Beacon Hill Institute Exposed

Unlocking One Think Tank’s Oily Secrets

Source: Facing South (Institute for Southern Studies), November 13, 2007

Why would the John Locke Foundation, a “conservative North Carolina-based think tank” launch a “series of scathing attacks” against the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS), a Pennsylvania-based “nonprofit group of scientists, engineers, business strategists and policy experts who guide states in figuring out how to best reduce greenhouse gas pollution”? Sue Sturgis follows the money, and finds that Locke “received at least $126,500 from outfits with ties to the fossil-fuel industry between fiscal [year] 2002 and 2005.” Locke funders include DCI Group, Atlas Economic Research Foundation and Reason Foundation. In September, Locke and the Heartland Institute (which has received funding from ExxonMobil) hosted a conference call on CCS’s alleged “hijacking of climate policy.” During the call, Locke’s Michael Sanera suggested discrediting “CCS’s Sponsoring Organization (State environmental bureaucracy)” and demanding “cost-benefit analysis by academic economists.” Later, Locke released a “peer review assessment” of CCS’s methods, drawn up by the Beacon Hill Institute. Not disclosed was the fact that Beacon’s clients include several oil industry-funded climate change skeptics, such as DCI Group, Heritage Foundation and Pacific Research Institute.

Read full article

Energy Myths

EXCERPT
The Manhattan Institute

In January 1969, a natural gas blowout on an oil rig miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, spilled 80,000 gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean and onto surrounding beaches. Twenty years later, in March 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef and spilled 10.4 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, affecting 1,300 miles of shoreline.

These two great oil spills are perhaps the principal sources of public antipathy toward offshore drilling for natural resources. Images of spilled oil bubbling to the ocean’s surface and covering birds and other wildlife have firmly cemented in much of the public mind that offshore drilling is dangerous, that it inflicts tremendous environmental harm, and that its costs are not worth its benefits. Thus the means by which the U.S. obtains about 25 percent of the nation’s natural gas production and about 24 percent of its oil production have become, understandably, linked to environmental degradation.

Since 1975, offshore drilling in the Exclusive Economic Zone (within 200 miles of U.S. coasts) has a safety record of 99.999 percent, meaning that only 0.0001 percent of the oil produced has been spilled. With regard to the Outer Continental Shelf (U.S. waters under federal, rather than state, jurisdiction), between 1993 and 2007 there were 651 oil spills, releasing 47,800 barrels of oil. Given 7.5 billion barrels of oil produced during that period, one barrel of oil has been spilled in the OCS per 156,900 barrels produced.

Read full article

Congressional Moratorium on Offshore Drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf Should Be Allowed to Expire

EXCERPT
The Heritage Foundation
by Ben Lieberman, WebMemo #2016

The clock is ticking on the congressional moratorium on access to billions of barrels of domestic oil beneath American waters. President Bush already rescinded the White House prohibitions on access to this energy, so the congressional restrictions are the only thing standing between 19 billion barrels of additional domestic oil and the citizens who need it. If Congress does not act to renew these outdated, anti-energy, and anti-consumer restrictions, these areas will be opened to exploration and drilling beginning on October 1. Some are calling this Energy Freedom Day, and it would be a welcome and long overdue step toward dealing with high gasoline prices.

Read full article

A Modest Proposal for Lowering Oil Company Profits

EXCERPT
Institute for Policy Innovation

With gasoline hitting $3.00 a gallon across the country, and Republicans already smelling voter dissatisfaction in the air, it seems everyone in Congress wants to do something about gasoline prices — especially before the November elections.

But what? Price controls? A windfall profits tax? A public scolding?

If you are a little puzzled by all of this, that’s understandable. For years liberals have been calling for a gas tax that would boost the price of gas up to about $3.00 a gallon. So why aren’t they happy?

Well, the stated purpose for the gas tax was to discourage gas consumption and encourage public pressure on Congress and the White House to promote alternative fuels, mass transit and clean energy. Well, they got their $3.00 a gallon and all of the above is happening, but liberals still aren’t happy. That’s because they wanted that extra buck-fifty or so per gallon of gas so they could pass it on to various environmental and liberal groups, which would in turn support the liberals.

What’s happened instead is that money is going to oil companies, which tend to support Republicans. ExxonMobil has reported $6 billion in profits for the first quarter of 2006, after reporting $36 billion, a record amount, for 2005.

We don’t pretend to know whether oil company profits are too high, too low, or just right. For that matter, neither should Congress.
But since there is growing public pressure to do something about the profits, how about something that would actually do some good?

Oil companies invest part of their income into exploration. ExxonMobil says it spends about 30 percent. If Congress were to open up the Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), land off the coast of Florida and other places with proven reserves, oil companies would have an array of new places to drill and explore. They would be spending more of that money that is currently going to profits on increasing America’s energy supply.

Profits would decline because expenses (i.e., drilling) would be going up. Americans would have more oil, making the public happy. And oil profits would go down (at least initially), making the politicians happy.

Or is it just easier for Congress to do the wrong thing, because . . . that’s what Congress always does?
Read full article

McCain and the Manhattan Institute Fail to Defend Offshore Drilling

EXCERPT

By Corinne Ramey

All those big oil and gas supporters must be feeling threatened. On Thursday, Al Gore issued a challenge for America to produce 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy and carbon-free sources within the next 10 years, and repeated the challenge again at Netroots Nation over the weekend.

Now conservatives are hitting back by playing on the realities of high fuel costs and the fears of even higher costs in the future. John McCain introduced a new advertisement called “The Pump,” that suggests that Obama is responsible for high gas prices. “Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?” the ads asks, as a crowd in the background shouts, “Obama, Obama!” As hopeful music plays in the background, the ad continues, “One man knows we must now drill more in America and rescue our family budgets.”

In an op-ed in the New York Sun today, Charles Sahm of the Manhattan Institute argues for offshore drilling, backing up his argument with questionable premises including that fact that Brazil does it, so it must be ok, and that a Zogby poll found 74% of Americans support offshore drilling. (You know that if the public thinks it’s a good idea, then it must be so. So much for the fact that most respondents probably just want lower gas prices.)

It seems that McCain and the Manhattan Institute need to do their fact checking. Conservatives repeatedly have touted offshore drilling as a quick solution, the magic bullet that would bring back our cheap gas. “The country will need to pursue all energy options in the years ahead,” writes Sahm. “…For the foreseeable future, however, oil and natural gas will remain a major part of our overall energy picture.” McCain concurs, saying that lifting the ban on off-shore drilling “would be very helpful in the short term in resolving our energy crisis.”

Unfortunately for him, this just isn’t true. Oil exploration and drilling takes years, and experts agree (check out this HuffPo survey of economists on the drilling ban) that the ban would have no impact for several decades, and at that point only a minor one. Even Guy Caruso, the head of the Energy Information Administration who was appointed by Bush, said that the price decrease was likely to be “muted” because “It does take a long time to develop those resources.” For a great analysis of why offshore drilling is unlikely to be profitable and why the oil industry currently has plenty of undiscovered oil to tap into, check out Joseph Romm’s post on Grist.

Strangely enough, McCain admitted that offshore drilling was pretty much worthless only a month ago during a campaign stop in Wisconsin. “[W]ith those resources, which would take years to develop, you would only postpone or temporarily relieve our dependency on fossil fuels,” McCain said. And in 1999, while running for president, McCain said just as much when he claimed that it was the “special interests in Washington” that wanted offshore drilling. At point, McCain supported the moratorium.

So where’s the straight talk now, Mr. McCain?

Read full article

Placeholder 4