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During the Clinton Administration, Carol Browner and Larry Summers faced off on climate issues. Carol Browner worked with Vice President Gore and others to develop paths for moving forward toward a less carbon intensive economy. Summers undercut momentum forward with strenuous (misguided, poorly informed, stove-piped economic analysis) statements of concern. Summers “argued that the United States would risk damaging the domestic economy if it set overly ambitious goals for reducing carbon emissions.”

Larry Summers and Carol Browner are back, both working in the White House, and, sadly, it looks like their conflict is back. Again, it looks like Larry Summers (and his team) are working to hinder progress forward on climate issues.

The issue is complex, but extremely well discussed by David Sassoon at Solve Climate. In short:

1. HFCs, designed to replace CFCs in refrigerants, are far more serious green-house gases than CO2, up to 11,000 more impact per lb released into the atmosphere.
2. The Department of State, working with stakeholders (including the HFC manufacturer), had developed a path to use the Montreal Protocol (the system by which CFCs have been rapidly reduced throughout the global economy) to phase out HFCs.

Larry Summers has, however, thrown a wrench into a path agreed to throughout the interagency process for something the State Department hoped to bring to the international community next week.

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Over at Energy Economy Online, Craig Severance wrote a good piece, Energy Makeover Time, reviewing the financial case behind investing heavily in energy efficiency and solar systems (both PV and hot water).

The key to making the cash flow work for a major Energy Makeover is to finance the improvement. Refinancing your home mortgage, and including the Energy Makeover costs, converts the cost into a monthly payment. The goal is utility bill savings that are bigger than any increase in mortgage payments — so your total housing costs actually go down.

While there are some particular elements of the case assumptions that won’t fit most people (huge Colorado utility rebates (about 40% of solar PV costs), a 6.5% original interest rate), Craig’s work is definitely worth the look.

Now, when reading it, I note a problem: Craig had the 30 percent tax credit for solar hot water limited to $2000. This, however, is a limit that has been overtaken by events (OBE): the ARRA (the stimulus package) lifted this limit. I contacted Craig, to point out this change. Craig came back that he had relied on the RIA, which is considered to be perhaps the nation’s top tax research service, used by a huge share of the nation’s CPAs and tax lawyers. From RIA, a 30 April 2009 search:

569,560. Residential energy efficient property credit for solar electric, solar hot water, and fuel cell property installed before 2017.

Introduction: Individual taxpayers are allowed a nonrefundable personal tax credit, known as the
residential energy efficient property (REEP) credit, for 30% of expenditures for qualified solar electric,
solar water heating, fuel cell, small wind energy, and geothermal heat pump property placed in service
before 2017. The credit is limited to $2,000 for solar water heating and geothermal heat pump
property, $500 for each 0.5 kilowatt of capacity of fuel cell property, and $500 for each 0.5 kilowatt of
capacity (not to exceed $4,000) of small wind energy property. There is no dollar limit for solar electric
property after 2008

RIA got this wrong.

For example, first thing up with the following google search ““tax deduction” solar hot water” is the US Government’s Energy Star website. There it will tell you that it is a 30% tax credit, with no limit.

$1,500 is the maximum total amount that can be claimed for all products placed in service in 2009 & 2010 for most home improvements, EXCEPT for geothermal heat pumps, solar water heaters, solar panels, fuel cells, and small wind energy systems which are not subject to this cap, and are in effect through 2016

Note to RIA: There is no limit to geothermal and solar hot water systems.

Now, what is interesting is that the IRS form 5695 referenced is from 2008. For 2008, the tax credit limitation was $2000. But, this was changed in the ARRA (the stimulus package) which lifted the limitations.

Have to wonder how many CPAs and tax attorneys, relying on RIA like Craig did, will get this wrong.

Bad information fosters bad decisions.

NOTE: At this time, most people installing geothermal and solar systems are well aware of the benefits, likely to be in a position to challenge an accountant giving them bad advice on the tax benefits.

Quite simply, Greening Schools is perhaps one of the clearest ‘no brainer’ no regrets strategies that we should be pursuing aggressively. I cannot think of another opportunity to boost educational performance while cutting costs and improving the health of our children and communities while also helping turn the tide on Global Warming.

Today, on Capital Hill, the Envronmental and Energy Institute (EESI) will be hosting a session “High Performance Green Schools: Improving Education and Creating a Clean Energy Future”. (2-3:30 pm, 253 Russell Senate Office Building). If you are unable to make it, EESI will have it available to watch online next week. Announcement after the fold.

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Facing dissent from within The Washington Post, dissent that has gone public in many ways, and with the Post editorial board implicitly having rebuked George Will’s repeated Will-ful deceit in multiple ways, Washington Post opinion page editor Fred Hiatt was pitched a softball question in an online chat enabling him to undo some of the damage done to the paper’s credibility. Hiatt saw the pitch, swung, and struck another blow to any claims of journalistic integrity.

Boston: This doesn’t relate to Obama but would you care to address the whole George Will global warming column controversy? Is there any concern that lax standards for accuracy hurts the prestige of The Post opinion page more generally?

Fred Hiatt: Happy to, because we don’t have lax standards for accuracy. He addressed the factual challenges to his column in detail in a later column. In general we do careful fact checking. What people have mostly objected to is not that his data are wrong but that he draws wrong inferences. I would think folks would be eager to engage in the debate, given how sure they are of their case, rather than trying to shut him down.

Okay Fred:

1. Sadly, from all evidence, you do have “lax standards“. You aren’t even getting the basic facts right … or posting corrections when your writers get them wrong.

2. Will did not “address the factual challenges to his column in detail in a later column”. In fact, in that “later column”, Will misrepresented the challenges, repeated the misrepresentations, and added to them.

3. Let us be clear: many challenging Will’s Will-ful deceit stated quite explicitly that he was presenting false information (to claim it was “data” seems to be a Hiatt effort to boost Will’s credibility, as if there was real substance to his truthiness and deceit) even if what we “mostly object to [is] that he draws wrong inferences” and then makes outrageous and reckless statements using those “wrong inferences” to bolster his deceit. Will’s work contained many falsehoods and errors (three examples).

4. “Folks would be eager to engage in the debate …” Okay, Fred, let’s lay it out as to eager. In the past three months, I have sent four letters to the editor and to the Post’s Ombudsman. I have sent two unsolicited opinion pieces. And, I have sent you three emails asking for an opportunity to respond to these dishonesties. And, I am far from the only person to have done so. In response: the sound of silence.

More importantly, Fred, this is not about George Will or even about you, but about a desire for The Washington Post opinion section to stand up to the standards you set of “careful fact checking” and not having “lax standards of accuracy”.

The Washington Post is an institution with a long, proud history which is not strengthened by arrogant defensiveness about the indefensible.

Hat tip to Media Matters for picking this up and to Brad Johnson, at the Wonkroom, for another excellent piece on The Will Affair. See also Zachary Roth at Talking Points Memo and Dylan Otto Krider.

NOTE: You have to wonder whether Hiatt cares that his behavior has made The Post a laughing stock across those who follow journalism ethics. See, for example, this 14 April 09 Guardian piece: George Will’s global meltdown: The venerable Washington Post columnist’s climate change denial is taking its toll on his newspaper’s credibility.

This was Bill Maher’s question last Friday.

And, this is both a serious and a sad question.

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One thing seems to be muting the keening cries of newspaper failure and to be boosting the profit sheets of broadcast media: greenwashing advertisements from fossil fools seeking to distort the conversation about the opportunities and benefits of moving to a cleaner energy future. Reading or watching these advertisements would quickly convince you that some of the nation’s (the globe’s) worst polluters are actually ‘clean green machines’, that these polluting multinationals only have your interests at heart, and that companies with some of the richest profit sheets globally are under severe strain and threat.

Well, for some truth in advertising, we need to look to organizations like Avaaz.

If you appreciate Avaaz’s take, take the moment to visit Don’t leave climate change to oil companies on YouTube to rate it up and increase the chance it will go viral.

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At some point, you have to wonder whether people realize that the worldwide web exists, that the “tubes” can so easily be followed to place today’s comments within yesterday’s context.  Or, perhaps, if some people are so arrogant that they assume that reporters and others won’t have the ability to navigate those tubes to hold them to account for their serial flip-flopping, without hint of shame, on the most critical issues before us (before the US). Which, do you think, is the case with Newt Gingrich?

After all, when Newt opens his mouth today, all you need to do is look back a little to find yesterday’s Newt to debate and duel today’s Newt.

For example, does partisanship end at the ocean’s edge? Today’s Newt disagrees with yesterday’s.

Well, this past Friday, Newt Gingrich testified to the House Energy & Commerce Committee amid a marathon hearing on the Waxman-Markey . And, yet again, the Newts are dueling.

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Fred Hiatt’s studied journalistic malpractice in his mismanagement of the Washington Post editorial pages when it comes to the energy and climate domain merits a name. Just as the specifics related to George Will’s serial deceptions mounted into The Will Affai, the serial “faux and balanced” nature of WashPost opinion pieces on energy and climate issues merits naming: Hiattian Climate Deception.

Today’s Washington Post publishes two energy authorities, former Secretary of Energy and Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and energy analyst Robert L Hirsch, in a full throttle attack on renewable energy with “Getting Real on Wind and Solar“. These “authorities”, however, simply get point after point wrong in their misguided and disingenuous attack. They take “truisms”, state truthiness, and move into untruths.

Let’s take a look. Look at the opening paragraph.

Why are we ignoring things we know? We know that the sun doesn’t always shine and that the wind doesn’t always blow. That means that solar cells and wind energy systems don’t always provide electric power.

Wow. The shock. “Solar cells and wind-energy systems don’t always provide electric power.” Actually, Jim and Robert, they can provide a reliable power if linked with other power sources and storage, as you do mention later in the OPED. That they can do so at an affordable price is (a) a fact and (b) something that you do not mention. In addition, you fail to mention that distributed wind and solar power systems can work together to give far higher reliability than is the case with any single wind or solar site.

Nevertheless, solar and wind energy seem to have captured the public’s support as potentially being the primary or total answer to our electric power needs.

Yes, Jim and Robert, this is a problem. But, in the paragraphs to come, you systematically misrepresent this problem. The issue: to understand, clearly, that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SILVER BULLET. The “public’s” readiness to be suckered into simplistic Silver Bullet fantasies (whether “Green” solar panels on every rooftop or the far more manipulative deception of Drill Here! Drill Now! Pay Less! and “Drill, Baby, Drill“) is the problem, rather than recognizing that we face a ‘silver BBs’ solution path, with a cafeteria of options and opportunities that will shift around regions, nations, and over time. Wind is great for the Great Lakes and Great Plains but pretty much a flop for Florida. Solar electricity, on the other hand, is far more profitable to pursue in the Southwest US deserts than in southwest Detroit. And, well, efficiency is useful elsewhere. In other words, Schlesinger and Hirsch create a rather shallowly truthiness-laden strawman to then play fast and loose with facts to attack that strawman.

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Warriors come in many forms and styles, and fight many battles. This week, amid a week of House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings on the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security (http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1560&Itemid=1) Act, a group of concerned citizens have sought to insure that concerns over the American economy’s vitality and the viability of future American prosperity have a visible presence.

These climate warriors are mobilized (empowered) by the same people who brought over 10,000 to Washington, DC, a few months ago in Power Shift 09, the Energy Action Coalition. All week long, members and staff have seen Green hardhats in the room, by impassioned, knowledgeable and engaged young Americans seeking to help create a secure America for themselves and their generation.

Today, in the face of a last minute notice that Eco-Fraud Newt Gingrich would testify, these climate warriors recognized a challenge and engaged: arriving at the Hill well before dawn, today’s hearing was filled with green helmets.

Armed with bright green t-shirts, hard hats, and placards, the young climate activists called for a clean energy economy and real solutions to global warming, while publicizing Mr. Gingrich’s close ties to the dirty coal and oil industries.

Now, in his formal submitted statement,

Gingrich … has the nerve to start with a quote from George Orwell and then utter the most Orwellian statement of our time, “it should be no surprise that I care deeply about and am committed to the protection of our environment.”

his testimony is a sorry retread of the GOP’s failed energy plans of christmas past. and a little party to sell some books.