Chemical fight offers early look at Obama's second-term EPA

In an op-ed in today’s Washington Examiner, I explain how the second Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency will seek to use sound bites, rather than sound science, to pursue an agenda of more excessive and more costly regulation. And when possible, they’ll try to do it below the radar.

I write, 

Throughout the election season, Republicans warned against the excessive regulation that might result from a second Obama term. They lost, and so this week America might get its first peek at what they were talking about.

The Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of abandoning a well-established negotiation process with the chemical industry, and may instead force a broad range of chemical companies to launch a disputed monitoring program. This Thursday may be the last time the sides get to hammer out a deal on how many waste water treatment sites must be monitored for the EPA to conduct an environmental — as opposed to health — risk assessment.

The negotiations are part of an “enforceable consent agreement” process which started in June. As the December 27 deadline approaches, a failure to reach an agreement is “increasingly likely,” according to the Risk Policy Report, a trade publication. If no deal is reached, the EPA may order testing on its own.

The chemicals the EPA wants to test for, known as D4 and D5, are components of siloxanes — the building blocks for silicone products. Siloxanes are ubiquitous, serving unique purposes in products ranging from airplanes to shampoo.

The industry has not opposed risk assessments or monitoring programs for these chemicals, but it has objected to the EPA’s failure to consider independently collected environmental exposure information. The EPA’s threat is to cut off negotiations and force a wasteful monitoring regime on the entire industry. To justify this threat, regulators insist on relying on outlandish models that contradict real-word data already collected and validated by government agencies both in the U.S. and Canada.

One of the silicone chemicals at issue, D5, was the subject of a thorough review by independent scientist for Environment Canada, an agency known for strict standards. The agency concluded that D5 does not pose a threat to the environment now or in the future.

The EPA shouldn’t necessarily rely on Environment Canada’s conclusions, but it should at least take it into account, along with existing data from testing conducted in the United States. Industry has sought to include these results, together with new monitoring from five additional sites. This should provide all the information necessary to conduct a risk assessment based on a full spectrum of conditions and environments.

Yet the EPA is insisting on requiring more than three times more additional monitoring than is scientifically justified. The EPA has backed off its demand for monitoring of 42 sites for traces of chemical that remain in the water, but it hasn’t been able to validate its current demand for 16 sites. As its trump card, the agency has the threat of a return to its earlier Draconian demand, as opposed to offering a substantive response to industry’s position.

If the sides don’t reach agreement, industry and consumers will be left footing the bill of an unnecessarily costly program, with not a molecule of environmental protection, or better risk assessment, to show for it. This heavy-handed regulatory style has reached a point where it is less about political ideology than it is about good government and responsible use of regulatory powers.

The Obama administration’s environmental regulatory approach has been to replace dispassionate risk assessment with agenda-driven campaigns that favor sound bites over sound science. If the EPA doesn’t come back to the negotiating table with a better approach, congressional oversight committees will have some questions to ask. Some experts already consider the EPA’s hard-line approach a regulatory short-cut, given Congress’s decision not to give EPA additional authority through a reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Congressional watchdogs will have to work overtime next year. They should start by asking regulators about the January 2011 executive order from President Obama, which stated, “Our regulatory system must protect public health, welfare, safety and our environment while promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation….It must be based on the best available science.” (Emphasis mine.)

Unless these questions are given center stage, Obama’s agency-heads will continually outmaneuver not only Congress, but the will of the public.

President Obama’s “Dope Fiend Move” Decried by Project 21’s Swimp

Project 21 member Stacy Swimp says President Obama is pulling a “dope fiend move” on America.

Stacy’s not saying that Obama is an addict, but that the President is acting like one in the way he is pushing his intended big increases in taxes and spending right now in negotiations with the nation’s other elected federal lawmakers.

Urbandictionary.com defines “dope fiend move” as “an act or effort by a drug addict to trick or mislead another person to gain advantage.”  But it’s not the sole domain of the addicted — it can also apply to when someone knowingly tries to con others into thinking their schemes are in the best interest of everyone when it is just for that individual’s benefit.

With America quickly approaching the fiscal cliff, a post-reelection Obama is now in bully mode as he targets conservatives in Congress.  While the President previously assured voters that he wanted to embrace bipartisanship and compromise — the “dope fiend move” — he is now demanding virtually unregulated authority to raise the nation’s debt limit, even more stimulus spending and more taxes than ever before.

Conservatives on Capitol Hill, however, seem to be wise to Obama’s con.  The Weekly Standard reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he “burst into laughter” after Treasury Secretary Tim Gethner presented the White House’s proposal.  Spending cuts?  McConnell said there was “minimal or no interest” in pulling back on unbridled spending and reforming entitlement programs — that’s something the White House implies they are only willing to discuss after they get control of the cookie jar (and, subsequently, won’t have any reason to care about negotiations since they will then be holding all the controls).

House Speaker John Boehner certainly isn’t buying into Obama’s dope fiend move either.  Boehner flatly said: “No substantive progress has been made.”

Stacy says this sort of con is common to him from his own upbringing.  It might be new to the vast majority of the American people, but he’s seem and heard about the dope fiend move before and all of the hurt it can cause.  And Stacy similarly doesn’t think it will end well for America if Obama’s con succeeds.

Stacy says:

Growing up in the ‘hood, we would always hear the people talk about the “dope fiend move.”

A dope fiend move is best defined as manipulative or underhanded behavior from someone who is consistently dishonest.  While it’s not confined just to drug abusers, it is historically seen among addicts who would pretend to be in recovery in order to manipulate something from someone.

We’re seeing this kind of move right now on the national stage — with out economic future in the balance.  President Obama’s administration made an offer to in Congress that amounts to a dope fiend move.
Repeatedly, when Obama has wanted to appeal to moderate sympathies and play to an adoring media, he has championed the idea of bipartisanship and compromise.

Seeking reelection, he pretended to be in recovery from the my-way-or-the-highway politics he practiced over the past four years when he ignored the congressional authority to force administrative actions that had no constitutional standing.

Not only did the Obama Administration not offer what a reasonable person could consider a compromise, more was asked from the alleged rich and less from those who pay little or no taxes and whose benefits are a major factor in creating the economic crisis.

Obama now insists upon making it difficult for middle class business owners to keep their doors open and provide jobs for struggling families, while simultaneously pretending to be Robin Hood.

Most of all, the Obama tax hike and spending proposal will put countless American business owners in a position where they will not be able to afford to send their own kids to school, and their kids will also likely be less able to qualify for grants or loans.

This is class warfare in all its glory.  And it’s not going to solve our economic troubles — specifically those regarding entitlements that Obama appears all too willing to ignore.

Obama may not be addicted to dope, but there can be no doubt the compulsive addictive penchant for dishonesty can rightly be called a “dope fiend move.”

It renders those who he claimed to defend to a far worse predicament than before he became president.

initial photo credit: iStockphoto.com

Rahm Emanuel: He’s Got Moves Like Bloomberg

At the same time as a high-end shopping mall vending machine in Burbank, California is beginning to dispense caviar, truffles and escargot, city employees in Chicago are looking at the possibilities of finding kale smoothies and organic, gluten-free soy crackers in their vending machines.

It’s all part of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s ongoing effort to make people healthier in the Windy City, whether they like it or not.  Taking a page from fellow mayor Michael Bloomberg’s playbook, Emanuel is imposing new rules on what people can get from vending machines by the only means he can right now — sticking it to his own workforce.

An ordinance was introduced in mid-November to impose content restrictions as a part of the new vending machine contract covering the stocking snacks and drinks in over 350 machines in 90 Chicago-owned or leased buildings.

If imposed at the beginning of 2013 as planned, only 25 percent of cold beverages sold can contain 25 or more calories per eight-ounce serving.  Hot beverages can only be a maximum of 25 calories.  Nothing other than water or seltzer can be dispensed in servings of over 12 ounces (despite an assertion by Emanuel that he does not want to go all Bloomberg on his city and ban alleged oversized drinks).

In snack machines, at least three-quarters of the content must be 250 calories or less per serving.  Five items must also be low sodium.  At least one item cannot contain gluten or nuts.

And all the prices must be approximately equal, apparently despite the possibility of the costs of the new and old items being legitimately different.

As Emanuel puts it: “These new vending machines will make it easier than ever before for city employees and the public to make healthy lifestyle choices.”  Buy essentially making the choice for them?

Emanuel calls this nudging of city employees “tak[ing] their wellness into their own hands.”  But isn’t reducing employee choice of old products to promote likely-untested new items more of an imposition of authority than true freedom of choice?

What’s next?  Facial recognition cameras to catch who is perusing what in the vending machines?  “Trash cams” to make sure employees are eating everything and not just pushing that lentil cake around their plates?

And what happens if the old 25 percent of snacks remain so popular that they need constant restocking?  Perhaps the Emanuel Administration might say that delivery schedules must be restricted or otherwise scaled back out of concern for increased carbon emissions.

While New York City — with the Bloomberg Administration’s heavy-handed agenda of mandated calorie counts, soda bans and a war on trans-fats, among other things — is clearly the gold standard example of a nanny state gone wild, Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel is clearly trying to catch up.

Last year, it was a optional wellness program for Chicago employees.  Optional, that is, provided that those who chose not to participate also didn’t mind an extra $50 increase in their monthly health insurance premiums.  Healthways director Charlie Moore, whose company won the Chicago wellness program contract, called Emanuel’s forced fitness program “changing the culture to a culture of wellness.”  But Moore nonetheless admitted the method of persuasion was “very aggressive.”

Now it’s the content of the city-administered vending machines.

Commenting on Emanuel’s aspirations to become the apparent second in command of Nanny State America, Project 21 co-chairman Cherylyn Harley LeBon said:

As I have speculated before, it is so important to follow these nanny state policies being implemented in New York City, California and other places because they are often used as model and encouragement for others to adopt similar policies.

Case in point, Mayor Rahm Emanuel.  This is the same mayor who — during the height of increased crime this past summer on the streets of Chicago — decided to outsource public safety to the Nation of Islam.  We wonder how safe the citizens of Chicago felt with radical Nation of Islam members patrolling the streets?

Since Mayor Emanuel appears to think he has solved all of his city’s problems, he now has turned his attention to being a nutrition expert — following in the footsteps of New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Indeed, he earned the title of vice mayor of the nanny state!

first photo credit: iStockPhoto.com

Signs, Signs Everywhere: ObamaCare Demands Them, Regardless of Cost

The Washington Times and Steve Forbes have alerted Americans to a little known provision in ObamaCare that could cost the food industry millions of work hours and billions of dollars, yet for very little, if any, consumer benefit.

As the Washington Times explains, in part:

It's well established that Obamacare is sending the cost of health care skyrocketing. What's less known is it will make trips to the grocery store more expensive and drive up the cost of pizza. All this is happening because nanny state zealots slipped a zinger into the measure just before it came up for a vote.

A provision requiring restaurant menus to display calorie counts might seem like a minor addition to legislation representing the takeover of one-sixth of the economy, but the seemingly simple addition will cost billions. President Obama's own Office of Management and Budget listed the menu display imposition as the third most burdensome statutory requirement enacted that year, forcing retail outlets to expend 14,536,183 work hours every year just to keep Uncle Sam happy.

Instead of applying the menu rule just to restaurants, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided on its own initiative to sweep certain convenience stores and pizza delivery storefronts under the calorie-count requirements. FDA bureaucrats are even micromanaging compliance, down to determining the sizes of fonts that can be used on menu signs. Small-business franchisees will bear the majority of the burden. 'If they want to put in new products or change pricing or add new toppings, they have to buy new menu boards,' said Jenny Fouracre-Petko, director of legislative affairs for Domino's Pizza. 'That's where it gets expensive.'

It will also become confusing, as the boards must convey the calorie counts for the 34 million possible topping combination that the chain offers. Never mind that most customers order pizza over the telephone or through the Internet. Never mind that Domino's already has an online calculator for weight-conscious customers to figure out calorie counts. Mr. Obama's minions demand things be done their way.

The signage overload is also headed for grocery stores that feature items like fresh bakery goods and food bars. Store owners must either slap up the signs everywhere or label each individual product. The problem is that suppliers, ingredients and recipes constantly change. If a store wants to offer something different, it will have to cough up around $500 to ship the product to a lab for testing and certification. This ultimately affects the products stores will be able to offer consumers. 'It forces you into a central kitchen,' said Jennifer Hatcher, a senior vice president for the Food Marketing Institute, which represents 26,000 retail food stores. 'It eliminates creativity and regional variation.'

Steve Forbes adds a tiny ray of hope, given that the Administration so far seems unconcerned about the needless costs and difficulties it is prepared to inflict:

The good news is that there is bipartisan legislation in the House and Senate to address this issue. The Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act of 2012 (H.R. 6174 and S.3574) ensures that grocery and convenience stores which already provide nutritional information on a high majority of their food items are not roped into a new set of regulatory burdens. And it permits restaurants to provide nutritional information in a way that makes sense for each individual operation. The bill also provides restaurants protection from frivolous class action lawsuits if the hand-made food does not match the exact specs every time. In other words, the legislation would replace a one-size-fits-all directive with an approach that actually empowers restaurant consumers without breaking the bank.

Even New York City, up to now the nannyist of nanny states, does not require this level of menu labeling. President Obama should order his regulators to show some sense.

Being a Divisive Leftist Apparently Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

My series of posts on Diversity Inc.'s rude and sloppy article of November 26 taking conservative commentator Pat Buchanan to task for words Buchanan never said on a radio show that no longer exists (see here and here) wraps up today with the news that Diversity Inc. founder, CEO and designated sloppy white guy columnist Luke Visconti isn't man enough to apologize.

Visconti actually doubles down on his gross error, now claiming his "column and its opinions are still valid," despite being based on an over-the-top satire piece published on a website that says flat-out that its stories are fake.

Visconti claims that the fact that Buchanan wrote other things entirely means he deserves to be attacked for the fake stuff. Essentially, the logic appears to be that if you are conservative, you are fair game for abuse.

Speaking of which, in 2010 Visconti compared black conservatives participating in Tea Party activities to Jews helping Nazis administer concentration camps.

Open-minded, isn't he?

photo from iStockphoto

Project 21’s Swimp Supports School Over Racist Claims

After two dismal seasons — in which the University of Colorado Buffalos posted a combined record of 4-21 and give up an average of 46 points per game in the latter season — administrators at the school fired football coach Jon Embree earlier this week.

To some, firing this losing coach is an act of racism.

Embree is black.  He — among others — is now charging that black coaches are judged by stricter standards than white counterparts.  And stoking the flames of discontent is Embree pal and former championship University of Colorado coach Bill McCartney, who wants the school to give the sacked former coach at least another year.

Project 21 member Stacy Swimp says college sports is not about scoring points for diversity but about succeeding on the field.  Stacy wishes Embree the best, but supports the actions of the administration to seek out a winning strategy.  He says:

When a football team goes through two losing seasons and does not win a game at home in 2102, it doesn’t matter who that coach is — that person is going to be fired.

Yet there is a white American now playing the race card and the fired black coach is playing victim.

Is there a problem with blacks not having opportunities at quality NCAA programs after being fired from another program?  I don’t know the answer to that question.

What I do know is that college athletic programs are in it to win it.  No one should be forced keep a coach with such a dismal record.  I would have fired Embree too!

Project 21’s Martin on Lingering Libya Questions for Susan Rice

Obama Administration ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, the President’s likely choice to replace departing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, today tried to blunt criticism of her performance as the White House’s post-Benghazi scold in a much-hyped meeting with senators John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH).

It was a failure for Susan Rice and the Obama Administration, whose clear post-election arrogance extends to possible bungling of one of the highest profile terrorist assaults on American since Obama took office.

The senatorial trio’s concerns over Susan Rice emanate from the misstatements she repeatedly made on five Sunday interview shows on September 16.  On these shows, she blamed a YouTube video as the catalyst for the attack rather than the coordinated terrorist action that it is now widely accepted to have been.  Former CIA director David Petraeus said an early version of talking points compiled about the consulate attack identified it as a terrorist act, but the removal of this important finding — which Rice and her supporters use to vindicate her misleading performances — still lacks a known perpetrator of the omission.

Despite high hopes that the Tuesday meeting would allay the senators concerns, public comments made after the meeting show that Rice is still under intense scrutiny.  Ayotte, for instance, plainly said: “I have many more questions that have to be answered.”  Graham added: “The bottom line is that I’m more disturbed than I was before… about how four Americans dies in Benghazi, Libya.”

Referring to the audacity previously exhibited by Susan Rice and her defenders that he implied was apparent again today, McCain angrily noted no real change in attitude: “We are significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got and some that we didn’t get.”

Rice released a statement of her own that she did not intend to mislead anyone.

Project 21 member Kevin Martin, a Navy veteran who served some of his tour in the Mediterranean region and understands the politics of the region from firsthand experience, is skeptical of Susan Rice’s insistence of innocence.  Pointing to past subterfuge during the Clinton era, Kevin also has about as many questions for her as the senators — especially about how Rice’s supporters seem willing to ignore past concerns to come to the defense of the Obama Administration.

Kevin said:

It seems that Susan Rice’s meeting with some senators who are still unsure about her exact role in the Obama Administration’s storytelling regarding what went on in Benghazi on September 11 left more questions than answers.

While Susan Rice’s supporters want to convince the public that the senators’ quest for the truth is just a post-election witch hunt motivated by racism and sexism, these same supporters seem to be muffling the contempt they had for her past mistakes and apparent willful silence to protect her superiors in the Clinton Administration during the Rwanda genocide.

By all accounts, Susan Rice’s commitment would appear to begin and end with the whims and the defense of the reputations of her superiors.  It does not seem to lie with what is right and wrong.

Update on Pat Buchanan Correction and Apology Post

I was in a rush when I wrote the post this afternoon about Diversity Inc. magazine's founder and CEO attacking Pat Buchanan ("Buchanan is a bigot--a racist, anti-Semitic creep. He's chronologically old, but he's one of those people who was born a bitter, ugly, little, shrunken, mean, horrid old man.") and didn't realize until later that I didn't include the words Buchanan allegedly said (but didn't). So I'll add that now.

But first, an update: At the time of my afternoon post, it was unclear whether Diversity Inc.'s founder and CEO, Luke Visconti, even realized he was citing a fake article from a satire site. At this point, the online magazine no longer has that excuse, as I left a message to that effect, and suggesting firmly that Mr. Buchanan is due a correction and an apology, on the column's webpage about six hours ago. The message was "awaiting moderation," but never appeared -- although several others with later time stamps have since been published.

Maybe a correction/apology is still forthcoming, but this isn't the kind of thing that ought to take a long time for an ethical organization to think over.

Now for an excerpt of the article Diversity Inc. treated as real, and attacked, from the satire site The Daily Currant:

...When asked for his reaction to Obama's victory, Buchanan replied brazenly:

"White America died last night. Obama's reelection killed it. Our 200 plus year history as a Western nation is over. We're a Socialist Latin American country now. Venezuela without the oil."

Stunned by his clear racism, Liddy tried to walk his guest back from the ledge:

"With what you just said right there...You seem to imply that white people are better than other people. That's not really what you're saying is it?"

"Of course that's what I'm saying," Buchanan replied "Isn't it obvious? Anything worth doing on this Earth was done first by white people."

"Who landed on the moon? White people. Who climbed Mount Everest? White people. Who invented the transistor? White people. Who invented paper? White people. Who discovered algebra? White people."

"And don't give me all this nonsense about Martin Luther King and civil rights and all that. Who do you think freed the slaves? Abraham Lincoln. A white guy!"

Carte Blanche

"But we're not led by Lincoln anymore, we're led by an affirmative-action mulatto who can't physically understand how great America once was."

"I cried last night G. I cried for hours. It's over for all of us. The great White nation will never survive another 4 years of Obama's leadership."

Liddy tried to reason with Buchanan, reminding him that he shares similar positions with the President on Afghanistan, Iraq, and relations with Russia:

"Of course I agree with half of what he does," Buchanan answered, "He's half white! That's not the half I'm worried about."

In case there is any doubt, The Daily Currant "About" page answers the question "Are your newstories real?" with "No. Our stories are purely fictional..."

So how about a correction and apology, Diversity Inc.?

Ask the White Guy: Does the Diversity Industry Make Stuff Up?

Pat Buchanan

When the first thing you see about someone is their skin color, you miss a lot.

That's one of my conclusions after reading the bizarre attack on conservative commentator Pat Buchanan in the column, "Ask the White Guy: Did White America Die With This Election?," in Diversity, Inc. magazine.

The column begins:

Question: Pat Buchanan's comments that "'White America' Died Last Night" make me angry. What do you think?

Answer: Don't get angry; take solace in what we are witnessing. Buchanan is a bigot--a racist, anti-Semitic creep. He's chronologically old, but he's one of those people who was born a bitter, ugly, little, shrunken, mean, horrid old man.

His white America may have died, but my white America didn't die with this election--it was strengthened and improved. My white America is the one of Thomas Payne, Franklin, Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. My white America may not understand Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as it should, but it knows what side of the trajectory of justice it wants to be on...

The first thing anyone who follows national commentary and commentators even nominally would say is, "that doesn't sound like Pat Buchanan to me."

The second thing a person might say, following the source link provided, is that it doesn't make sense that Buchanan said this on the G. Gordon Liddy radio show on November 7, since Liddy retired months ago.

The third thing that struck me is that Diversity Inc.'s source is a satire website.

And the fourth thing to strike me is that Diversity Inc. doesn't appear to realize that. The columnist -- who happens to be Diversity Inc.'s founder and CEO Luke Visconti, not an intern -- didn't check.

Buchanan didn't deserve to be treated fairly?

Diversity Inc. says its "mission is to bring education and clarity to the business benefits of diversity."

I take it that means skin color, not diversity of thought. Heaven forbid that we Americans practice non-conformist diversity.

I posted a comment on Visconti's column's webpage, a comment which as of this writing is "awaiting moderation." I questioned Visconti's admiration for LBJ, a virulent racist, even as he slammed Buchanan for comments Buchanan never made. I then wrote a second comment to draw attention to the fake nature of the attack on Buchanan. That one seems to have vanished. (Perhaps only one comment per person is permitted?)

Regardless, surely by now someone else has pointed out to Diversity Inc. that it has attacked Pat Buchanan based on a made-up satire piece. A correction is very much called for.

If Diversity Inc. has any respectability, it will promptly issue a correction and make a formal apology to Mr. Buchanan. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Visconti has that much integrity.

We Need Government Health Care So We Can Eat Twinkies?

An unintentionally amusing article from the leftie online magazine Salon asks, "Could public health care have saved Hostess?"

It's a serious article, but I'm laughing at the idea that we need a government-run health care system to insure our access to a fatty sugar treat.

Mayor Bloomberg, for once, I ask you to call your office.

The left claims a single-payer, government-run system like Britain's or Canada's would make American companies more competitive, because they wouldn't "have to" pay for their workers' health premiums, so their costs of production would be less.

Never mind that companies in the past never "had to" pay for their employees' health insurance premiums, as this only is becoming mandatory now under ObamaCare. American employers have only been doing so because the tax code allows employees to accept health insurance as compensation without paying income or payroll taxes on the value of the benefit. The health insurance benefit is part of an employee's pay. Take away the health insurance benefit, and any savvy employee is going to ask for the value of their premium in cash. So the employer presumably pays the same compensation either way.

Furthermore, the left rarely if ever mentions that divorcing health insurance from employment by giving individuals the tax benefits directly, as conservatives have recommended for decades, would have the same presumably positive impact on competitiveness as government-run health care (if it did), except...

...it would help more, as employees would shop around for health services and insurance, which would have a price-lowering effect...

...and taxes wouldn't have to go up (including, presumably, taxes on business) to finance the scheme.

Plus, government-run health care is bad for patients, who, presumably, matter.

So before we ruin what's left of our private health care system just to get access to cake, let's pause and realize government-run health care wouldn't save the Twinkie.

And it would be less likely than a private system to save you, if you eat too many of them.

Killing Old King Coal

God blessed America with abundant sources of energy in the form of oil, natural gas and about 10,000 years’ worth of coal, more fossil fuel reserves than anywhere else on the planet.  However, most of these blessings are completely off-limits due to federal policies.

In spite of this hurdle, coal - produced primarily on private lands by private companies - provides us with about 40% of our electricity.  Each American uses about 7,600 pounds of coal a year.  Add in natural gas, also from private lands, and these two natural resources provide about 70% of the electricity produced in the US.  Nuclear adds another 20% to the mix even though we haven’t expanded this sector since the 1970s.  The balance of power comes primarily from hydro (water pwer, about 5%), followed by single digit production from the heavily subsidized wind, solar and biomass (wood, corn) sectors.

Thank the miners and drillers every time you turn on your computer.

Hydraulic fracturing, combined with improved methods of horizontal drilling, has resulted in a natural gas boom.  Wells are being created on very small footprints on private land. The result is natural gas available at very competitive rates, about $3.75 per million British thermal units (Btu).  Compare this to $17 per million Btu for liquefied natural gas in Japan.  

Its current low price makes natural gas an attractive alternative to coal and, with new and expensive regulations facing coal, many of the older plants will be retired and some companies will go bankrupt.  But energy diversity is good policy so we don’t want to lose coal completely, just help clean it up, right?  Especially important since the U.S. has the world’s largest supplies of fossil fuels.

Coal is energy dense so it is a must for electrical output for large-scale manufacturing.  You’re not going to do manufacturing on solar or wind or hamster power.  This is why China, the manufacturing center of the world, is investing heavily in modern and efficient coal-fired energy plants, as many as one-a-week we are told. 

Subsidies

Beyond the price you pay on your gas and electricity bills, we contribute additional cash in the form of federal subsidies per megawatt hour of electricity:

• Solar: $775.64
• Wind: $56.29
• Nuclear: $3.14
• Hydro/Water: $0.82
• Coal: $0.64
• Natural Gas: $0.64

These figures don’t include the decades-old production tax credit (PTC) that transfers billions more of your taxes to the “renewable” energy companies, about $12.2 billion every decade to wind alone. (Oddly, nuclear is not included in this definition of renewable.)

It’s time for a real accounting of costs here.  

If you could see the real cost of wind and solar “power” on our energy bills before all the coal-fired plants are shut down, you simply wouldn’t let it happen.  Europe is beginning to understand this as electricity prices skyrocket and governments are backing out of subsidies in Spain, Germany and the U.K.  They simply can’t afford it.  And worse yet, Spain discovered it lost 2.2 real jobs for every heavily subsidized “green” job. 

Are we backing the wrong sectors in energy production?  Or should our investments reach out to coal, natural gas and nuclear too?

After all, it is important to remember that all solar and wind facilities rely 100% on the back up support of coal, natural gas and nuclear for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. 

Our government policies are littering the countryside with acres of inefficient windmills and solar panels while killing coal through layers of regulation, leaving natural gas and nuclear alone as back up to the “renewables.”

Rigorous or Nonsensical Standards?

Then-Senator Obama said in 2008:  

For us to take coal off the table as an ideological matter, as opposed to us saying that if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.  That I think is the right approach.  …[I]f we set rigorous standards for the allowable emissions, then we can allow the market to determine and technology and entrepreneurs to pursue what’s the best approach for us to take as opposed to us saying at the outset here are the winners that we’re pickin’ and maybe we pick wrong and maybe we pick right.

In response to onerous regulations issued by the administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - not Congress - the Patriot Coal Company, with 1.9 billion tons of coal reserves, became the first U.S. coal company to file for bankruptcy in generations. 

Says the EPA, regarding the residue of mercury and carbon dioxide in the emissions of coal-fired plants, King Coal has to get its numbers down:

• Mercury:  U.S. coal power plants account for about one half of one percent of all the mercury in the air, emitting an estimated 41 to 48 tons of mercury per year.  For comparison, US forest fires, most on federal land where logging has been severely curtailed to “save” sub-stocks such as the spotted owl, contribute just as much mercury, about 44 tons per year.  Dwarfing these numbers, power plants in China, many of which are still less efficient than those in the U.S., emit 400 tons of mercury per year.  Volcanoes and geysers emit about 9,000-10,000 tons.

• Carbon Dixode: EPA’s proposal to establish greenhouse gas (GHG) “new source performance standards” (NSPS) for power plants is a carbon pollution standard not based on policy-neutral health or scientific criteria.  Rather, the EPA contrived a standard that coal plants cannot possibly meet.   

Citing “a regiatory environment that puts coal at a disadvantage,” Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the U.S. coal industry to a “negative” rating.  The EPA estimates compliance costs will be $10 billion per year. The National Economic Research Associates estimates compliance costs will cost coal-fired energy plants $21 billion per year, money that simply can’t be passed on to consumers.  In response, Patriot Coal Company’s shares tumbled from $25 to 61 cents in less than a year.  Patriot Coal won’t be the last coal business to go belly up.

The EPA’s mandates are not forward-thinking, technology-forcing mandates. They’re simply regulatory nonsense designed to kill Old King Coal.   

Driving the carbon dioxide regulations is the science on a climate that changes  - provided courtesy of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC). 

And what if the UNIPCC is wrong or, as many think, the hype on “climate change” is primarily overblown campaign rhetoric designed to benefit some at the expense of many? 

Who will be held accountable?  Are we causing electricity costs to skyrocket and dismantling vital industries for no benefit? 

Sharing the atmosphere

The rest of the world is modernizing its energy grid, investing in modern coal-fired plants. China alone is using four times as much coal as we do.

Ashok Bhargava, an energy expert at the Asian Development Bank in Manila, said:

No matter how much renewable or nuclear is in the mix, coal will remain the dominant power source.

We share the atmosphere with China. Killing Old King Coal in the U.S. simply makes the coal miners’ sacrifice look like our collective folly. 

WHAT YOU CAN DO:  Educate yourself.  The costs of energy are reflected in your budget every day in everything you do and everything you buy.  Contact your elected representative and ask for an accounting of the costs related to our federal energy policy.  Only by understanding the true costs of production can we make sensible decisions on how to best design the energy grid of the future.  

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Teresa Platt is the Director of the Environment and Enterprise Institute at the National Center for Public Policy Research. 

Photo: iStockPhoto.com 

Project 21’s Kevin Martin: Petraeus Testimony Outs Ambassador Susan Rice as “Political Hack”

Closed-door testimony by former CIA director David Petraeus on November 16 reportedly revealed the American intelligence community almost immediately figured Al Qaeda as behind the September 11, 2012 attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

This finding, however, mysteriously disappeared from a final version of the talking points on the tragedy distributed among White House staffers.  Petraeus claims to not know who made the edit on the report that removed the Al Qaeda determination.  And, in an administration that is supposed to be rooted in transparency and accountability, Petraeus’ then-deputy Mike Morell and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also proclaim ignorance as to the identity of the person who removed the vital information about the attack that led to the murder of four Americans – including our ambassador in Libya (the first such high-ranking assassination since the Carter Administration).

This might seem to create some plausible deniability for Ambassador Susan Rice, who is said to be the heir apparent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s spot at the top after Clinton resigns to undoubtedly run for higher office.  But Rice’s ascendance is currently in question because of her September 16 appearance on five Sunday news shows in which she blamed the attack and the murders on a spontaneous protest against the “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube video.

After all, Susan Rice’s carpet-bombing of the networks with the narrative that the YouTube video led to random violence seriously diverges from the initial, unedited intelligence analysis and was the ruse which the Obama Administration hid behind for weeks.

Despite the proclamations of some pundits, Project 21 member Kevin Martin doesn’t think the Petraeus testimony absolves anyone, particularly Ambassador Rice.

Citing Susan Rice’s past, Kevin says the ambassador still has a lot to answer for when it comes to her mid-September assertions about Libya, YouTube and no links to Al Qaeda terrorists.

In particular, Kevin notes that Susan Rice’s comments on September are similar to behavior she allegedly exhibited in 1994 when she is said to have been a party to ignoring the genocide in Rwanda in favor of protecting then-President Bill Clinton’s political viability.

Despite having intelligence at the time that the international community needed to determine that genocide was indeed an issue in Rwanda, Rice – who was then a Clinton Administration staffer at the National Security Council – allegedly shocked colleagues on a conference call by saying about the policy option of confirming facts of mass murders in the African country: “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] election?”

According to a extensive 2001 article about Clinton Administration’s fumbling in the Atlantic by Samantha Power, Rice denied saying that, but said it would have been “irrelevant” if she had said it.  Not that she said she said it.

The Rwanda debacle, by the way, is remembered by President Clinton as the worst mistake he made during his time in office.  That includes cheating on his wife with an intern in the Oval Office!  And, from all the evidence, it would seem Susan Rice was knee-deep in causing that mistake in order to ensure the short-term protection of her boss.

Kevin thinks history may be repeating itself.  He says:

Ambassador Susan Rice’s Sunday morning media tour in September was likely never rooted in any real truth.  It now seems that later admissions and revelations about the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya betray what she said were the real reasons for the violence that killed four American heroes.

It appears it was known almost from the first moments that the attack on September 11 was a coordinated terrorist assault carried out by Al Qaeda.

As these facts trickle out, it becomes clear to me that Susan Rice was showing her true colors as a political hack for the administrations in which she has served.  She appears to have a history of dispensing what can only be seen as half-truths and perhaps even outright lies to cover-up for and promote her bosses.

In 1994, Susan Rice and others in the Clinton Administration essentially turned a blind eye to genocide in Rwanda rather than divulge information that would require the United Nations – and, by extension, the United States – to take action.  Accounts from that time suggest that Susan Rice preferred to keep the terrible facts about death beyond comparison in Africa a secret instead of risking a situation just prior to an election that might make President Clinton look bad.

It looks like Susan Rice might have employed the same tactics this year before the presidential election.  Was it to help deflect blame for the Benghazi attack away from the Obama Administration?  Was it to keep alive the Obama campaign assertion that Al Qaeda was decimated?

Given Susan Rice’s apparent predilection to put the interests of her superiors before the public interest, I wonder if she can give truthful testimony on this or other diplomatic or national security matters.

It certainly puts Ambassador Rice’s credibility in question.

top photo credit: iStockphoto.com

Free Markets, Restricted Markets

The same week that the movie I, Pencil premiered to rave reviews in one section of DC, in another part of town others were calculating just how many restrictions were tying up free people attempting - often futilely - to create and build free markets.  

I, Pencil is based on the classic 1958 essay by Leonard E. Read, the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education.  If you’ve read this essay before, it’s time to read it again.  If you missed it, it’s short and well worth your time. 

Economist Milton Friedman wrote an intro to Read’s essay in 1980 in which he praised Read for “keeping alive, in the early days, and then spreading the basic idea that human freedom required private property, free competition, and severely limited government.”

I, Pencil, the movie, was created by filmmaker Nick Tucker with screenplay by Nicole Woods Ciandella who blogs at Free Market Feminism. The movie’s breathtaking illustrations are the work of Berkeley artist Jen Oaks. 

Tracking Regulatory Restrictions on the Free Market

So, while I, Pencil held its “black tie optional” premiere in one part of DC, others were busy in another section of town counting all the restrictions on the free market.

After you watch I, Pencil, visit their work of art: the Mercatus Center’s database, RegData, a project dedicated to fine-tuning the art of tracking suffocating regulation. It reveals just how severely governments now limit the once-free market.

Number of U.S. Regulatory Restrictions Passes 1 MillionRegData tells us we’ve passed the one-million-restriction mark with about 15% of these laws focusing on “environmental” protection in general. With a million restrictions now on the books at just the federal level, can anyone claim that the free market is really free anymore? Use RegData to create charts and you’ll be shocked to see the regulatory burden we all bear.  In 1936, the Federal Register published about 2,600 pages a year.  Now it’s pumping out about 80,000 pages annually, representing about 4,000 new national laws each year.  The states are even worse, passing about 10 times that many laws, about 40,000 state restrictions annually. 

Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

Restrictions: Animal Ag, Timber ProductionRegData also tracks by the targets of the restrictions and the source of the restriction.  

The database reveals a heavy regulatory burden on those involved in forestry and ranching. It’s no surprise these industries are in serious decline. 

RegData also tracks the source of the restrictions, revealing that many are coming not from Congress, our official national regulatory body, but from the President’s Administration.

While Congress seems to have abdicated its responsibility to regulate carefully, bureacracy is busy creating more bureacracy.

Restrictions Issued by President’s AdministrationRegulatory Failure

Scott Jacobs of Jacobs, Cordova & Associates works with governments on regulatory reform internationally.  According to Jacobs, we are in the Golden Age of Regulation, restricting people’s lives faster than anyone can keep up. 

But regulatory failure is rampant, says Jacobs, with over 80% of regulations failing to solve the problem they were designed to address.  

After announcing a massive clean up of regulations suffocating individual freedom, the Greek Prime Minister lamented:

We built a world of bureaucracy and lust for power, a world of corruption, of small and big privileges and interests for anyone who could take advantage of other people.

In other words, government is being used to build regulatory battering rams for one group of special interests to pummel another. 

Hope on the Horizon

There is hope for reform.

In the United States, we’ve seen action at the state level to reduce the burden on “cottage cooks,” those creating new products in their own kitchens.

And both 2012 U.S. presidential candidates praised the basic human right to freely buy and sell in the free market. 

According to Jacobs, countries around the world are taking a “regulatory guillotine” approach to quickly rid their books of centuries of layers of suffocating regulation: 

• The UK is clearing laws that are hundreds of years old, regs belonging in a regulatory museum not in the codebooks of a modern society. The UK cleared out food preservation laws from the 1700s, long before refrigeration existed. Such laws were hindering the creation of whole new food businesses. Now the UK requires one law to be taken off the books for every one put on. 

• Italy went further in cutting red tape, eliminating anything in the codes written prior to 1972, over 100,000 laws.  No one missed them. 

• South Korea slashed almost half of its regulations from its legal codebooks and, in the process, unleashed creativity that built over a million new jobs. The savings to businesses was estimated at a remarkable 4.4% of gross domestic product (GDP). Better yet, businesses didn’t have to use higher prices as a way to recover all those regulatory costs from customers! The customer was better served.

How China Became Capitalist, by Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase and Professor Ning Wang, reveals that Communist China only passed 229 national laws between 1978 and 2008.  Even more surprising, only eight pre-1978 laws are still in use in China.  

Can you imagine what cleaning up our regulatory house might do for us here in the United States, for free people all around the world?  

I hope you’ll email the I, Pencil link to your children and grandchildren today.  

It will give them hope that, one day, their dreams will come true!  

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Teresa Platt is the Director of the Environment and Enterprise Institute at the National Center for Public Policy Research. 

Graphics: iStockPhoto.com 

"Sons of Bitches" Now Being Taken Out - Thank You, Mr. Hoffa

The Teamsters Union has put out a statement today expressing regret for the loss of jobs due to the liquidation of the Hostess company, and has put the immediate responsibility for the company's closure on the unwillingness of another union to make concessions after the Teamsters had done so.

The Teamsters Union should not be so willing to exclusively blame others. When Teamsters Union President James Hoffa yelled, while sharing the podium with the President, no less, "We are at war! ...President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march... Let’s take these sons of bitches out...," he didn't exactly send a "let's make concessions" message to the rank-and-file.

So, the sons of bitches are being taken out now, bub. Enjoy the fruit of your labor.

CEI Rebuts President Obama with New Video Showing "Who Really Built That"

How does our economy really work?

As we all know from his famous "you don't build that" speech, President Obama apparently thinks businesses are built because of things funded with tax dollars: teachers, roads, bridges and technological research.

...look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet...

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has released a new video that rebuts President Obama as well as it can be done, yet it doesn't even mention him. It explains how the free market really works. The video examines the pencil's "family tree" to show there literally are millions of people who work together in a free market to create and bring to consumers even goods that seem simple, like a pencil. People who may not even care about those goods, or even realize they are making them.

This video is excellent. I recommend it to everyone, but I especially hope parents and teachers will show it to young people. This is definitely worth a six-minute investment of time.

If we want to save the free market we have to make certain people, especially young people, understand the miracle of how it works.

President Obama Made False Climate Change Claim at Press Conference

In his just-completed press conference, President Obama made the false claim that the Earth is getting hotter. He even claimed it's getting hotter at a faster rate than was predicted even ten years ago. Specifically:

Reporter: In his endorsement of you a few weeks ago, Mayor Bloomberg said he was motivated by the belief that you would do more to confront the threat of climate change than your opponent. Tomorrow you’re going up to New York City, where you’re going to, I assume, see people who are still suffering the effects of Hurricane Sandy, which many people say is further evidence of how a warming globe is changing our weather. What specifically do you plan to do in a second term to tackle the issue of climate change? And do you think the political will exists in Washington to pass legislation that could include some kind of a tax on carbon?

President Obama: You know, as you know, Mark, we can’t attribute any particular weather event to climate change. What we do know is the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago.

The President is wrong about the planet getting hotter.

Data collected from 3,000 land and sea locations around the globe, jointly released last month by Britain’s Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (both institutions associated with the man-caused global warming theory), show that from early 1997 until August 2012 there was no noticeable rise in global temperatures.

In other words, the Earth's temperature has been steady since 1997.

Before 1997, there was about 20 years of warming. Prior to that, there were stable or declining temperatures for about 40 years. The Earth has warmed about 0.75 degrees Celsius since 1880, which is soon after the Little Ice Age ended.

To President Obama's credit, he did correct the reporter's false implication that Hurricane Sandy is an indicator that human-caused global warming is taking place. Weather happens, he essentially said, and rightly so. The reporter, who was identified by the President as Mark Landler, who works for the New York Times, should never have made such an irresponsible statement.

Project 21’s LeBon Calls for Common Sense Over Bloomberg’s Edible Edicts

As noted by the National Center’s Jeff Stier last week, the Bloomberg Administration’s New York City ban on most private donations of food to the needy remains in effect.

Is that wise, considering the state of the city?

Because city officials may not be able to assess the fat, fiber or salt content of donated foods, there’s a good chance that — as Jeff reported the Upper West Side Orthodox congregation found out last March — private acts of charity will be refused.

This refusal of assistance is said to be enforced no matter how bad the homeless problem may get in city-run shelters and how bad things may still become in the wake of Hurricane Sandy’s walloping of the Big Apple.

As New Yorkers are found to be resorting to dumpster-diving to survive — subsisting on trash that likely has an indeterminate amount of salt, fat or fiber — Project 21 co-chairman Cherylyn Harley LeBon thinks common sense must be allowed to prevail over Bloomberg’s nanny-state predilections and edicts.

Cherylyn said:

Mayor Bloomberg strikes again.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy — with images of people dumpster-diving for food, cars floating down what were once major streets and homes being literally demolished by flooding — a warm, dry and well-fed Nanny Bloomberg once again seems to think he knows what is best for the citizens of Gotham.

Mayor Bloomberg already banned most private food donations to city homeless shelters because it’s said that the city cannot adequately gauge the salt and fat content of the donations.  It’s claimed city officials need to ensure that the homeless receive the highest levels of nutrition.

While this was an issue regarding the perennial homeless last March, it has re-surfaced recently due to Hurricane Sandy and the people who have been driven from their homes by the storm.  With thousands of people finding themselves displaced and the large amount of donations arriving from across the country, Bloomberg’s nanny state policies could literally take food from starving peoples’ mouths and send them to the trash in search of sustenance.

Now is the time to exercise some basic common sense.  I would hope that Nanny Bloomberg could — at least for just a bit — abandon his political correctness and put the very basic needs of food and the idea of a full belly above all.

top photo credit: iStockphoto.com

Voter Fraud Doesn't Exist, Claimed MSNBC and Its Allies... And Yet

Voter fraud "doesn't exist," claimed MSNBC's Ed Schultz and numerous other supposedly-informed people with two things in common: a habit of calling conservatives names and a tendency toward creative interpretation in black-white situations.

But they'll have to do better than this.

Says the Philadelphia Inquirer:

It's one thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to dominate a Democratic city like Philadelphia, but check out this head-spinning figure: In 59 voting divisions in the city, Mitt Romney received not one vote. Zero. Zilch.

The Inquirer makes a valiant effort to say this could happen in a million years, but then it concedes:

Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia who has studied African American precincts, said he had occasionally seen 100 percent of the vote go for the Democratic candidate. Chicago and Atlanta each had precincts that registered no votes for Republican Sen. John McCain in 2008.

"I'd be surprised if there weren't a handful of precincts that didn't cast a vote for Romney," he said. But the number of zero precincts in Philadelphia deserves examination, Sabato added.

"Not a single vote for Romney or even an error? That's worth looking into," he said.

The left has pounded the false argument that voter fraud doesn't exist, and everybody knows it doesn't exist, so the only motivation for passage of voter ID and other voter integrity measures must be racism.

I was raised in Pittsburgh, where it was taken as a matter of faith that we'd get out-voted by Philadelphia every time it mattered, not only because Philadelphia was bigger, but because Philadelphia would cheat.

And, as I noted in this blog on November 6, no less a hyper-partisan Democrat than Chris Matthews admits there is fraud in Philadelphia:

MSNBC's Chris Matthews [is] a former Tip O'Neill staffer and reliable liberal cheerleader in most circumstances. When the topic came up on Hardball, Matthews admitted that this type of impersonation fraud has 'gone on since the Fifties.' He explained the scheme: Someone calls to enquire whether you voted or are going to vote, and 'then all of a sudden somebody does come and vote for you.' Matthews says this is an old strategy in big-city politics: 'I know all about it in North Philly - it's what went on, and I believe it still goes on.' (Source: "Who's Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk" by John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky)

(Ed Schultz, call your office. Ask for Chris.)

To be fair, there's plenty of cheating outside of Philadelphia, too.

Folks, if you genuinely believe voter integrity measures harm certain populations, then take a strong stand against cheating. Then we won't need those measures anymore.

World Health Organization Bureaucrats Want More Bans

As parties to a global anti-tobacco treaty meet in Seoul, South Korea this week, I wrote an op-ed for the English edition of one of South Korea’s largest newspapers. In today’s Korea JoongAng Daily, I warn about the actual public health dangers of bans sought by World Health Organization bureaucrats. 

They key, I explain is that public health authorities must not conflate nicotine addiction with tobacco (or E-cigarette) use.

When the World Health Organization’s (WHO) tobacco control group meets in Seoul this week, it risks harming smokers who need help quitting. The group will consider bans on less harmful alternatives to cigarette smoking such as Swedish-style smokeless tobacco, or snus, and E-cigarettes. These products have been shown to help smokers stop smoking. The type of regulation applied to these products is especially important to Korea, which has among the highest rates of cigarette smoking within the OECD.

The Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), will consider two especially egregious reports on these matters. The group sets guidelines for countries who are parties to the tobacco control treaty. 

The papers, prepared by unnamed WHO bureaucrats, employ specious arguments and agenda-driven science that represent a radical departure from the group’s original and well-intentioned mission to fight the deadly harm from tobacco use around the globe. 

Cigarette smoking is by far the most dangerous, and according to the WHO’s own analysis, “the most dominant form of tobacco use.” Therefore, cigarette smoking should be public enemy number one when it comes to reducing the harm done from tobacco use. 

But the FCTC is now urging its members to consider bans on lower-risk forms of nicotine use, such as snus and E-cigarettes, which are promising tools for “tobacco harm reduction” (THR), a strategy which employs less harmful forms of nicotine consumption to help smokers quit. If the FCTC nannies get their way, some of the least harmful forms of nicotine would be banned while cigarettes would remain legal. 

Parties to the FCTC should take note of critical language in a draft guidance just published by the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence which states that, “most health problems are almost entirely caused by other components in cigarettes, not by the nicotine.”

Because nicotine is the addictive, but not particularly harmful component in tobacco, public health authorities must not conflate nicotine addiction with tobacco (or E-cigarette) use. In fact, recognizing the difference is critical to understanding the value of THR. Harm reduction, widely used effectively in public health (methadone, clean needles and condoms), helps smokers as well. THR can be a life-saver, especially for those who have failed to quit using widely known and highly ineffective approaches, including cold-turkey, medical nicotine replacement therapy (gum and patch) as well as counseling.

One report, “Control and prevention of smokeless tobacco products,” attempts to make believe that THR simply doesn’t exist. The report doesn’t spend even a sentence on the established literature, international reports and case studies about the promise of snus in harm reduction. Yet it lingers on, citing some of the most implausible and discredited studies about possible dangers of various smokeless products. This is important because in order to establish sound THR practices, public health authorities and smokers alike need credible science about the comparative risks of different forms of tobacco use.

In addition, the report properly acknowledges the vast variances in risk between classes of different smokeless tobacco products, with snus being among the least harmful. Yet at the same time, it fails to acknowledge the tremendous gap in risk between snus and cigarettes. That’s like admitting the important differences between roses and tulips, while ignoring the fact that roses are very different from crocodiles.

While the FCTC report on smokeless tobacco is misleading, its paper on E-cigarettes, is flat-out preposterous. The report argues, for instance, that more research must be conducted regarding E-cigarette marketing claims such as that they are an “alternative to smoking.” If E-cigarettes aren’t a (much safer) alternative to smoking cigarettes, what are they?

Perhaps the most imaginative justification for WHO’s global ban on E-cigarettes is the argument that since parties to the FCTC have “an obligation to undertake a comprehensive ban of all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship,” it should ban E-cigarettes, since they “can be considered as promoting tobacco use, either directly or indirectly.” 

The reports are chock-full of unsupported assertions against less harmful cigarette alternatives, while they ignore the growing body of evidence that THR is effective, especially given the public health community’s abject failure to address a fundamental tobacco control challenge: helping cigarette smokers quit.

Yes, there’s still room for improvement of THR products, both in terms of even further reduced risk, as well as increased satisfaction, so smokers will be more likely to switch. But the FCTC secretariat’s absolutist attitude would stifle this very innovation public health requires in the real world. They’d prefer a “quit or die” approach that is completely unrealistic and lacks compassion for smokers.

If the FCTC bureaucrats’ ideology goes unchecked, the result would be counterproductive worldwide government policies that harm those they should be helping, by leading to just one form of tobacco use: the most deadly. Cigarettes would still be the nicotine product of choice, and any nicotine product except historically ineffective medicinal forms would be banned. 

Parties to the FCTC should firmly reject these anti-science approaches and demand that the treaty remain bound to its original public health mandate. 
 

Bloomberg's Food Donation Ban Still in Place

Volunteers who want to donate food to a New York City-run homeless shelter will be turned away. As I wrote in the New York Post in March,

The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term “food police” to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless.

With many New Yorkers City residents still suffering from the effects of super storm Sandy, the issue is back in the news. As part of a radio segment on how we have too much faith in government, Rush Limbaugh, on Friday, said,

And, remember, if you see a homeless person in New York, you are not permitted to donate food.  Mayor Doomberg has said that food donations to the homeless are not permitted because there is nobody in place right now to check the salt and fat content of the food that you are donating, and therefore no donations are permitted.  And of course that makes perfect sense.  I mean, we wouldn’t want to give people who are starving or haven’t had food in a while, stuff that is not nutritious.  We wouldn’t want to give people food with too much salt, too much fat content, it would be unhealthy.  Even when they’re hungry, that’s right, the mayor is exactly right about this.  Even in the midst of starvation, you still can’t give people food without first checking the salt and fat content.  You people need to stop worrying in New York and New Jersey.  Your government’s on the case.  They’ll fix it.   

My piece was also the basis of an MSN piece earlier in the week.

A New York City’s Department of Homeless Services spokesman told me this spring that this is not just a homeless shelter rule. Presumably, the food ban would apply to city-shelters set up for Sandy evacuees as well.