 2006

Ned Lamont: Focus on incentives & conservation to reduce oil dependence

Q: Energy cost increases averaged 6.3% in the Northeast this season. What should we do?

LIEBERMAN: This is an outrage. People are being cheated. Last December, in the midst of the heating oil season, I submitted legislation that would impose a 50% Excess Profits Tax on oil companies for really undeserved profits and return that money to low- and middle-income consumers to help them pay bills.

SCHLESINGER: With all due respect, Joe, been there, done that. The last time we did, interest rates was to 14%, you couldn’t get a mortgage, oil prices skyrocketed, and it just didn’t work. Pres. Reagan repealed that Excess Profits Tax, and immediately oil prices fell to a 20-year low, and stayed therefore about 20 years. So that’s not the solution.

LAMONT: Front and center to deal with energy prices is that we’ve got to deal with our dependence on oil, with incentives and conservation to allow that to happen.

Source: CT 2006 Debate with Al Terzi, moderator (X-ref Lieberman) Oct 19, 2006

Al Gore: Skeptics point to historical warming--but today is hotter

The correlation between temperate and CO2 concentrations over the last 1,000 years--as measured in the ice core record by Thompson’s team--is striking.

Nevertheless, the so-called global warming skeptics often say that global warming is really an illusion reflecting nature’s cyclical fluctuations. To support their view, they frequently refer to the Medieval Warm Period. But as [the historical] thermometer shows, the vaunted Medieval Warm Period was tiny compared to the enormous increases in temperature of the last half-century.

In any given year, it might seem as if the average global temperature is going down, but the overall trend is very clear. And in recent years, the rate of increase has been accelerating. In fact, if you look at the 21 hottest years measured, 20 of the last 21 occurred within the last 25 years. The hottest year on record during this entire period was 2005.

Source: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, p. 64&72-73 May 26, 2006

Al Gore: Ocean warming causes stronger hurricanes, like Katrina

Scientists have been using evermore accurate computer models that long ago predicted a much higher range of ocean temperatures as a result of man-made global warming. The actual ocean temperatures are completely consistent with what has been predicted, and they’re way above the range of natural variability.

As the oceans get warmer, storms get stronger. In 2004, Florida was hit by 4 unusually powerful hurricanes. That same year, Japan set an all-time record for typhoons. The previous record was 7. In 2004, 10 typhoons hit Japan.

The emerging consensus links global warming to increasingly destructive power of hurricanes, increasing the strength of the average hurricane a full half-step on the well-known 5-step scale. As water temperatures go up, wind velocity goes up. One major study came out less than a month before Hurricane Katrina hit.

When Katrina first hit, it was only a category 1 storm. Then, it passed over the unusually warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico [and became category 5].

Source: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, p. 78-94 May 26, 2006

Al Gore: Global warming causes more floods & also more droughts

There has been record flooding in China, which, as one of the planet’s oldest civilizations, keeps the best flood records of any nation in the world.

Recently, for example, there were huge floods in Sichuan and Shandong provinces. Paradoxically, however, global warming also causes not only more flooding, but also more drought. The nearby Anhui province was continuing to suffer a severe drought at the same time the neighboring areas were flooding.

One of the reasons for this paradox has to do with the fact that global warming not only increases precipitation worldwide but at the same time causes some of it to relocate.

A second reason for the paradoxical effect of global warming is that while it produces more evaporation from the oceans to fill the warmer atmosphere with increased moisture, it also sucks more moisture out of the soil. Partly as a consequence, desertification has been increasing in the world decade by decade.

Source: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, p.112&118 May 26, 2006

Al Gore: Supported ethanol in 1970s & cellulosic ethanol now

When I was in Congress we used to wrangle about the value of making ethanol from corn. Despite the moonshine jokes, I supported ethanol. Even though some of its environmental consequences made me uncomfortable, I thought it was important for us to work on alternatives to fossil fuels to begin to break our dependence on foreign oil. Since then, newer innovations have [come along]: one company has figured out a way to make a new kind of ethanol out of plant fiber--cheaper & cleaner than regular ethanol.
Source: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, p.137 May 26, 2006

Al Gore: Arctic ice is melting & may disrupt global weather patterns

Since the 1970s, the extent & thickness of the Artic ice cap has diminished precipitously. There are now studies showing that if we continue with business as usual, the Artic ice cap will completely disappear each year during summertime. At present, it plays a crucial role in cooling the Earth. Preventing its disappearance must be one of our priorities.

The melting of the ice cap represents bad news for creatures like polar bears. A new study shows that for the first time, polar bears have been drowning in significant numbers.

What does it mean to look at a vast expanse of water that used to be ice? We ought to care about this because it has serious planetary effects. An increase of 5 degrees actually means an increase of only 1 or 2 degrees at the Equator, but more than 12 degrees at the North Pole. And so all those wind and ocean patterns that formed during the last ice age, are now up in the air.

Our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this.

Source: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, p.143-149 May 26, 2006

Al Gore: Carbon exchange market can cap-and-trade CO2 like we did SO2

When acid rain was falling on parts of the US back in the 1980s, an innovative program helped to clean up the polluted precipitation. With bipartisan support, Congress put in place a system for buying and selling emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2), the main culprit behind acid rain. Called a cap-and-trade system, it used the power of market forces to help drastically reduce SO2 emissions, while allowing pioneering companies to profit from environmental stewardship.

A similar approach can speed up the reduction of CO2 emissions. The European Union has adopted this US innovation and is making it work effectively. Here at home, while Congress has not yet passed a federal cap-and-trade system for CO2 emissions, there is an effective private-sector carbon market that is already up and running--the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX).

The CCX is leading the way toward a future in which reducing CO2 could bring not only environmental rewards, but financial ones too.

Source: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, p.252 May 26, 2006

Al Gore: Consensus on global warming, but newspapers fabricate doubt

Politicians often confuse self-interested arguments paid for by lobbyists & planted in the popular press with legitimate peer-reviewed studies published in reputable scientific journals. For example, the global warming skeptics cite one article more than any other in arguing that global warming is just a myth: a statement of concern during the 1970s that the world might be in danger of entering a new ice age. But that article was published in Newsweek and never appeared in a peer-reviewed journal.

There is a misconception that the scientific community is in a state of disagreement about global warming. In fact, there is virtually no serious disagreement on the central points.

The misconception of disagreement is actually an illusion that has been deliberately fostered by oil & coal companies. These companies want to prevent any new policies that would interfere with their current business plans that rely on the massive unrestrained dumping of CO2 into the Earth atmosphere every day.

Source: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, p.260-3 May 26, 2006

Al Gore: Current tech can reduce CO2 emissions to 1970 levels

Together, these changes, all of which are based on already-existing, affordable technologies, can bring emissions down to a point below 1970s levels.
Source: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, p.281 May 26, 2006

Al Gore: Dealing with global warming inconvenient for rich & powerful

As for why so many people still resist what the facts clearly show, I think, in part, the reason is that the truth about the climate crisis is an inconvenient one that means we are going to have to change the way we live our lives.

The truth about global warming is especially inconvenient and unwelcome to some powerful people and companies making enormous sums of money from activities they know full well will have to change in order to ensure the planet’s livability.

These people--especially those at a few multinational companies with the most at stake--have been spending many millions of dollars every year in figuring out ways of sowing public confusion about global warming.

Source: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, p.284 May 26, 2006

Al Gore: We solved ozone crisis; can solve CO2 crisis by same methods

Once upon a time, your refrigerator could kill you. Early models used toxic and explosive gases top keep food cold. In 1927, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) replaced those gases. But in 1974, scientists theorized that as CFCs rose into the upper atmosphere, their molecules would be broken down by the sun, releasing chlorine into the ozone layer and setting in motion a dangerous chain reaction. Ozone protects us from the sun’s damaging rays. Chlorine would eat away at this fragile protective skin, allowing the sun’s ultraviolet rays to stream unimpeded through the atmosphere, thereby causing skin cancer and other problems.

In 1987, 27 nations signed the Montreal Protocol, the first global environmental agreement to regulate CFCs. At last count there were 183 signatories, and the levels of CFCs have stabilized or declined.

Today, as the CO2 crisis unites us, we must remember the lesson of the CFC battle: that cool heads can prevail and alter the course of environmental change for the better.

Source: An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, p.295 May 26, 2006

Al Gore: Pushed for BTU tax on coal & gas, in 1993

Although Gore had toned down his environmental rhetoric during the 1992 campaign, he saw the 1993 economic package as an opportunity to push for the green movement’s tax of choice: a broad-based levy based on the use of energy as measured in BTUs (British thermal units). A BTU tax would fall most heavily on coal and other fossil fuels, encouraging industry to use less polluting sources like natural gas. Gore believed that adoption of a BTU tax, which would raise an estimated $72 billion over five years, could kindle support for similar measures in Europe and Japan, accelerating global environmental renewal. [After passing in the House and stalling in the Senate, the BTU tax was] replaced by a more politically palatable gasoline tax.

The setback, said an environmental lobbyist, seemed to yank Gore back into his campaign-season zone of caution on environmental issues, as if he had been caught straying too far ahead-and to the left-of what the political system would bear.

Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.270-1 Mar 3, 2000

Al Gore: Pushed emissions trading plan at Kyoto greenhouse summit

In Gore’s view, there could be no breakthroughs, especially on global warming, until the public saw a clear & present danger. “The people haven’t given us permission to lead on this issue,” he said.

Nevertheless, at the Kyoto summit, the administration proposed a binding commitment to return CO2 emissions to 1990 levels between 2008 & 2012. After that, a series of market mechanisms would be employed to drive emissions below the 1990 baseline by 2017. They included an international trading system in which pollution permits could be bought and sold, giving companies incentive to cut emissions and sell their rights to another firm for a profit.

In his speech to the Kyoto delegates, Gore said that the real challenge was to change the human behaviors that were causing climate change. Gore’s whirlwind visit changed the dynamics of the conference. All sides gave ground. The US promised to cut emissions 7% below the 1990 levels between 2008 & 2012; the Europeans committed to 8% and Japan to 6%.

Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.334-6 Mar 3, 2000

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