McNerney named to House Global Warming Committee

Congressman Jerry McNerney, who campaigned for Congress as a renewable energy expert deeply concerned about the climate crisis, has been appointed to the new House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

"Before my election to Congress, I spent more than 20 years of my professional career researching the benefits of and developing renewable energy sources.  I am excited to begin the work of this important committee, including the discussion of exploring and expanding new energy technologies.

"Moving in this direction will not only address the harmful effects of global warming and protect our environment, but will lead to economic stimulation and the creation of an entire spectrum of good-paying jobs here in the United States."

The Select Committee will hold hearings and investigations locally, nationally, and internationally to gather the information needed to protect our national security and the environment. It is charged with recommending to the Congress policies, strategies, technologies and other innovations to reduce the dependence of the United States on foreign sources of energy and prevent global warming.

“The members of the new Select Committee I am appointing today are outstanding for their creativity, diversity of experience, and knowledge of energy and global warming issues,” Speaker Pelosi said. “I have great faith in their ability to lead our efforts to confront these serious challenges. Global warming and energy independence are urgent issues that have profound implications for our nation’s economic competitiveness, national security, environmental quality and public health. The wide-ranging expertise of these members will be critical in finding viable solutions that stimulate our economy, promote jobs, and protect our environment.”

In addition to this new appointment, Congressman McNerney is also serving on the Transportation and Infrastructure, Science and Technology, and Veterans' Affairs Committees.

Comments

[Margo Terrill]

I am thrilled that Jerry has been appointed to the new house committee. I feel the shift and I even feel hopeful for the first time in years.

Now I hope we do not act with such haste that we waste time and resources on bandaid fixes. Lets be as intelligent as we can, considering the urgency of the problems.

[Bob Aegerter]

Pleased that someone who understands the problems will be sitting on the committee.

In the long run (more than 50 years) we will depend on efficient capture of energy from the sun. In the meantime we must conserve and develop wind, thermal, and capture more CO2 at baseload power plants.

Pass an efficient vehicles law that increases fuel economy from 30 to 60 mpg.

Develop ways to capture the two-thirds of the energy of coal fired electric plants that is wasted as heat. Use it to heat homes, provide greenhouses, etc.

Capturing CO2 at coal fired plants is expensive and difficult but coal is cheap.

Avoid the temptation on nuclear power. We have not solved the waste problem from World War Two. The risks of proliferation and terrorism are too great.

Bob Aegerter

[Peggy Deras]

I wrote to Pelosi about this issue a bit ago when I saw your committee assignments. Not a one that reflected your expertise in green energy.
I'm so glad to see she realizes that it's best to use experts like you, Jerry; in positions that take advantage of your knowledge and experience.
Yeay!
Now make him Chairman Nancy!
Also Jerry, many thanks on the Livermore Veterans Home and congratulations on your Clean Water legislation.
We know we're going to see a productive effort from you; even as you just get your feet wet.
We're so proud!

[Joseph Holmes]

The creation of this committee is incredibly good news, and who better to participate in it than you!

"The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming" -- has a very nice ring to it. Finally we can begin to face our greatest challenge.

Getting scientific discoveries regarding the climate system to move more quickly from the individual scientist to the scientific community as a whole, and in turn to the public and the governments of the world is an area where the committee may find ways to be helpful. The State of California is considering the creation of a new state agency which would be tasked with collecting the information which the state needs to understand this grave problem and figure out what to do about it.

We can't afford the usual 20+ years of delay in new findings becoming known and accepted by other scientists -- even when the evidence is unshakable -- since we're out of time to make serious headway against our long-term addiction to using the sky as our garbage dump.

I hope you will investigate this suprising research by Klaus Lackner at Columbia University about scrubbing CO2 from the sky at a surprisingly low energy requirement and cost, as well as many of the other items I brought to your attention recently. If he's right, it could save our necks. We need to find out if he is right.

Making sure that the most promising renewable energy technologies are not faced with avoidable hurdles is another area where the committee could keep a watchful eye. For example, Changing World Techologies, which has a method for converting organic waste into oil, is considering moving to Ireland because they have larger subsidies there. It could be tragic if we were to loose their cutting edge developments. The free market isn't perfect. Sometimes new industries need a big help from us taxpayers to get off the ground.

Oil from algae is another big new item. Much higher efficiency PV cells too. Rose Street Labs in Arizona is working on LBL and Columbia innovations which may turn into PV cells with 3X our current module efficiency and low cost within just a few years.

Global dimming is a huge factor, newly figured out, in the climate picture, and it means the future scenarios must be revised toward worse outcomes.

The newly-discovered fragility of life in the sea to falling pH is another bombshell of recent science -- we are half way to having acidified the ocean to the point where nearly all life in it will collapse then disappear. We're turning the sea into a gigantic soda! Needless to say, this would be a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.

The very rapid melting of the permafrost in Russia shows that we're well beyond the biggest tipping point already. The same is true of the melting Arctic Ocean ice.

Our impacts are snowballing, and the hour is well beyond late. We all need to learn about what we're facing, ASAP.

[Eric Rader]

Nuclear Power is needed.

Excessive amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels for the energy you need to achieve a better standard of living (and double your lifespan in the last 100 years).

THE GOOD NEWS is that there is an immediate solution, nuclear power. It is economical and safe compared to the dangers of burning coal. Nuclear power is the only way to generate the massive amounts of additional energy that the world needs without putting more billions of tons of CO2 and other deadly pollutants into the atmosphere by burning more coal. Clean nuclear power puts no pollution in the atmosphere. Utilized properly, it is a cheap supply of energy for the world for hundreds of years. And smart countries are building new nuclear plants as fast as they can. These are the countries that are taking the jobs away from the U.S. while our political leaders twiddle their thumbs and sell American workers down the drain.

The New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Nicholas Kristof reported on April 9, 2005, that many top scientists and environmental leaders (who are not making money as global warming prophets) have recognized and pronounced that nuclear power is the only available source of massive amounts of energy that can avoid the increased burning of fossil fuels, coal in particular. This list now includes the founder of Greenpiece, Patrick Moore (www.greenspirit.com), and the founder of The Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand. Both were staunch opponents of nuclear power for many years. Then they realized that the advantages of no air pollution or CO2 production by nuclear power plants made them the only sensible substitute for the thousands of new coal burning power plants that will be built otherwise. These honest environmentalists are wise enough to recognize that fifty years of operation of 104 nuclear plants in the U.S. alone has shown that the purported dangers of nuclear power are far less than the proven world-wide damage done by filthy coal burning power plants, and they know that we must begin building the nuclear plants immediately.
Polls show that over 75% of the American public now believe we should be building many more nuclear power plants. But why is it not happening? The answer is that the nuclear hysterics who frightened the world for thirty years will not admit the damage they have done to the world. The nuclear nuts continue to intimidate the timid politicians of America who should be protecting your health and saving your economy. Only you can change this by contacting your political representatives and giving them some backbones.

Here is one appalling fact. An average 1000 megawatt coal burning power plant burns about 4 million tons of coal per year. That one plant produces over 12 million tons of CO2 each year – and over 500 tons of radioactive uranium and thorium up the smokestack and into the atmosphere for all to breathe. We now have over 450 coal burning plants operating in the U.S. every day. The number will be about 600 plants within five years -- even if we start building nuclear plants today. We can not even stop the building of new coal plants for at least ten years. Can we afford to wait any longer?

Here is the real Inconvenient Truth:
If you believe that global warming is caused by excessive CO2 in the atmosphere, then the so-called environmental savior organizations and their followers are responsible for it. And they are the loudest global warming prophets calling you guilty. They have deliberately polluted the world that they claim to protect just to carry out their religious fanaticism against nuclear power. (Remember the MTBE poison in the nation’s gasoline that they claimed for ten years was good for you). The U.S. EPA really qualifies as the Environmental Pollution Agency. These anti-nuclear groups are the ones who have intimidated our political leaders for the last thirty years to make sure that not even one more nuclear power plant was built anywhere in the U.S. Filthy coal burning plants were the only alternative in most cases. They stood by while hundreds more were built in the U.S. These are the vulgar hypocrites who actually caused – indeed forced – most of the U.S. contribution to global warming, and now they have the gall to tell the working folks that it is all their fault and they must clean up their act.

Like religious cult leaders, the global warming hypocrites don’t dare mention anything that is not in their standard PC bible—like nuclear power. They must keep their flocks under control by forcing them to publicly chant the cult buzzwords like “global warming” and collectively adopt soul-cleansing habits like calculating one’s “carbon footprint” each day and keep it shirt-pocket available for the faithful to see. The last thing that any self-respecting cult leader will even mention is any real solution to the dangers that brought his frightened flock together to bow at his feet. Know of any prominent former politician in this category?

In many ways, the global warming hypocrites in this country have become the modern-day equivalents of the Red Guard army of angry peasants unleashed in China to punish the troublesome folks who had learned to read and write. Only in this case, global warming prophets such as Al Gore have managed to turn the collective guilt of the rich and getting richer in the Hollywood elite to mount a snide attack on the lifestyles of the working people. Why? It’s easy. Working folks don’t have the time or money to fight the guilt trip. Rich and famous folks write big checks to escape responsibility and applaud each other for their virtuousness.

To put things in perspective, just remember the thousands of end-of-the-world Y2K prophets of a few years ago? Yes, there was a Y2K problem. But in no way was it the world’s biggest problem. The real computer experts had devised reasonable solutions and they were using them. However, the manipulative Y2K prophets were able to make suckers out of the newspapers, TV networks, and most of the gullible public for most of two years. They were able to sell their hysterical stories because no one could prove that there were solutions in place until the clock struck 12:01am on January 1, 2000. Then the world experienced the deafening dud of almost nothing happening. And so it could be with the global warming problem, providing the honest scientists, real environmentalists, and sincere political leaders are allowed to solve the problem.

Grand-standing politicians everywhere are using the global warming hysteria to impose new and stringent regulations on the guilty ones, U.S. citizens. These politicians only want to prove that they are “PC Green” without taking any responsibility for solving the problem. But the most draconian restrictions on working families will produce only minor reductions in CO2 compared to the billions of tons of CO2 and other toxic pollutants put in the atmosphere by coal burning power plants every year now.

About 40% of the CO2 put in the atmosphere comes from coal burning power plants. About 40% comes from burning oil in our cars and trucks. We can stop building more coal plants. But working folks can not stop driving to work to pay for everyone else in our country. Political leaders must be told to approve building many more modern and clean nuclear power plants immediately. They must be told to outlaw building more fossil fuel (coal and natural gas) power plants that will only increase the CO2 in the atmosphere that they preach is the cause of global warming. Otherwise, get out of the way and get out of political office.

Hypocrite political leaders are allowing, in fact promoting the building of hundreds of new coal burning power plants in the U.S. alone over the next ten years. They know where their bread is buttered. They have to make sure the voters get the new energy supplies that the economy needs each year and the coal industry is a 100 billion dollar lobby that pumps money into all political campaigns.
The U.S. needs at least twenty new large power plants every year. They are already being built and most will be coal. China will be building over 2000 new coal plants in the next twenty years. While the global warming preachers are telling the working folks to watch their “carbon footprint,” they know that the smallest estimates are that CO2 emissions into the atmosphere will increase at least 10 percent over the next ten years, including the contributions by California, and the U.S. as a whole.

An appropriated analogy is this: The opponents of nuclear power plants have been scaring you with the dangers of smoking while they deliberately blow hundreds of tons of second-hand smoke into your lungs by forcing the world to build thousands of coal plants.
The absurdity of all absurdities is that coal burning power plants put over 14,000 tons of radioactive uranium and thorium into the air each year. This is thousands of times more than the total released into the environment by the highly regulated nuclear power industry. The reason why is that coal as it comes out of the ground contains a little over 1 part per million of uranium and 3 parts per million of thorium plus several parts per million of almost every other toxic metal such as mercury, lead, arsenic, etc. Twelve billion tons of coal burned worldwide every year puts thousands of ton of these toxic substances in the air. We have been forced to breathe this pollution all of our lives. The cruel irony is that the scientifically ignorant generation are panicked when the nuclear hysterics scream that an accident at a nuclear waste storage site might leak a few grams of uranium over ten thousand years!
The filthy pollution and the enormous radioactivity put in the air by coal burning power plants has been the big secret that the so-called environmental savior organizations and the anti-nuclear crowd do not want the general public to know. They have known the truth. Read the shocking scientific report on the dangers of coal burning plants from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (http://www.kgoam810.com/goout.asp?u=http://www.ornl.gov/ORNLReview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html ). It is posted on my website on KGO.com and www.pushback.com. This report and its easily verified data will make you feel like some kind of fool if you ever believed the nuclear hysterics who told you that nuclear power plants are the most dangerous things around.

The California Swindle:

California is one of the best examples of institutionalized global warming hypocrisy. The so-called environmental agencies in California have told the governor and legislature to pass new regulations on California motorists to reduce “greenhouse gases.” The bureaucrats plan to force changes in the way folks drive to work and heat and cool their homes to reduce their “carbon footprint” that is generated because they burn gas in their cars and use electricity produced by fossil fuel power plants. However, the total amount of CO2 reduction that can be squeezed out of the working citizens without crippling the California economy is less than the amount of CO2 produced by a couple of new coal burning power plants each year. And California is building more of them right now!
Right now, behind your backs, the California Energy Commission, with full approval of a gullible governor and legislature, is promoting the building of new coal burning power plants in Wyoming to bring more power to California. They are building a billion dollar power transmission line to bring the coal generated power to California. California must have at least 1000 megawatts of new power each year (one standard coal plant). However, just one of these filthy coal burning power plants will produce much more air pollution and CO2 than all the regulations on California citizens can reduce in the next ten years.
The clever politicians in California are going to satisfy the increasing power needs of the California voters while claiming to be “green” by not allowing polluting coal burning power plants to be built in California! They simply put the millions of tons of CO2 and pollution in someone else’s backyard (but still in the world’s atmosphere). We all share and breathe the same atmosphere. This is a deliberate, massive increase in global warming. How does it feel to be considered so dumb that they can do this right in your face?

It looks like this absurdity can only be stopped by a proposition on the next ballot that orders the governor and legislature to build nuclear plants for any new energy generated in California or purchased for California. The power utilities are ready. They just need the support.

It is rather amazing that everyone in the U.S. has been using, indeed , depending on, three to four hours of electricity produced by nuclear power plants every day for the last thirty years. Without the nuclear plants operating over ninety percent of the time, we would have had blackouts every day somewhere. Yet, many will still listen attentively to any nuclear hysteric who wants to tell them about the evils of nuclear power.

http://www.kgoam810.com/viewentry.asp?ID=358995&PT=PERSONALITIES

[Andy Robin]

Glad you're moving ahead, Congressman! Congrats on your appointment and the passage of your water bill. I worked hard on your campaign and am delighted that you're doing the kind of stuff I hoped you would -- and that Pombo can't still be doing the stupid stuff he was. Keep doing something good.

[ernie moore]

I'm curious about your take on the Boxer/Sanders bill s.309? How do you rate it? What if anything would you add or remove? As you are now part of a Global-Warming solution on the House side, it would be interesting to hear your reading of this bill on this site.

[Charlene Woodcock]

Jerry, I'm so glad you're in a position to make a difference and bring your knowledge and experience to bear on the challenge of providing clean energy and slowing global climate change.

My thoughts:

1) The first step is to greatly increase conservation and energy efficiency. We have lost energy efficiency in cars since the 70s.

2) We need new thinking about efficient, convenient public transit. We must get solo drivers out of cars. Europe has a fine train system. We need to invest seriously in our trains and light rail.

3) Reduce air travel. Jet fuel pollutes the upper atmosphere. Air fares need to reflect the cost to the environment of air travel. Local tourism and cultural events can replace global tourism.

4) Biofuel is good if produced from local waste products (plant and animal wastes etc) and used locally. It can improve local economies across ranching and farming country. But it is not good if it's based on GMOs (as the terrible BP/UCB plan intends) and produced in Third World countries, where inevitably it will displace food crops and encourage deforestation. It is not good if it has to be transported rather than is used locally.

5) Fund a subsidy for purchase of biodiesel fuel. Truck drivers cannot afford it now. Dirty diesel should be taxed to subsidize biodiesel.

6) The packaging industry and the widespread use of petroleum-based plastics must be greatly reduced. Research shows some common plastics are poisoning us. They pollute land and oceans and overwhelm our landfills

6) Nuclear energy is not the answer. It is immoral to leave toxic wastes to future generations. Plants are slow to build, a target for terrorists, and much too costly. We still have no means of safely storing the radioactive wastes that have accumulated since WW II.

[thomas aldridge]

I think the besyt way of informing the public is by way of a professionally produced video showing the affects of global warming all around the planet.I recommend an I-MAX Video!! It appears to me that the public is most swayed and informed by the movies-the masses do not have time to read books. Why not try to get an I-Max Video produced-so far, man is on the fast track to driving the car over the cliff-kind of like the lemmings!!!

[creed cate]

You Rock Jerry! I love that you are not afraid to hear what your constituents are really saying... Let's work hard to end the corruption and get people in office that actually care about the people whom they are supposed to... Keep on Keepin' On!

[Eric Rader]

Nuclear Waste" and "Depleted Uranium"

How much "nuclear waste" (spent nuclear fuel rods) for a family of four for twenty years? What is "Depleted Uranium?"

The nuclear power for a family of four for twenty years generates no more than a shoe box of spent fuel rods that critics call "nuclear waste" The nuclear hysterics will not allow our country to reprocess the rods to extract the highly radioactive isotopes and reclaim the plutonium that can be used as new fuel. If we reprosess the spent fuel rods, the remaining "waste" that must be buried for a family of four for fifty years will fit in a pill bottle or a shot glass. Compare this to the scare stories you get from the nuclear hysterics who would have you believe that nuclear power plants generate mountains of nuclear waste that can be scattered all over the world. The total nuclear waste generated by all 103 nuclear plants in the U.S. over the last fifty years will fit in the volume of a typical high school g ym (77,000 tons by weight so far). Does that sound like an enormous task? Or difficult to safeguard once it is stored a thousand feet inside of a mountain?

"Depleted Uranium" is nothing more than normal uranium from the ground that has be processed to remove most of the fissionable isotope U235. Hence, depleted uranium is almost pure U238. It is less radioative than normal uranium found everywhere in the crust of the earth. People eat about a microgram of natural uranium each day because it is in almost all food. A pound of uranium carried in your coat pocket is no more dangerous than a pound of iron. Only the U235 component of natural uranium can make bombs. U235 is about 0.7% of natural uranium. The rest is U238.

For info on depleted uranium used in weapons and other applications see the following links:

http://www.nato.int/du/home.htm

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/policy/cur du.htm

[Karl Hodges]

We are hopeful and excited by what McNerney can bring to the table. I would like to promote plug-in electrics and bicycling. For electric vehicles we need to stop Chevron from monopolizing Nmh battery technology for which they hold patent rights! Currently available lead batteries weigh the cars down a great deal. Cyclists on the other hand need an education program that will assure they are treated as vehicles. Nothing could be more effective for cycling safety, and general promotion.

[Robert Roark]

We are working on several breakthrough technologies that help address the "Inconvienent Truth", and hope to discuss the case for mega acreage production of Bamboo, with you and the committee. California can lead the way in Carbon reduction, alternative fuels, (ethynol at a much higher rate, and lower cost than Corn, and Hydrogen, far less costly than other methods), and many other new "eco frendly" applications. Please have someone on your staff read the information on the web site:bambooisgrass.com
It has a lot of info that directly addresses the problems we are facing, and offers opportunities for everyone who wants to help save the air and water, while making plenty of profit.

[Robert Roark]

We are working on several breakthrough technologies that help address the "Inconvienent Truth", and hope to discuss the case for mega acreage production of Bamboo, with you and the committee. California can lead the way in Carbon reduction, alternative fuels, (ethynol at a much higher rate, and lower cost than Corn, and Hydrogen, far less costly than other methods), and many other new "eco frendly" applications. Please have someone on your staff read the information on the web site:bambooisgrass.com
It has a lot of info that directly addresses the problems we are facing, and offers opportunities for everyone who wants to help save the air and water, while making plenty of profit.

[Daniel Hutchins]

For sure: Funny thing, I consider myself a scientist and I don't remember seeing any indisputable evidence that the earth's climate is being changed because of human activity. Scientific analysis does not lead to a conclusion that the earth is warming up because of human activity, and people who deny Al Gore do not receive equal time in the press.

[Dave Kisor]

Speaking of patent rights, there should be type of patent much like open source software, making fully it available to the public where big corporations couldn't scoop up all of the patents and prevent anybody else from using new ideas.

Now for some wishful thinking. If someone would search for patents dealing with "alternative" energies gathered up by big corporations, just being sat upon out of pure greed and posted them, that would show how much more concerned those corporations are about their profits than our atmosphere.

2 links on Depleted Uranium:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12903.htm
http://cseserv.engr.scu.edu/StudentWebPages/IPesic/ResearchPaper.htm

This is in response to the link nearby telling how harmless DU is. While it is true we consume a trace amount of uranium, this generally tends to excede that trace quantity.