The Public Policy
Meet the New Climate Change Kid on the Block
The Climate Registry will thrive in the enviro-activist Obama era.
Barack Obama announced his new energy team at a press conference Monday, sending a subtle slap down to President Bush by saying his administration would “value science” and “make decisions based on the facts.”
The four appointments are a precursor to what will be the most enviro-activist administration in American history. Among others, Obama tapped Carol Browner, former EPA chief in the Clinton administration, to head up a new office in the White House designed to coordinate environmental policies. In a move that will please multiple facets of his leftist base, he also picked Nancy Sutley (an open lesbian and current deputy mayor in Los Angeles) to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
The press conference underscored the Obama agenda for curbing so-called catastrophic climate change. That agenda will doubtless extend to supporting nonprofit organizations like the Climate Registry.
If you’ve never heard of it, don’t worry. The California-based nonprofit has kept out of the headlines. But it has the potential to be a major player in the ongoing debate over climate-change policy. It’s also a prime example of the snug relationship between environmentalist groups and state governments.
The Climate Registry’s mission is simple: convince companies, organizations, state and local governments, and other entities to sign on and report their greenhouse gas emissions. There are several groups devoted to that cause around the country, but the registry, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, is the most far-reaching. Thirty-nine states, the District of Columbia, nine Canadian provinces, six Mexican states, and three Native American tribes have signed on as members.
Members are not required to report their emissions on a state-, province-, or tribe-wide basis. Instead, they serve as the registry’s funding factory, appointing a board member, signing a statement of principles and goals, and paying a voluntary annual fee ranging from $20,000 to $50,000, depending on the state or region’s population.
They also serve as a catalyst for recruiting entities within the state, province, or tribe as “reporters.” For the privilege of tracking their own emissions, reporters are required to pay an annual membership fee ranging from $450 to $10,000. Nearly 300 entities have joined as reporters nationwide.
The registry has created what it calls a Climate Registry Information System that reporters use to input their greenhouse gas emissions data. The public then has access to the verified emissions reports. The “benefit” for companies is getting a leg up on tracking carbon dioxide emissions in preparation for Obama’s inevitable cap-and-trade system.
That brings up the cozy relationship between the registry and state governments. The group’s IRS Form 990 is not yet available, but a budget projection circulated by the group estimated $1 million in contributions from member states, provinces, or tribes for the 2008 fiscal year, well over half of the registry’s estimated budget.
The funds, ostensibly, are “seed money” to get the registry up and running. Once enough reporters sign on and begin paying dues, the payments will no longer be necessary, supporters say. But stop and consider what that means: state governments across the country are serving as grantors to an out-of-state nonprofit without generating any tangible benefit for taxpayers, aside from (supposedly) fighting the giant boogieman of climate change.
State-level environmental regulatory agencies also have a dubious connection with the registry. In North Carolina, for example, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources sent a letter on agency stationery trying to recruit DENR-regulated companies to join the registry and pay membership fees. Adding to the conflict of interest, agency staffers have used taxpayer funds to travel on behalf of the registry, tried to convince other states to join the fold, and even opened up agency offices for registry recruitment sessions.
The registry claims to be policy neutral, but it’s partially funded by grants from climate-change alarmist groups such as the Kendall Foundation, the Merck Family Fund, and the Energy Foundation. Its agenda is clear. In addition to advocating the voluntary reporting system, the group supports state-level mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions.
Only ten states have yet to join the registry: Alaska, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Texas, Indiana, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. With Obama stepping up efforts to create a national cap-and-trade system — maybe with the registry at the forefront — any last holdouts will face enormous pressure.
In the past, Americans have valued liberty above safety. That’s changing. Today, we fork out trillions in the name of economic stabilization, surrender civil liberties in the name of fighting the war on terror, and sign away our freedoms in the name of reducing temperatures and sea levels. Forgotten is that the chief purpose of government is securing our God-given liberty, not securing us.
About the Author
David N. Bass is a journalist who writes from the Old North State. Follow him on Twitter.
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Jason | 12.19.08 @ 6:51AM
Brace yourself for a world of economic pain...just so we can appease the Global Warming gods.
http://rightklik.blogspot.com/
frost| 12.19.08 @ 8:00AM
What these environmental goofballs fail to remember is the simple law of economics: It takes a prosperous economy to afford those frivolities like "climate change," the new phrase being uttered these days with snow in Malibu, Vegas and Spokane, etc... Global Warming is a sad joke.
Annnnd, Carol Browner? She's scary! Wasn't she the numbnut who wanted to ban leaf-blowers and lawn mowers (or slap a hefty tax thereon)?
We're in a world-of-hurt, gang...
Dustoff| 12.19.08 @ 10:00AM
O-boy, get ready for David from Fl to show up. He's Mr Greenjeans himself.
It won't take long for him to take over this thread, with his 10.000 words of BS.
stmichrick| 12.19.08 @ 10:25AM
For reasonable people, climate propaganda should be the central battle of the next decade. I do not recall any issue with one side that is so utterly fraudulent and has attained religious devotion in society.
Like sub-prime mortgages, it is another industry with toxic assets. DENR needs to be turned around before another financial melt down occurs.
dgdc| 12.19.08 @ 11:05AM
If you want to defeat the more radical aspects of climate change you need to get ahead on some elements of environmental policy. Supporting habitat conservation is popular with the average environmentalist and the responsible gun carrying hunters. Ending farm subsidies is good econmic and environmental sense. And rationalizing the national power grid will cut power waste and improve security.
Most voters are sympathetic to environmental causes so you have to appeal to them as you can.
achilles| 12.19.08 @ 11:39AM
I wish the global warmingists would just leave us alone. It used to be that we were going to enter an ice age. Then the world was going to end because there were too many people. When is the last time anyone heard of ozone holes? Global Warmingists should just be intellectually honest and say they would rather rid the world of people and technology so the world can be enjoyed by all the dumb animals who live sustainable lives. All people who want to further wreck our economy for this nonsense should swear off electricity, gas, coal, and promise not to reproduce--for the good of the environment.
Dan| 12.19.08 @ 12:19PM
"Brace yourself for a world of economic pain...just so we can appease the Global Warming gods."
"We're in a world-of-hurt, gang... "
Although good quotes, I see a mass of people who have given up and rolled over.
It doesn't make sense. Don't accept what has been handed to America if you don't agree with it. Fight with every cell in your body.
Write Reps, senators, even obama himself. Get friends to join! Be a fighter not a failure!
I love that I agree with all of these people. Human induced global warming is a scam that I think we all know to well. But it is about damn time we do something about it.
Stan Redmond| 12.19.08 @ 1:17PM
Mr. Bass, You are falling for the slick new packaging of global warming by endorsing the new marketing term "global climate change." This subtly lends credibility to these control mongers.
On another note. In my years of reading and hearing the harpies drone on and on about the horrible future I have not heard one person explain the following piece of information. WHAT EXACTLY is the ideal temperature, weather, and climate? Who decides that? Al Gore? Do the farmers decide? Do skiers decide? Do beach goers decide? With all this doomsaying about where the climate MIGHT go, tell us where it must be.
Marc Jeric| 12.19.08 @ 2:15PM
The globaloney cooling scam of the 1970's was followed by the globaloney warming hoax of the 1990's; after 10 years of cooling since that was followed by the ongoing climate change flim-flam. One must admit - those revolutionary marxist-leninists masquerading as environmentalists are inventive!
malm| 12.19.08 @ 5:43PM
Fight back by calling your congressman ? Have you noticed they are overwhelmingly democrat? They will never listen to a constituent on this issue, never. The most powerful people in the world are pushing this agenda and to stop them will take strategy, and tactics. Right now they are winning every battle. This guy Franken looks like he"s done it, so now they have 59 in their senate majority, plus McCain. We are in a war, and lack leadership. Chattering class conservatives are not leaders. We need men and women of action. Action would be 10 million households canceling their cable and satellite until a year of fair debate on this issue is given full scale programming. That is six, or seven hundred million dollars a month of lost revenue to media conglomerates, plus plenty in taxes and fees for government. It would hurt that jerk CEO from Google ,a big Kahuna in this fascist scam, right in the pocket book. Many others pushing this thing, including Hollywood would feel some pain. But, heck we can't get 1000 households to sacrifice their Seinfeld reruns. The Left could, if that meant winning on this or any other issue. They are tougher, smarter, and more dedicated than the rest of this nation. They are more like those at Valley Forge, than any conservative I can think of with some leadership capacity. So write , and talk, and think tank til you drop. But, until conservatism becomes one branch of many in the Army of resistance, and the Republicans become the party of many big tents kiss your sorry rear ends goodbye. Senator Franken will soon have a vote on the carbon tax madness. How low can you go Republicans ?
AOP | 12.19.08 @ 6:31PM
We should have listened to the Goracle, but it's too late. The crisis is upon us. It just snowed in Malibu and Vegas. The world has gotten so hot that-
Hey, wait!
-AOP
ageofpericles.blogspot.com
BobR| 12.19.08 @ 7:22PM
First to Stan Redmon, from my considerable geological research on the subject, 23 deg. C seems to resonate, or 73.4 deg F. That would be daily average I think and seems reasonable to me. I believe that www.petitionproject.com, presented last May to the US Senate and signed by over 31,000 US scientists, says that CO2 quantity in the atmosphere has no apparent ability to control temperature. From an email to its originators last September, I was informed that signatures were still being received and they had a backlog of 1,500 science credentials being checked. Eight months later there are obviously several thousand additions, including mine because I was late in getting it in. A study of climate graphs shows that CO2 lags temperature by as much as 800 years, ie the temperature increase BRINGS the CO2 out of hiding (analagous to a partially consumed can of beer left standing an hour or so, goes flat because it has warmed up). Another even stronger reason is that ancient, very warm climates, such as the Mesozoic (dinosaurs), developed atmospheres with more than 10 x the CO2 content of today without catastrophic heating. This fact refutes the scare tactics in use today. We MUST insist that before we waste trillions of dollars on bogus science, their proof must be exposed for true scientific validation.
DaveS| 12.19.08 @ 9:01PM
STOP GLOBAL COOLING! [or when we we realize how impotent we are with respect to climate?]
malm| 12.19.08 @ 9:12PM
Dear BobR, you need to say what you wrote above in a way real dopes can understand. Something catchy that'll fit on a bumper sticker.
They just say "save the polar bears". and beat you in the debate. Intelligently written articles are useless in this theatre of operation.
Michael L. Hauschild| 12.20.08 @ 8:16AM
There are several groups that are on board with the Global Warming cabal, the very poor (ignorant), the young (idealistic) and the very rich (arrogant). They all have in common the relatively small percentage of their incomes that is currently being expended for this boondoggle. As the socialist state we are entering expands these groups will be alienated, the poor will have diminished funding allotted (awarded) to them and they will begin to notice their diminishing “cut,” the young will enter the work force and to their horror will become members of the real taxpaying middle class, the wealthy will be notified by their tax accountants that they have been targeted in the inevitable governmental practice of “only being able to get from those who got.” To paraphrase Samuel Colt “Government created taxpayers, inflation makes them equal.” The bailout fallacy is wearing thin, the most eloquent rhetoric in the world fails in the face of filling out your IRS 1040 with hands blistered from shoveling snow.
betterred| 12.21.08 @ 9:50PM
That's going to be Obama's legacy, the one who destroyed a once great country..
Anyone who believes in that Global Warming canard should take this qoute to heart...
“The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.”
Russell | 12.22.08 @ 1:24AM
While a one degree rise in temperature can be relied upon to strike a point from IQ test scores , " scientists " in all climes typically publish a peer reviewed paper or so a year.
We wait with baited breath for the quarter million item bibliography that ought to testify to the bona fides of BobR's 31,000 strong cohort of scientific contrarians.
As a matter of fact , we've been waiting for years for 31 new faces to replace the same old same old 19 whose D-list offerings account for most of the climate science citations in these parts.
Speaking of which, when , o when , will David Bass and the solons at the Locke Institute latch on to a subscription to Science Citation Index ,and being armed with its sophomore-friendly software for seeing who reads whom in the real world, come to understand how ,as well as why they were routed in the late Climate Wars ?
libertyordeath76| 12.22.08 @ 1:00PM
Bullets not Ballots in 2010. That's the only way anything will change.
Marc Jeric| 1.12.09 @ 11:16AM
Let us remember that Ms. Browner is a highly placed executive in the Socialist International. How about that!
Pete Castricone| 1.16.09 @ 5:05PM
Wow, there are a lot of uninformed people leaving comments about this article.
I'm curious...why are so many praising Obama as an environmental messiah? He is a civil rights attorney.
And, what's with the criticism of Bush about environmental policy? During his tenure, there has been significant advances in environmental policy, including EPACT 2005, Executive Order 13423, and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. If you don't know, these policies mandate significant reductions in energy and water consumption (among other things) and should be hailed as major achievements for the United States. Since the GHG debate has been in the works long before Obama, I'm not sure what is left for him to take credit for. I will admit, though, that improvements can always be made.
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