Al Gore Using Mass Brainwashing To Dupe The World's Largest Industries! We, The Self Annoited Capitalists Must Fight Back!!!

[Palin Loving Conservative Realist]

Vile Communist Global Warming Deniers Apopleptic - Furious As Energy Firms
Come to Terms With Climate Change - Proof That Global Warming Deniers Hate
Capitalism

Energy Firms Come to Terms With Climate Change

By Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers

While the political debate over global warming continues, top executives at many
of the nation's largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus
about climate change and see federal regulation to cut greenhouse gas emissions
as inevitable.

The Democratic takeover of Congress makes it more likely that the federal
government will attempt to regulate emissions. The companies have been hiring
new lobbyists who they hope can help fashion a national approach that would
avert a patchwork of state plans now in the works. They are also working to
change some company practices in anticipation of the regulation.

"We have to deal with greenhouse gases," John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil
Co., said in a recent speech at the National Press Club. "From Shell's point of
view, the debate is over. When 98 percent of scientists agree, who is Shell to
say, 'Let's debate the science'?"

Hofmeister and other top energy company leaders, such as Duke Energy Corp.'s
chief executive, James E. Rogers, back a proposal that would cap greenhouse gas
emissions and allow firms to trade their quotas.

Paul M. Anderson, Duke Energy's chairman and a member of the president's Council
of Advisors on Science and Technology, favors a tax on emissions of carbon
dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas. His firm is the nation's third-
largest burner of coal.

Exxon Mobil Corp., the highest-profile corporate skeptic about global warming,
said in September that it was considering ending its funding of a think tank
that has sought to cast doubts on climate change. And on Nov. 2, the company
announced that it will contribute more than $1.25 million to a European Union
study on how to store carbon dioxide in natural gas fields in the Norwegian
North Sea, Algeria and Germany.

These changes come as Democratic leaders prepare to take over key committees on
Capitol Hill. Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), who calls global warming "the
greatest challenge of our generation," will take the place of Sen. James M.
Inhofe (R-Okla.) as chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee. Inhofe refers to global warming as a "hoax."

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the incoming Energy and Natural Resources Committee
chairman, said he hopes to "do something on global warming." Even though the
Bush administration's expected opposition might make the enactment of
legislation unlikely in the next two years, many companies cannot put off
decisions about what sort of power plants to build.

Duke Energy, for example, has not added significant power generation in two
decades, and customer demand is rising 1 to 2 percent a year. The company has
included a price for the carbon emitted in its cost estimates for a new coal-
fired generating plant proposed for Indiana.

"If we had our druthers, we'd already have carbon legislation passed," said John
L. Stowell, Duke Energy's vice president for environmental policy. "Our
viewpoint is that it's going to happen. There's scientific evidence of climate
change. We'd like to know what legislation will be put together so that, when we
figure out how to increase our load, we know exactly what to expect."

One reason companies are turning to Congress is to avert the multiplicity of
regulations being drafted by various state governments. The Regional Greenhouse
Gas Initiative, a group of seven Northeastern states, is moving ahead with a
proposed system that would set a ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions, issue
allowances to companies, and allow firms to trade those allowances to comply
with regulations.

California is drawing up its program. Other states are also contemplating
limits. Even the city of Boulder, Colo., has adopted its own plan -- a carbon
tax based on electricity use.

"We cannot deal with 50 different policies," said Shell's Hofmeister. "We need a
national approach to greenhouse gases."

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether the federal
government is obligated to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant; its decision
could force the government to come up with guidelines.

Though many energy firms had already voiced support in recent months for federal
regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions, the coming changeover in Congress
has intensified the discussions.

"There have been many more folks wanting to engage on the detailed architecture
of climate-change legislation," said Jason S. Grumet, executive director of the
bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy. "The tenor, tone and the detail
of discussions has changed in the last couple of months. Nobody's going to want
to be the last company to come before the Congress and say, 'I've been opposing
you for five years, but now can I have my piece?' "

Some businesses are making new hires based on the assumption that legislative
activity on global warming will increase in the coming months. Truman Semans,
director of markets and business strategy for the Pew Center on Global Climate
Change, said at least half a dozen of the companies that belong to the center's
Business Environmental Leadership Council have recently hired staff members
focused on global warming.

Not every energy company is planning to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the
near future. TXU Corp. is planning to spend $10 billion to build 11 new coal-
fired power plants, which would more than double the company's carbon dioxide
emissions, from 55 million tons to 133 million tons a year. That increase in
emissions is more than the total carbon dioxide pollution emitted in all of
Maryland or by 10 million Cadillac Escalade sport-utility vehicles.

In an e-mail to The Washington Post, TXU spokeswoman Kimberly Morgan said that
the company supports "a comprehensive, voluntary, technology-based approach to
global climate change based on carbon intensity" that is both "flexible and cost
effective."

"We are at a point in time where other states and businesses are starting to
take global warming seriously," said Colin Rowan, spokesman for the advocacy
group Environmental Defense. "California is heading toward the future, and TXU
and Texas are sprinting full speed back to the 1950s."

The company's approach may pay off in the short term, but it may not last. "Over
the next two years I don't think environmental policy is going to change
radically," said Carl Pope, executive director of the advocacy group Sierra
Club. But he added, "I think the environmental agenda and conversation will
change radically."

Corporate America wants to be part of that conversation. Duke Energy's Stowell
said: "Industry is coming together and saying, 'Okay, if we're going to do this,
let's do this in a way that won't wreck the economy.' "

Correction to This Article
A Nov. 25 article about energy companies and climate change misquoted Shell Oil
Co. President John Hofmeister. In an Oct. 23 speech at the National Press Club,
Hofmeister said: "When 90-plus percent of the world's leading figures believe
that greenhouse gases have impacted the climate of the Earth, who is Shell to
say 'Let's debate the science.' "