Economic policy of the heritage and foundation, Nicolas Loris, back behind the desk. Will you start by defining what thats job is . Guest tricky within itself. When the Obama Administration theyooking at green jobs included everything from trash collectors to people who work in goodwill. They were involved in reusing and recycling. Conventionally more people talk about the Energy Economy and what that looks like. Installing, the numbers are mixed. I would like to see green Energy Economies that drive Innovation Forward and doesnt rely on government subsidies. What is it comparable to in terms of numbers of workers or jobs related . Its difficult to say based on the numbers you use. Compared to other industries, they are certainly growing and thats great. Markets, people are demanding Renewable Power and is this is are demanding to use 100 renewables and the demand is driving production and thats ultimately what we want to see, Competition Among the Energy Sources when they are being subsidized through targeted tax credits. Thats just allocation with subsidization taking resources away from other sectors in the economy. Thats not actually creating growth, it is shifting it to politically preferred sectors of the economy that doesnt really do us any good, it only helps the people lobbying to get the handouts. Host in this election cycle several Democratic Candidates are calling for moving towards a net zero emission in the economy. Greench more with the economy have to achieve . Guest 80 of our energy needs are met through conventional oil and natural gas and if you have 80 of our needs in the world bus needs coming from these, you the tax andlicies regulate these out of existence. Even if renewable costs are coming down and becoming more cost competitive with conventional sources of energy. It is still going to take a lot to shift to a net zero economy. Host is anyone tried to estimate what the cost would be . Is it less than the cost of Climate Change . Estimate i every have seen from peerreviewed literature from m. I. T. , things that we have produced at the Heritage Action for him, the cost of the Green New Deal, it seems that the cost of these policies are going to outweigh both the benefits in terms of climate reduction, but also any type of cost from Climate Change itself. You are talking about multiple trillions of dollars across the economy. Energy is such a critical component of everything that we make and do that when you force Higher Energy prices on American Consumers and businesses, you are not just paying more for your electricity or at the pump, you are paying more for food, health care, and education. It has huge ripple effects throughout the economy. Host we are talking about the economics of environmental and Energy Policy. Republicans, 202 7488001, democrats, 202 7488000, independents, 202 7488002. Deal,ning the green New Alexandria a cause you cortez announced the Green New Deal. [video clip] its a big day for us of that forgation, a movement, frontline communities all over the country. Today is a big day for people who have been left behind. Today is a big day for workers and appalachia. A big day for children who have been dirt breathing dirty air in the south. Today is a really good day for families who have been enduring the injustices of thinking dirty or have seen their living rooms flooded with the waves of the rising sea level. Today is a think a really big day for our economy, the labor movement, the social justice movement, Indigenous Peoples and people all over the United States of america. Today is the day that we truly embark on a comprehensive agenda of economic, social, and racial justice. Climate change and environmental challenges are one of the biggest existential threats to our way of life. Not just as a nation, but as a world. Threat, we must be as ambitious and innovative in our innovation as possible. What have you done to talk about the Economic Cost of the Green New Deal. Guest part of the problem is the plan is a nebulous lee there are not good policy descriptions in the model and we attempted to use the federal governments own Energy Administration model to model what the cost would be to achieve. Theye timeframe that wanted to achieve, the model essentially broke. It couldnt handle such a rampup of reducing conventional fuel. Up the carbon tax and impose regulation on the conventional industry and we found millions of jobs lost per year. These are significant costs for negligible climate benefit. Down, we areg talking about mitigation of a few tenths of a degree celsius with a few centimeters on the Sea Level Rise within the same timeframe. Policies really have been all costs with no benefit. Done these have all been at heritage. Org . Guest thats right. Host joseph, democratic line, go ahead. Caller good morning. If you could allow me to make a quick personal testimony regarding the issues, last year i bought a plugin vehicle that has given me 50 miles of electric energy each day and turns out it gives about 120 miles per gallon, combining electric and gas. , put solar panels on my roof 47 of them. I follow a plan based diet. Im not bragging about anything, but its not really costing the anything but it has given me better health. Its kind of a nobrainer. I would kind of like to ask a question here teargas regarding the recent United Nations study that came out of a month ago, this is not the first one the u. N. Has done regarding the environment, but i would like to bring out bring up what i would refer to as a very Inconvenient Truth that came out in that report. Specifically talking about the cattle industry. Much it contributes damage to the environment, you know . Serious issue and people make fun of it, kind of, saying that they will take away our cows or whatever, but i would like to make reference to a documentary on netflix, anyone piece,ted in this lobbyists the cattle industry have. The documentary is entitled cowspiracy. Guest more props to you for having an electric vehicle and installing solar panels. Im all for those choices. My concern is when other people are paying for them. If you look at the tax credits for electric vehicles with federal and state subsidies they can be over 10,000 per vehicle oft largely accrue to some the wealthiest americans. You have Middle America paying for subsidized choices of rich folks. Not what we want to see out of competition and choice, those policies subsidizing the choices of the wealthy and resulting a lot of corporate welfare. Commentards to the beef , its certainly true that with methane emissions, the cattle industry is contributing to Climate Change and you see industries innovating with plant waste innovations, with lab grown meat. Things are happening at the market level. People are making choices. The market is driving decisions at the production and consumption level and that is ultimately policy. Confident the market will drive innovations fast enough to avert the cost of Climate Change in the future . Guest putting it in perspective is important. I am less worried about catastrophic costs as was mentioned the previous panel. We need to look at the international community. The future of Greenhouse Gas emissions will overwhelmingly come from the developing world. Innovationd is more to allow people to adapt to Climate Change in the near term by building more resilient and durable infrastructure, as well as looking at longterm solutions to make sure people have the energy needs they demand because we have nearly a billion people without access to reliable electricity. Also meeting environmental targets. Host temple, georgia. Judy, a republican. Caller hey. Can you hear me . Country isat, this headed downhill like a snowball heading to hell. All you socialists that want to control our lives and tell cortez we are not going to kill our cows. That is the way i feel about it. Host that is how judy feels in georgia. Brenda in chickamauga, georgia. Caller i dont believe what she just said. I cant believe anybody would say that, and i cant believe what he said about poor people and the average people is the burden of the cost of this. When is it we were never ever were not the burden on us Little People to make innovations . You cant append on big corporations. He talked about we dont want to subsidize like this man with the electric car. How many billions of dollars have a given tax cuts to these corporations that dont pay anything down . They could care less about how much we breathe. They can go by an island somewhere. Buy an island somewhere. Guest thats a great point. We should be talking about getting rid of all energy subsidies, not just the one for electric vehicles or Renewable Power. We should get rid of subsidies for coal and natural gas and nuclear. If you look at the market, this is a trillion dollar market. These guys dont need help from the federal taxpayer to meet these energy demands. It is either subsidizing economic losers like or providing corporate welfare to companies that dont need help from the taxpayer. I completely agree with you. We should eliminate the federal government picking winners and losers, not continuing down the path of government intervention. Host which sectors get the most when it comes to the government subsidies . Guest it depends on how you measure it and how yo what you consider a subsidy. If you look at immediate expensing, i dont consider that a subsidy. The tax cut bill applies it to everything now. That is not really a subsidy. On a per megawatt hour basis, the Renewable Power that generates the biggest benefits from the subsidies, for they stand to benefit the most. At the same time youve had a lot of historical treatment for the oil co. And gas and coal and gas and coal sector. Host if we got rid of them, how much would that say the government on the annual basis . Guest potentially 10 billion a year, if not more depending when you consider a subsidy. Not to mention the ethanol mandate which was once posed as a good idea. Now you have most environmentalist opposing the ethanol mandate because of the environment of destruction it has caused. There are 70 different ways the government intervenes into Energy Markets so many ways the government intervenes in the energy market. Dear allowing for more innovation. It will be the good ideas that move forward, not the ones with no support from lobbyists and politicians. Host jim a republican,. Caller thank you for taking my call. Back in the 1950s when i was a teenager, there was a lot of talk about an ice age coming. New york was going to be buried in 100 feet of ice. Age . Happened to this ice is it the same thing about Global Warming . Yeah, i think that is one peoplereasons a lot of have skepticism about Climate Science and climate policy. A lot of predictions about m a climate catastrophe, whether it is Global Warming or Global Cooling have not come true or any real political sessions for making these predictions and not coming true. Given net Intergovernmental Panel contribute half of it to manmade activity, but i dont think we are heading towards catastrophic warming. The real dire scenarios for you see several meters of Sea Level Rise and super extremes just are not born in reality. They make assumptions that dont see you becoming true based on both climate projections but also the use of Energy Resources around the world. Certainly notd to call it a hoax but we need to not fear mongering about the future of catastrophic Climate Change. Democrat. A caller i just wanted to mention subsidies. Coal power plants get five megawatt hour subsidies. What about the coal trains and the mines. What is it cost to build a new power plant today . You are talking about at least half 1 billion. Guest we should get rid of the subsidies. There was a reason the percentage of coal has dropped about 25 over the past decade. It cannot compete with cheap natural gas. Far fewer new coal power plants being built in the u. S. , although that is not the trend around the world. You are seeing more coal mines or exports for consumption in places like china and india who were building coalfired power plants at a rapid clip. Host milton, florida. Good morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. Its funny we are talking about Climate Change. I just got a book yesterday called the mythology of Global Warming. Im only on page eight or , but the caller talked about being a teenager in the 1950s. It talked about that. Says, and the media proclaiming the Oil Countries were destroying our planet because of Global Cooling. If we dont do something, the earth could drop 20 degrees. That the climate normally changes up and down throughout the years . Is there really Science Behind it . It talks about 30,000 scientists that disagree with Climate Change phenomena. Seeingyou saying the impacts of Climate Change were you live . Caller it is hot and its cold. When i was a kid, it was hot down here and then it got cold again and hot again. It is hot definitely. Is it hotter than normal . No. I was in alaska in the early 1990s. I worked in a hotel. It was the hottest on record in alaska during the summertime, 91 degrees or Something Like that in fairbanks. Then it was the coldest on record that year at 68. To me the climate goes up and down all the time. In florida. S ron guest the Climate Changes because of human activity and natural variation. It can be anything from the different trends in ocean oscillation. It can be volcanic eruptions. There are a number of factors that change the climate. It does not matter what is driving Climate Change. Risk toether it poses a certain communities, certain areas in the United States and around the world, and to the costs of the Climate Policies outweighing the benefits. What i see from a lot of the Energy Policies proposed by the left with the Green New Deal is significantly outweigh the benefits and would not do anything to really protect against the changing climate, no matter what the cause. Host explain how the urban tax works. Carbon tax works. Guest eventually it would impose a fee on each ton of Carbon Dioxide emitted, primarily targeting the Energy Industry as well as the agriculture industry if you account for methane emissions and the emissions coming from the Natural Gas Industry as well. Essentially the goal of a carbon tax is to price that allegedly externality of co2 and internalize those emissions. The problem with taxing co2 is that you are not internalizing a pollutant like he would smog you who would smog or have known risks. You are trying to mitigate warming. A carbon tax but really result in a huge tax on the Energy Industry, a huge tax on American Consumers and businesses, but not internalize. Host what other countries have imposed a carbon tax . Guest canada tried. It floundered a little bit mostly because they have been a number of giveaways to actually not changed very much behavior. Australia has tinkered with it a little bit. They have gone back from it to put implement and get because it was unpopular and they did not see much environmental benefit from the carbon tax. If you look at a number of places in europe that have either proposed a trade system or carbon fees, those policies have been wildly unpopular as well because they are not deriving the climate benefits they were promised. You saw the yellow vests protesters in paris for a reason. People are upset with paying more and more for energy and more and more for goods and services that they pay for and not seeing any change in the climate. That is why these policies in the United States and around the world are very unpopular. People care about Climate Change and are increasingly caring about Climate Change, but on the list of policy priorities it falls near the bottom and it has for decades. Oft we have Nicolas Loris the Heritage Foundation taking your phone calls. Republicans, democrats, independents. Bob is out of victoria, texas. Caller good morning, gentlemen. I would like to say Climate Change is the weather. One day it is hot, when date is cold, one day it rains, the next day you have a drought. The professor that was on there talked about how wonderful california is. The reason they have wildfires is because they do not keep their forests intact. When a tree dies, it stays there until it falls down. Any little spark can burn it up. Angeles is written ridden with feces and every thing else. You take northern mexico host we will stay on environmental policy. What specifically have you studied what it comes to the economics of environment of policy when it comes to california . Guest a lot of subsidies and mandates that have driven families to pay higher costs and driven businesses out of california to states where the economic climate is much more enticing than california despite the great weather california has. He brings up a good point about forest three. That has been 8 forestry. That is been a big problem and a lot of western states. Its a culture of not properly maintaining the forests and resulting in essentially kindle to allow these forest fires to burn without proper management. It will exacerbate the risks and exacerbate the costs. Host vanessa and washington, d. C. A democrat. Caller i wanted to make a comment. I find it interesting the Heritage Foundation, the republican party, those are the only ones who dont seem to know there is Global Warming going on. A lot of interesting these fossil fuel corporations and organizations are paying them a lot of money for their campaigns, et cetera. I find it interesting it is not ok to subsidize for the Green New Deal, but im supposed to subsidize farmers because of tariffs. Its good for the goose but not for the gander, and that is my issue. Guest i largely agree with you. I dont think we should be subsidizing farmers because of bad trade policies because this is essentially a tax on consumers. It is problematic not just for Energy Policy, the tariffs on solar panels, potential natural gas and exports, these are raising costs on consumers. I agree with you there is Global Warming and we have been in a warming period for a while, ever since we came out of the little ice age. I would disagree with some of the left of how much warming we are expected to see from increased Greenhouse Gas emissions and i think sometimes the media portrays each wildfire event or each hurricane as attributed to human activity when even the United Nations framework on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel say that is not the case. Neither does the United States natural climate assessment. I like to look at what these reports actually say with regards to trends in extreme weather events and natural disasters. They show even with increased Greenhouse Gas emissions you are not seeing more frequent and intense natural disasters. Host in terms of historically when it comes to subsidies, what Energy Sector has received the most . What is your thought on helping new technologies get off the ground and the role the government can play and should play . Guest historically it has largely been oil and gas and coal because they dominated the Energy Sector for such a long time. On a per megawatt hour basis more recently it is wind and solar and renewable sources of energy. For successful innovation coming out of the United States is utilizing the department of energys natural labs. They are tremendous resources we have that lead to a whole bunch of innovations and new technologies coming to the marketplace, or research we have seen at the department of defense. Look at the internet and gps. These came from dod Research Endeavors and then entrepreneurs took the ideas and made them commercial Success Stories that we have today. We could do that more by opening up access to the natural lab, look at what theyre doing, push technologies to the marketplace and have a terminus about of success with innovation stemming from government research. Host i want to dive back into the cspan archives. 1985. Carl sagan testifying before the senate about the impacts of the greenhouse effect, but alternative sources of power and their development in the decades to come. [video] thate best estimates are at the present rate of burning of fossil fuels, the present rate of increasing minor infrared absorbing gases in the atmosphere, it will be a several cent degree sent a great degree temperature increase on the earth by the middle to the end of the next century. That has a variety of consequences including redistribution of local climates glaciers andng of an increase in sea level. There is concern on a somewhat longer timescale about the collapse of the west Antarctic Ice sheet and a general rise of many meters in sea level. O, we have a kind of handwriting on the wall. Certainly there is more research to be done but there was a consensus. The idea that we should immediately stop burning fossil economicsuch severe consequences that no one will take it seriously. There are many other things that can be done. One has to do with subsidies for fossil fuels. More efficient use could be encouraged by fewer government subsidies. Secondly there are alternative Energy Sources, some of which are useful at least locally. Certainly one that might be a more general use. Whichission power plants, are in principle possible. On a longer timescale, the prospect of fusion power. Fission and fusion power plants no infrared vent active gases and therefore whatever other problems that may provide, they do not provide a greenhouse problem. , carl sagans loris talking about the issues we are talking about this morning. Guest you just put a different timestamp on that 2019 and its what a lot of people are saying today. We have heard fusion is around the corner for a long time, for renewables being cost competitive. We have heard that for decades yet they only supply a small percentage of our electricity generation. The costs are coming down. That is what we want to see. If we illuminate the preferential treatment and allow Energy Policy to be consumercentric, that is when we derive the most innovation. Some of the dire predictions have not come true. Yes, the arctic is warming and we have seen melting. The antarctic has been growing in most seasons. Some climate productions come true and some dont. You are not seeing the huge multiple meters of sea level that somected climatologists have made back in the 1970s and 1980s. You are seeing a steady rise instead. Some of these things we can adapt to overtime. We should have sensible policies to allow people to adapt to Climate Change over time rather than creating more energy costs in the u. S. And around the world. Host lets chat with callers. Les and gilmer, texas. In gilmer, texas. Caller i hear you talk about the environment all the time and the gases and getting rid of fossil fuels. Let me touch on a couple of things. I have not hurt anybody that ever talked about this how many people across the United States own a boat . They get on the water and have recreation with their families. Are going to get into an electric boat . How are we going to ship things across the ocean with an electric ship . Iffar as the methane gas, you help the people get out of the streets of california, from san diego up to seattle, washington, a lot of methane right there would probably be erased from the atmosphere. Is a reasonnk there that oil has been overwhelming supplier of our transportation sector for a long time. It is affordable and reliable. Even in places like europe where they jacked up the taxes to the point where the price of petrol is eight dollars to nine dollars equivalent, they are largely using cars that run on gasoline and diesel. There has not been a massive switch over to electric vehicles or biofuel powered vehicles. That is not to say biofuels or electric vehicles cannot be a bigger part of our energy and transportation future. The market is going to drive that demand. It has a big obstacle to overcome because we have so much oil. It has been a huge Success Story in the u. S. We are the Worlds Largest producer of oil and we have been the largest producer of natural gas for a decade now, which has yielded tremendous economic and geopolitical benefit by sharing this energy and trading it with our allies. Host diane, independent. Good morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. I have listened to these environmental shows and i have talk once heard anyone about technology with the cell phones, the computers. There are billions of cell phones being held in the hands of people that never shut off. Tell me it is not leading a carbon footprint. I only use my cell phone for emergencies. I cant stay on it longer than five minutes. It gets so hot. They would rather go after cow gas and light bulbs and everything else, but nobody ever talks about the cell phones. Host have you looked into the Environmental Impact of powering cell phones . Guest i have it but there is environment of tradeoffs for everything we make and do. If you look at the batteries for electric vehicles, there was a campaign now worried about the child slave labor that goes into mining material for lithiumion batteries. No matter what we are producing, whether it is the Rare Earth Materials necessary for cell phones or defense technologies or for solar panels, all these activities have environmental costs. That is part of the problem with some of the grand environment of policies. Abilityre reducing the for the United States to harness our resources, you are only going to ship activities to other countries where they are less safe and certainly not done in an environmentally friendly manner. You are not improving the mi meant. You are you are not improving the environment. You are making it worse off. Rey on twitter wants to talk about the Green New Deal. You consider cost due to damage infrastructure, the military, naval forces, environment of gdp . Ees, guest we run the Energy Information administration. That is solely an energy model. We dont factor in those costs. There are some of those costs. Guest we run the energy i would like to see the military and civilian infrastructure be better prepared for extreme weather events, no matter the cause. It has been clearly documented that our dod infrastructure is susceptible to flooding in certain areas. They have a hard time actually building the necessary infrastructure to protect against those extreme weather events. An air force base in nebraska is a good example. It just succumbed to flooding this last spring. 10 years ago, the same thing almost happened. They recognized it was a threat but a permitting timeframe to build the technologies was still in limbo on this last flooding happened. This has been a systemic problem that we have these regulatory paralysis when it comes to building new infrastructure to help us adapt to Climate Change. Overview andonment the legal processes result in these projects being held up for years and sometimes decades. Host philip in michigan, democrat. Caller this is the fastest ive gotten through and the longest ive been waiting to speak. Can you please change your topic to human effect on Climate Change . We dont really want to stop Climate Change. Andearth tilts on its axis gives us the season. Change p climate look at the weather for phoenix. 90 somethinghigh, for a low. Have we studied the side effects to have another mild ice age . Host philip in michigan. I would give the final minute and a half or that topic or other topics we have covered today. Guest if you look at the human effects, it is clear humans are having an impact on Climate Change. There is disagreement as to how much of an impact that is and what the future warming looks like when you double Greenhouse Gas concentrations in the atmosphere. We have not talked about Nuclear Power as an option as well. Here is an industry that shows a lot of promise. There are a lot of Small Modular Reactor designs that are completely safe. We have a regulatory process that does not allow them to get to the marketplace. I think people rode off the Nuclear Renaissance when we had all the cheap natural gas that could not compete so that it could not compete. They are confident it can. It can be used for dod infrastructure, used in the developing world for they dont have access to affordable reliable electricity. There was a lot of potential for Energy Innovation across the board, not just with conventional resources and coal and natural gas, and not just with wind and solar and battery storage. We should be considering all of these analog markets to drive Innovation Forward. That best meet consumer needs. Host Nicolas Loris from the Heritage Foundation, deputy washington journal continues. Host political reporter zack colman is back with us as we continue our discussion of Environmental Issues and campaign 2020