Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Fwd: Jefferson Journal: Welcome to the Green New Deal Economy.

A new power discussion, study it. Tom F

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From: Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy <info@thomasjeffersoninst.org>
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Subject: Jefferson Journal: Welcome to the Green New Deal Economy.

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The Jefferson Journal

This is the Green New Deal Economy. Enjoy.

By Steve Haner

If all else fails in achieving your green energy dreams, you can always hope for a depression.

In Italy, the COVID-19 depression has already dropped electricity demand by about 18-21%, as reported recently by Utility Dive. The regional transmission organizations around the United States are seeing declines, as well, and I've been told (no data, but a reliable source) that the load of PJM (a regional electricity transmission organization) is approaching a 10% drop. Past recessions have included electricity usage declines.

"We don't have a complete picture yet of what the impacts are, but we can tell you that the shift in work patterns and business closures is likely behind subtle shifts in electricity use," PJM spokesman Jeff Shields (told Utility Dive) in an email.

PJM's highest electricity use is now coming in a little later in the morning, and the grid operator expects electricity use to "drop to some degree if schools and businesses continue to stay shuttered because of the coronavirus. Electricity use will more closely resemble weekend days."

Virginia, of course, is part of the PJM Interconnect, so that drop in seasonal electricity demand includes us. Will the demand reduction over the next few months achieve even long term goals set the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, every potential goal set by the Transportation and Climate Initiative, and all the demand drops envisioned in the recently passed Virginia Clean Economy Act?

So, are you liking the economy that goes along with that? This is indeed what it looks like. The people at headquarters for Britain's Extinction Rebellion movement are denying authorship, but somebody is plastering up signs in its name claiming humans are the disease and Corona is the cure.

In fairness, the drop in demand will reverse (all rational people hope) when the economy ramps back up, but perhaps not all at once, and perhaps not without resistance. The financial crisis which has wiped out so much wealth will linger beyond that point, something already noted by the renewable energy developers hot to start building in Virginia. This was a topic March 27 for Virginia Mercury, worried that the promises of the omnibus clean energy package won't be financed now.

It was a banner moment for environmentalists. Among the promises they secured were state commitments to build out 24 gigawatts of solar, wind and energy storage by 2035 - almost 40 percent more than the existing capacity of the fossil fuel units owned by the state's largest utility, Dominion Energy - and annual targets that would bind the utilities to progressively including more and more renewables in their energy portfolios.

"Almost 40 percent more than the existing capacity..." That's the key fact that keeps getting overlooked. The 2020 legislation should have been called the Clean Energy We Don't Actually Need Act. There is not a single scenario, even in Dominion Energy Virginia's dreams, where that capacity is needed in Virginia or in PJM over the next 25 years. The bill left in place all the new natural gas plants and two large coal plants owned by Dominion.

There is nothing in the new law that allows the State Corporation Commission to hold up a single project on that basis, need. The SCC most certainly cannot say no to the $8 billion offshore wind project which will really cost us ratepayers more like $14 billion over time. That's $14 billion for energy (1) we don't need, (2) that could be obtained for a far better price if we did, (3) from a project that fails every measure for rational capital use.

If the new workforce mandates I wrote about in an earlier column are bricks on the life raft for Virginia's economic recovery, this turkey of a bill is a pallet of cinder blocks.

The U.S. Energy Information Agency is viewed as fairly detached from the ideological wars around carbon emissions. It looks at various electricity generation modes and scores them on economics, the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) being the best know metric. Offshore wind has a lousy score on that, given the high capital cost and the 40% or so capacity factor, in that some days the wind just doesn't blow. The most recent EIA analysis I found put a capacity-weighted LCOE on offshore wind at $115 per megawatt hour.

EIA uses another interesting measure, the leveled cost of avoided energy (LACE.) "LACE accounts for the differences in the grid services each technology is providing and recognizes that intermittent resources, such as wind or solar, have substantially different duty cycles than the baseload, intermediate, and peaking duty cycles of conventional generators," EIA writes.

If a project produces intermittent power, but otherwise has a low cost of energy, then it still makes sense to build it. If it has bad scores on both, it's a bad use of capital. EIA calls that the value-cost ratio, and if that falls below one, don't do it. No existing technology has a lower value-cost ratio than offshore wind, 0.32 on the EIA chart. Solar now has an excellent score, 1.11. Onshore wind, hydro power and geothermal also do well.

That chart above is based on projects entering service in 2025 and here is another one projecting scores for projects out to 2040. Offshore wind looks only a bit better.

So how did the General Assembly order us to spend $14 billion in our capital over the next decade or so? Simply the worst capital decision in the history of the Commonwealth, unless campaign contributions and political brownie points are entered in the equation.

The good news is that if solar developers are going to be struggling for capital for projects with good value-cost scores, with little risk, finding investors or lenders for that offshore wind ziggurat will be doubly difficult. At some point, people will realize that most of the money, despite promises to hire local for the short-term construction work, will go to European countries. Their economic depression could exceed ours in length and depth. That's why the national Democrats are going to pull out all the stops to add new financial sweeteners for their favorite donors.

Stephen D. Haner is Senior Fellow for State and Local Tax Policy at the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. A version of this commentary was originally published in Bacons's Rebellion on March 27, 2020.

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Sunday, March 22, 2020

VA-ALERT: VCDL's Historic Lobby Day 2020, Part 1 of 6

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VCDL Lobby Day 2020

This is Part 1 in a six part series documenting VCDL's Lobby Day 2020, which was held on January 20, 2020 in Richmond, Virginia. The world exploded in November 2019 and, with the General Assembly wrapping up, I am just now at a place where I can begin to cover that extraordinary event!

The remaining parts of this series will be coming out over the next few weeks.

Enjoy!

Philip Van Cleave

Part 1. Prelude: Immediately after the 2019 election, Democrats declare war on gun owners and the Virginia political map changes color, from mixed red and blue, to pretty much solid green

THE ALARM WAS SOUNDED, BUT NOT EVERYONE WAS PAYING ATTENTION

VCDL had been screaming to anyone who would listen, that the election in November 2019 was not going to be business as usual. It was going to be absolutely critical, more than ever before, that gun owners support pro-gun candidates and vote.

Unfortunately, too many gun owners either weren't registered to vote, were "too busy" to vote, thought their vote "wouldn't count," or simply were not listening or paying attention to what was going on around them.

Mostly through court gerrymandering, the Democrats squeaked out a win in the election, giving them a narrow, but complete, control of everything. They (and Michael Bloomberg, who bought them) now owned the House of Delegates, the Senate, the Governor's office, the Lt. Governor's office, and the Attorney General's office.

There was no longer a firewall at all to protect Virginia's gun owners from whatever horrendous gun control might be introduced in the General Assembly in January, 2020. The only hope was the courts would uphold the U.S. and Virginia Constitutions - a fight that could take years and would be extremely expensive.

And the Democrats wasted no time in making it clear that law-abiding gun owners were going to get hit, and hit hard.

Michael Bloomberg wanted the millions of dollars he had donated to help Democrats win their elections, be repaid by passing strong gun-control in Virginia.

Besides paying back Bloomberg, there were two other reasons Governor Northam had made gun control a major agenda item. The Governor wanted to take attention away from his racism, and even more importantly, comments he had made during a radio interview where he came out in support of state-sanctioned murder of babies who survived an abortion and were born.

Dr. Mengele would have been proud of Northam's calm and clinical description of how the murder of a living baby would be performed. But Virginians, even those who are pro-choice, were disgusted and horrified.

So to begin implementing Northam's agenda, Senator Dick Saslaw pre-filed SB 16, which redefined "assault weapons" to cover a wide variety of common, semi-automatic firearms and outlawed all of them. SB 16 also banned magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, suppressors, and bump stocks. After July 1, 2020, all those items would be contraband and the state would not compensate gun owners for them, even if destroyed or turned over to the police. Mere possession of those items after July 1 would be a FELONY. SB 16 was a top agenda-item for Bloomberg.

Law-abiding gun owners, who had legally bought their guns and had no intention of harming anyone who was not trying to harm them, could have their firearms confiscated and be headed to prison.

Other bills to pacify Bloomberg included: One Handgun a Month, Universal Background Checks, Red Flag laws, prohibitions on children having access to firearms, drastically reducing reciprocity with other states, more restrictions on ranges, and allowing local government to have complete control over the possession, carry, transportation, and storage of firearms! That wasn't all the bills, either.

THE DEMOCRATS HAD DECLARED AN ALL OUT WAR ON VIRGINIA'S GUN OWNERS AND IN DOING SO, THEY HAD FINALLY AWAKENED A SLEEPING GIANT AND THAT GIANT WAS NOT HAPPY. GUN OWNERS RETURNED FIRE WITH SECOND AMENDMENT SANCTUARIES.

About the time of the election, the Carroll County Board of Supervisors did the first Second Amendment Sanctuary resolution, followed shortly by Campbell County doing the same thing.

We realized the potential of such resolutions in the upcoming battle in the General Assembly in January. The resolutions, if there were enough localities doing them, would get the attention of the General Assembly. The resolutions would also encourage sheriffs and police departments not to enforce unconstitutional gun laws and Commonwealth Attorneys not to prosecute those in violation of those laws. Finally, sanctuary localities would be very unlikely to enact any local gun control if given the chance to do so by the General Assembly.

It was a win, win, win, and VCDL jumped in with both feet.

VCDL developed a model Second Amendment Sanctuary resolution that was provided to localities which were considering, or being asked to consider, passing such a resolution. We helped coordinate with local members to get the word out about upcoming Board of Supervisor, City Council, and Town Council meetings. The idea was to create large turnouts in support of the locality becoming a sanctuary.

The results were better than we had dreamt possible. Between local grassroots efforts and VCDL's membership participation and coordination, we were seeing turnouts of between 500 to 600 people at local government meetings that were lucky to have 10 people there normally, and 50 on an incredibly busy night! Meeting rooms were overflowing, phones ringing off the walls, and email in-boxes jammed.

My first interaction with the coming tidal wave was early into the movement when I attended my first sanctuary meeting, which was in Amherst County on November 19, 2019. It had taken a few hours for me to drive there and I needed to "hit the head" after having a diet drink on the way up. I thought that I would simply park my car in the Amherst government building parking lot and run in to use the restroom.

When I got close to the meeting, my jaw dropped. Crowds of people were crossing the street to get to the meeting. The parking lot was full, the building was overflowing, with the crowd outside the building wrapping around the parking lot, and that was well before the meeting was scheduled to start! So much for "running in" to use the restroom and then getting a seat in the meeting room! I would be lucky to get in the building...

I brought a roll of 1,000 Guns Save Lives stickers and they were handed out to those in attendance. Thanks to the efforts of ex-Speaker of the House of Delegates, Vance Wilkins, I got into the building and was given the chance to address the Board of Supervisors. The size of that meeting was probably 500 to 600. This photo shows the large meeting room on the left, filled to capacity, with a crowd filling the hallway, staircase, foyer, extending out the door, and around the parking lot:

The next night I attended the Amelia County meeting. When I arrived, I realized that this was going to be a big turnout, too - I was elated! Sure enough, there were over 600 people at that meeting. I had the opportunity to address both the Board of Supervisors AND the large overflow crowd outside the building. Senator Amanda Chase and Delegate John McGuire also addressed the crowd. Like the gun owners in Amherst, the Amelia crowd was motivated. It was absolutely wonderful to behold. This photo shows part of the crowd outside. The meeting room and hallway were filled to capacity, too:

At first the Democrats said that this was an "Appalachian thing" and it wouldn't spread.

But they were wrong. Places like Virginia Beach, Fauquier County, Prince William County, Spotsylvania County, and Amelia County started looking at becoming sanctuaries. The Appalachia theory dried up and blew away. Crowd sizes were now up to at least 1,000 at local government meetings.

Starting to feel a little panicky, the gun controllers were writing letters to the editor criticizing VCDL and saying that the sanctuaries were no big deal and would have no affect.

That didn't deter the movement, either. More localities came sanctuaries and the crowd sizes were between 1,000 and 1,500. That "no big deal" had taken on a life of its own.

The movement began spreading like a wildfire and real panic set it for the Democrats. Congressman McEachin did one of the dumbest political stunts I have seen in a long time. He decided to throw gasoline on a roaring fire to put it out. He told the press that the Governor could call out the National Guard to force localities to enforce new state gun laws.

At the same time to help slow down or stop the sanctuary movement, Senator Saslaw talked down his own bill - SB 16. He said that he had forgot to put in "grandfathering" that would allow gun owners to keep their semi-automatic firearms if they registered them, but no new sales would be allowed. Larger magazines, suppressors, and bump stock will still have to be destroyed or surrendered, though.

Instead of being intimidated at the thought of the National Guard being called out, or selfishly giving in so that they could keep their semi-automatic guns, while denying the next generated of gun owners that same right, gun owners now showed up in record crowds of 2,000 to 3,000+ people! They filled and overflowed large gymnasiums, with traffic alerts going out at 7 and 8 pm due to country roads being jammed in all directions!

I was so damned proud of every one of those patriots! Because of their efforts, now sanctuaries were popping up across the state almost daily. Sometimes six or more at a time!

Here is part of the attendance at the Bedford County meeting:

And about a quarter of the Rockingham County attendance:

The wildfire continued to burn across the state, until 96% of the counties and 94% of the state were sanctuaries. That number continues to grow. Currently there are 147 sanctuaries!

The map of Virginia is now almost totally green (the sanctuary color), including many areas that tend to vote Democrat. The message was clear, with both Democrats and Republicans hearing it. The Republican Party actually woke up in the middle of the movement and began registering tons of new voters at these hearings. The number of speakers topping over 100 in some cases. The gun controllers were pretty much no shows at these hearings.

(Thanks to member Rick Sandlin for the map.)

The one attempt at repealing a sanctuary status fails

After the election in November, the incoming Board of Supervisors in Prince William County was now predominantly controlled by Democrats. The new chairwoman vowed she would repeal the County's sanctuary resolution, passed in December by the previous Board, as the first order of business in early January.

When that meeting finally came, the new Board moved the time of the meeting from the evening to 2 pm, in the middle of the work day, to minimize attendance by gun owners.

It didn't work. Thousands of gun owners flooded the building and over 120 of them spoke against any such repeal! The shocked Board voted to drop the repeal from their agenda, much to the chagrin of the chairwoman, and Prince William County continued to remain a sanctuary!

The Lobby Day countdown begins

VCDL's Lobby Day 2020 was now around the corner and grassroots activism across the state had set the stage for the upcoming fight against tyranny in the General Assembly.

I stood in complete awe at what had transpired since November and humbled at the immense trust that had been placed in VCDL, not only by Virginians, but Americans across the country, to lead that fight.

Last thought: Did Virginia have to go through this?

Sadly, I believe we all had to go through this "purgatory" in order to wake up enough gun owners from their sound sleep to actually affect a powerful and lasting change in Virginia.

The House, the Governor, the Lt. Governor, and the Attorney General positions are all up for grabs in 2021. Personally, I can't wait for 2021 to get here!

If we all hang together, the political retribution for the war on gun owners will be a marvel to behold! Payback will be coming and the General Assembly will once more be reminded that gun control is a third-rail that is best not touched.

We dare not fail at this.

Upcoming parts in this series on VCDL's Lobby Day 2020

Part 2. Preparation: as the expected Lobby Day attendance skyrockets and VCDL's infrastructure is pushed to the limit, panicky gun-controllers attempt to minimize the rally or even get it cancelled altogether!

Part 3. The cage: more last minute deterrents created to slow down or stop Lobby Day. Courts take a spineless position on violations of state law by the Governor

Part 4. Lobby Day 2020 arrives and the deterrents failed: an eye-popping, 100% peaceful event, with a massive turnout of patriots determined to save the Commonwealth from tyranny

Part 5. Postscript: the positive effects of Lobby Day 2020 on the upcoming 2020 and 2021 elections, gun-control bills in the General Assembly, and the perception of gun owners in the press

Part 6. Lobby Day 2020 articles, blogs, photos, and videos: wall-to-wall coverage of that historic event!

To join VCDL, click here. To contribute to VCDL, click here.

To view the archives, click here.

Copyright © 2020 Virginia Citizens Defense League, All rights reserved.

Not yet a Virginia Citizens Defense League member? Join VCDL at: https://vcdl.org/join

VCDL's calendar: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings

Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html

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Thursday, March 19, 2020

Bernie and Biden appear to be working on a deal

As the coronavirus pandemic — or more to the point, panic about the pandemic — has canceled just about everything in American life, somewhere buried in our collective conscious is that thing that was happening this year… What was it? The election. Yes, it's still on, for now, and with every new primary contest, the race comes increasingly into focus: It's now Trump vs. Biden, with rapidly fading Bernie sending signals that he's finally going to cancel the revolution.

So how is Trump vs. Biden shaping up, especially in light of the COVID-19 economic chaos? And which woman will Biden pick as his running mate? Here's the latest installment of Election Wire.

1. Biden's lead builds.

MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Tuesday saw another three primary contests — in Arizona, Florida and Illinois (a fourth, Ohio's, was literally canceled by coronavirus). And, for the third Tuesday in a row, Biden wiped the floor with his democratic socialist competitor.

Biden ended up taking 281 of the 441 delegates up for grabs Tuesday. Sanders managed to come out of it with just 140. The Vermont senator was most competitive in Arizona, but was absolutely buried by Biden in Florida, one of the most crucial of the swing states. Biden grabbed 151 of Florida's 219 delegates, while Sanders picked up just 52.

The delegate count now gives Biden a nearly 300-delegate advantage to date:

Biden – 1181
Sanders – 885
Warren – 72 (out)
Bloomberg – 61 (out)
Buttigieg – 26 (out)
Klobuchar – 7 (out)
Gabbard – 2 (out)

2. Bernie and Biden appear to be working on a deal.

Alice Keeney/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A series of moves by the two Democratic campaigns has sparked speculation that Sanders is working out an exit deal with Biden. The day after Sanders got hammered in the primaries this week, The Washington Post reported on a couple of new developments. "Sanders campaign officials said the senator from Vermont planned to leave Washington and return home, where he and his wife, Jane, would talk to supporters and determine the future of his presidential run," the paper reported.

In a claim confirmed by Sanders' team, Biden's deputy campaign manager also told the Post that the two campaigns have been "in regular contact at a senior level" since last week to discuss how coronavirus is impacting the race and "to discuss both Vice President Biden's and Senator Sanders' ideas on policy responses to the virus." Biden campaign officials have also made it their "internal policy" to not criticize Sanders anymore. The combination of the developments, according to the Post, points to Sanders negotiating "an exit."

3. Gabbard finally gets out.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

On Thursday, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D) — who'd managed to earn just 2 delegates out of the 2,234 so far allotted — finally dropped out of the race. Why now? The same answer for every "why" right now: coronavirus.

"Our nation is facing an unprecedented global crisis that highlights the inextricable bonds of humanity, and how foreign policy and domestic policy are inseparable," Gabbard said in her announcement Thursday. "The best way I can be of service at this time is to continue to work for the health and well-being of the people of Hawaii and our country in Congress, and to stand ready to serve in uniform should the Hawaii National Guard be activated."

Like most of the other now-former Democratic candidates, Gabbard promptly endorsed Biden, a move that raised some eyebrows because of her 2016 Sanders endorsement. Former presidential candidate Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) also endorsed Biden Thursday.

4. Biden vows to pick a woman.

MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images

During the rather bizarre, audience-less debate between Biden and Sanders in Washington D.C. Sunday night, Biden vowed to pick a woman as his running mate. He also threw in the promise that he'd nominate the first African-American woman to the Supreme Court. "I committed that if I'm elected president [and] have an opportunity to appoint someone to the courts, I'll appoint the first black woman to the courts. It's required that they have representation now. It's long overdue," said Biden. "Secondly, if I am elected president, my cabinet, my administration will look like the country, and I commit that I will, in fact, pick a woman to be vice president. There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow. I would pick a woman to be my vice president."

So who are the frontrunners for Biden's female running mate? Here are some of the most likely candidates:

Stacey Abrams (D), the failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate who won't admit she lost
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who came in third in her own state primary and wasn't quite radical enough to lure Sanders supporters and not moderate enough to pull any from Biden
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), a Midwesterner who gained just 7 delegates and quickly threw her support to Biden before dropping out last week
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), who got out of the race soon after landing some low blows on Biden

📊 5. National poll watch: Biden vs. Trump.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

So how does a Biden vs. Trump general election look? While national polls have their limits in usefulness, they at least provide us a sense of general momentum and favorability. Polling from the last two weeks consistently shows Biden with a significant advantage over the president, averaging nearly 9 points: 51 – 42.5. That's certainly not great for Trump, but, as 2016 demonstrated so dramatically, what ultimately matters are the state polls.

A few key battle state poll averages from Real Clear Politics:

Arizona: Biden +3.8 (48 – 44.2)
Florida: Biden +1.3 (49 – 47.7)
North Carolina: Biden +3.4 (48.7 – 45.3)
Ohio: Biden +4 (49 – 45)
Pennsylvania: Biden +3.8 (47.3 – 43.5)
Texas: Trump +2.6 (47.8 – 45.2)
Wisconsin: Tied (45 – 45)

In other words, Trump has a lot of work to do, particularly with the coronavirus wiping out all of the stock market gains from the "Trump bull market" and the media and the Democrats dead-set on promoting hysteria and then blaming the president for the results.

6. Democrats devoting big money to hitting Trump on coronavirus.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Right on cue, big money Democratic groups are coordinating to take aim at Trump over COVID-19. One of these Democratic mega-groups, Pacronym, will reportedly invest at least $5 million in their first ad campaign, which will target key battleground states and will portray Trump as dangerously downplaying the threat of coronavirus. "This is a public health issue and a national security issue, but it's also a public policy issue and thus a political one," a Democratic official associated with Pacronym told the Post this week.

"The ads will air in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and North Carolina — all states where Democratic votes are key, and all states that are leaning, at least slightly, towards Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election," The Daily Wire reported. "Around half the ads — $2.5 million work — will air before the end of April. The rest will air in July, around the time both parties hold their nominating conventions."

7. Will COVID-19 take down Trump?

Will coronavirus end up being the downfall of Trump? There's obviously a lot that could happen from now till the election, but the electoral impact of coronavirus will ultimately hinge on two questions: How much the public blames the president for the crisis, and how quickly the country recovers.

If the Democrats and their allies in the left-leaning media's "blame Trump" strategy convinces enough Americans that Trump blew it, even if the country recovers, that message could still have lasting impact on the polls in November. If not, and if the country does seem to be rebounding, Trump's pro-business, pro-jobs and pro-economy ethos might end up winning the day.