Cap and Trade DID Not Go Away

Posted on August 25, 2016August 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

New Principles to Help Accelerate the Growing Global Momentum for Carbon Pricing

2015:

New report shows the number of implemented or planned carbon pricing schemes around the world has almost doubled since 2012, with existing schemes now worth about $50 billion.

About 40 nations and 23 cities, states or regions are using a carbon price. This represents the equivalent of about 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide, or 12 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions.

And new report lays out six key principles to put a price on carbon – the FASTER principles – for putting a price on carbon based on economic principles and experience of what is already working around the world

The spotlight is on New York now with the upcoming United Nations meeting on the new Sustainable Development Goals, Climate Week New York, and in about two months, global leaders will meet again in Paris for COP 21. More from the World Bank.

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California’s Cap-And-Trade Program Is Sick And Will Take High-Speed Rail Down With It

Chuck DeVore, Contributor

Forbes: California concluded its most recent cap-and-trade program auction last week. Out of 44,268,323 metric tons of carbon dioxide credits offered for sale by the state Air Resources Board, only 660,560 were sold, 1.5 percent of the total, raising a paltry $8.4 million out of a hoped-for $620 million. Last May’s auction was almost as bad, raising $10 million out of an anticipated $500 million.

California’s carbon dioxide cap-and-trade auction program was expected to bring in more than $2 billion in the current fiscal year that ends June 30, 2017, a quarter of which is earmarked for the high-speed rail project narrowly approved by voters in a 2008 ballot initiative. As a hedge against uncertainty, a $500 million reserve was built into the cap-and-trade budget. But, with the August auction falling 98.5 percent short, the entire reserve was consumed in the first of four auctions for the fiscal year.

Further complicating matters is a pending lawsuit against the legality of California’s cap-and-trade program. Business groups and fiscal conservatives claim the program amounts to a tax, under a 2010 ballot initiative that better defined what exactly constitutes taxes and fees under California law, thus would requiring a two-thirds majority vote of the legislature.

Further, with the program slated to end in 2020, many businesses that are forced to buy the carbon credits are conflicted by the risk that they may end up buying the California equivalent of Confederate bonds, doomed to be worthless when the state loses its cap-and-trade war.

In the meantime, the High-Speed Rail project, currently promised to cost “only” $68 billion to run from the Bay Area some 400 miles south to Los Angeles may be looking at $50 billion in overruns. To fund the costly train, which was sold to voters as not costing a dime in new taxes, the expected revenue stream from cap-and-trade has been securitized, putting the state on the hook to Wall Street for billions in construction money advanced on the promise of future cap-and-trade revenue.

But the cap-and-trade market is showing dangerous signs of weakness. Not only have auction revenues collapsed in the last two auctions in May and August, but the competitive landscape for the auctions has collapsed as well. The Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), a commonly-used measure of competitive markets, signaled that last May’s auction was dominated by a sole market player. Last week’s auction improved somewhat, but was still moderately concentrated among a small number of buyers and sellers.

The lack of interest in California’s cap-and-trade carbon credits shows that the Golden State will likely have to come up with a significant amount of General Fund tax revenue, more than $2 billion annually, to build out its government-run rail project—something that isn’t likely to last much beyond the end of Gov. Jerry Brown’s fourth term in office in January 2019.

California’s Cap and Trade Auction is Collapsing

**** Back in 2014:

In part from Politico: Cap and trade was a key part of the George H.W. Bush administration’s strategy for reducing acid rain in 1990, and it would have been the centerpiece of the climate bill that stalled and died in the Senate in 2010.

Despite the concept’s bipartisan heritage, cap and trade has become politically toxic in some circles — especially among supporters of coal, the carbon-intensive fuel that would face the heaviest costs under any trading system. Republicans derided the climate bill as “cap and tax,” while West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin famously unloaded a rifle into a copy of the legislation during a Senate campaign commercial.

Still, cap and trade never went away.

With RGGI and California combined, about a quarter of the U.S. population lives in areas covered by trading programs designed to drive down carbon emissions, said Janet Peace, vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, at a Senate briefing Thursday.

Other programs exist in Alberta, Canada; Australia; New Zealand; Norway; and South Korea. Next year, cap-and-trade programs are expected to launch in Switzerland, Tokyo, the United Kingdom and South Africa. Others are in development or undergoing pilot tests in Brazil, China, India, Japan, Mexico and even Kazakhstan.

“Eventually, 250 million people will be covered by a carbon price in China,” Peace said. The full article here.

*** The New York Times stays current on Cap and Trade.

The Clinton’s History with Iran and Cuba and Latin America

Posted on August 23, 2016August 23, 2016 by Denise Simon

Posted earlier on this site, Iran’s Cuba and Latin American Tours and Trouble Ahead forced a deeper examination of the Iran, Cuba and Latin America relationship. As Iran is now at least $1.7 billion dollars richer, larger questions develop on Iran’s global expansion. Being in our hemisphere and right in the backyard of America some chilling conditions emerge.

Reported in 2010, Cuba has expressed support for Iran’s nuclear program and has defended Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear technology in the face of UN sanctions. Cuban President Raul Castro also serves as the Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement, which released a statement in July 2008 declaring that its member states “welcomed the continuing cooperation being extended by the Islamic Republic of Iran to the IAEA” and “reaffirmed that states’ choices and decisions, including those of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear technology and its fuel cycle policies must be respected.”[1]

In late November 2009, the IAEA passed a rebuke of Iran for building a second enrichment plan in secret.[2] Cuba, along with Venezuela and Malaysia, opposed the resolution.[3] The resolution by the 35-member IAEA Board of Governors calls on Iran to halt uranium enrichment and immediately freeze the construction of its Fordo nuclear facility, located near Qom.[4] Cuba and Iran cooperate bilaterally and multilaterally through the Non-Aligned Movement. In a June 2008 memorandum of understanding, Iranian President Ahmadinejad explained that the two countries expressed their continued support for “each other on the international scene.” [17] In September 2008, Iran began funding medical students from the Solomon Islands to study in Cuba, including airfare and computers for medical students unable to finance their own way to Havana to study.[18] More here.

There is a long and nefarious history between the United States and Cuba but we don’t have to go back much further than the Clinton administration. Seems with enough money to the Clinton’s or to the Democrat National Committee, lots of things can be overlooked.

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THREAT TO THE HOMELAND

Iran’s Extending Influence in the Western Hemisphere

Iran not only continues to expand its presence in and bilateral relationships with countries like Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, but it also maintains a network of intelligence agents specifically tasked with sponsoring and executing terrorist attacks in the western hemisphere. True, the unclassified annex to a recent State Department report on Iranian activity in the western hemisphere downplayed Iran’s activities in the region; this material, however, appeared in an introductory section of the annex that listed the author’s self-described “assumptions.” While one assumption noted that “Iranian interest in Latin America is of concern,” another stated that as a result of U.S. and allied efforts “Iranian influence in Latin America and the Caribbean is waning.” More here from the Washington Institute.

Back in 1996, seems the Clintons were doing then what they are doing today, hanging with criminals that donate.

WASHINGTON DESK – The Justice Department released on Wednesday photographs showing a convicted Miami cocaine trafficer who is seen standing next to and posing with vice president Al Gore. The two were attending a party in Florida last December.

Apparently, Cabrera was asked to make a large donation to the Clinton-Gore campaign in exchange for perks like hob-nobbing with Al Gore and the first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Jorge Cabrera’s cash contributions to the Clinton-Gore campaign were so generous, that Cabrera was also invited to the White House and gained entrance there without any FBI & Secret Service security clearance.

CNN reported Wednesday that Cabrera’s attorney, Stephen Bronis, said $20,000(given to the Clinton-Gore campaign) was not intended to buy protection for drug smuggling.

‘He had a lobster and stone crab fishery in the Keys and felt that contribution might promote that future course,’ Bronis said.

The Clinton-Gore campaign only returned the $20,000 last week after the full story had reached ABC News, and the Clinton administration had been asked for comment by the media.

Cabrera was arrested in January during a Miami drug bust of nearly three tons of cocaine. Cabrera was arrested and pleaded guilty to one drug count. He was also imprisoned in the 1980s on narcotics charges.

A report that the picture of Cabrera and Gore had been impounded by the Justice Department prompted an angry reaction from Republicans, including Bob Dole’s presidential campaign, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Bob Livingston of Louisiana, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Republicans sent letters to Attorney General Janet Reno and the directors of the FBI and the Secret Service seeking information about Cabrera and the campaign contribution.

Livingston asked the federal agencies for a complete accounting of the facts relating to the story within three days: whether Cabrera had dined at the White House, details of his relationship with Clinton and Gore and, if he did dine with them, how he passed FBI & Secret Service scrutiny to gain access to them.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Miami was contacted by reporters. Justice said it would not provide photographs of Cabrera and Gore in Florida and at the White House when reporters requested them on Monday. The Justice Department attempted to claim that Cabrera’s story is coverd by the Privacy Act law in turning down the media request for information on the arrest for cocaine possession of tons of the illegat drug and dealing.

Jant Reno put out information that the photo of Cabrera with Gore and Clinton could not be released without the consent of Cabrera. Later, the Justice Department did release the photographs after Cabrera submitted written authorization.

The delay by the Justice Department appeared to be an effort to distance itself from accusations that are mounting from the American public that the Justice Department is receiving guidance from the Clinton White House and the vice president’s office on the timing of Janet Reno’s investigation.

Justice says it is looking into the breach of National Security by Cabrera’s ready access to secured areas of the White House and its grounds when he entered as an invited quest of president Clinton for dinner and photo-ops.

Then much more recently, like February of 2016, Hillary was busy nurturing the pro-Iran lobby including a fund-raiser.

Clinton will participate in a Menlo Park fundraiser on Sunday hosted by Twitter executive Omid Kordestani and his wife Gisel Hiscock, as well as National Iranian American Council (NIAC) board member Lily Sarafan and Noosheen Hashemi, who serves on the board of the pro-Iran advocacy group Ploughshares, a major funder of pro-Iran efforts.

NIAC, an advocacy group formed by Iranian-Americans to work against the pro-Israel community, has long been accused of lobbying on Iran’s behalf against sanctions and other measures that could harm the Islamic Republic’s interest.

Ploughshares, which partners with NIAC, is joining the White House in efforts to pressure the Jewish community and others to back the recently implemented Iran nuclear agreement, the Free Beacon reported.

The organization has also spent millions to influence coverage of Iran and protect the Obama administration’s diplomatic relations with Iran.

NIAC has emerged a key pro-Iran player in the United States, working with the White House and liberal groups to spin the deal as a positive for U.S. national security.

The group is currently leading the charge to block recent counter-terrorism legislation that would require individuals who have travelled to Iran to obtain a visa before entering the United States. More from FreeBeacon.

Alright so we have established historical relationships with Cuba and Iran and the Clintons. Is there more that we should know? Yes.

Cuban spies in America
The DEA did it’s job but Bill Clinton remained loyal to the Castro brothers
Hillary’s personal global spy, Sidney Blumenthal collaborated on Hezbollah’s new office in Cuba.
In 2011, Hillary’s State Department sent their old friend Bill Richardson to Cuba to bring back an American, Alan Gross, who was an embedded spy working for USAID.
In 2009, Obama and Hillary began the normalization process with Cuba.
Bill Clinton’s old buddy Strobe Talbott collaborated on Cuba with Hillary’s State Department.
Hillary announced that Iran would be invited to an upcoming multinational conference on Afghanistan
Documents reveal Bill Clinton’s secret contact with Iran
Sid Blumenthal, Jake Sullivan and Hillary on Iran and Israel

Iran’s Cuba and Latin American Tours and Trouble Ahead

Posted on August 23, 2016August 23, 2016 by Denise Simon

While the United States attempted to normalize relations with both Iran and Cuba, it appears the real result is a renewed friendliness between Iran and Cuba at the cost of the U.S. taxpayer, that $1.7 billion or more.

It also must be noted that Cuban refugees continue to appear on American shores but now we must question how many of them are terrorists and what are they bringing with them. Iceberg ahead.

It is also important to note that the Cuban military runs all tourism and the hospitality industry as the United States has opened those travel channels.

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Related reading: Breaking Sanctions with Cuba?

Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism, that is until the White House decided it was no longer.

Cuba supports Iran’s nuclear ambitions and opposed IAEA rebukes of secret Iranian enrichment sites. The two countries have banking agreements (Islamic Republic News Agency), economic cooperation and lines of credit ( FNA), and three-way energy-focused treaties with Bolivia (CSMonitor). Cuba and Iran hold regular ‘Joint Economic Commission’ meetings; the latest, in November 2009, further expanded bilateral trade and economic ties.

One of Cuba’s largest and long-term industries is spying and selling intelligence and secrets globally.

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Iran says will open new chapter in relations with Cuba

Reuters: Kicking off a six-day tour of Latin America, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday in Havana his visit would open a new chapter in the Islamic Republic’s relations with Communist-ruled Cuba.

Iran, which has long been friendly with Cuba, is on a drive to improve foreign commerce after the removal in January of international sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

“We will start a new chapter in the bilateral relations with Cuba on the basis of a big (business) delegation accompanying me on this visit,” Zarif said at a meeting with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez.

The international community lifted sanctions on Iran as part of the deal under which Tehran curbed its nuclear program.

Rodriguez congratulated Iran on the “success of its foreign policy” while reiterating its longstanding support for “all countries to develop nuclear energy with pacific ends”.

Cuba and Iran have in common a long stand-off with the United States. They were both on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorism sponsoring countries until Havana was removed last year as part of a detente with Washington.

“We have always been on the side of the great Cuban people in view of atrocities and unjust sanctions,” Zarif said.

“The government and Cuban people have also always shown us solidarity with regards to the atrocities committed by the empire.”

Zarif’s tour will also take him to Chile, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Venezuela.

Just last week, Cuba’s new Economy Minister Ricardo Cabrisas made a trip to Tehran where he met with President Hassan Rouhani.

German exports to Iran, mostly machines and equipment, jumped in the first half of the year following the removal of international sanctions against the Islamic Republic, official trade data showed on Monday

How and When the $1.7 Billion was Paid to Iran, Database Item

Posted on August 22, 2016August 22, 2016 by Denise Simon

Note the date and this money was assigned to the State Department Account in the graphic (screen-shot below the text)

Riddle of $1.3 Billion for Iran Might Relate to 13 Outlays Of Exactly $99,999,999.99

NYSun: Congressional investigators trying to uncover the trail of $1.3 billion in payments to Iran might want to focus on 13 large, identical sums that Treasury paid to the State Department under the generic heading of settling “Foreign Claims.”

The 13 payments when added to the $400 million that the administration now concedes it shipped to the Iranian regime in foreign cash would bring the payout to the $1.7 billion that President Obama and Secretary Kerry announced on January 17. That total was to settle a dispute pending for decades before the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in at The Hague.

Mr. Kerry told the press at the time that the settlement included $400 million that Iran under the Shah had paid into a U.S. trust fund for an arms deal that collapsed after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. Plus, said Kerry, the U.S. had agreed to pay “a roughly $1.3 billion compromise on the interest.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon and Carole E. Lee broke earlier this month the news that on the same day that Mr. Obama announced the settlement, his administration secretly sent Iran the $400 million payment in cash. Last week, the State Department finally confirmed that the January 17 cash shipment was used as “leverage” to ensure Iran’s release that same day of four American prisoners — fueling questions about whether the Obama administration, despite its denials, had paid ransom.

Yet more questions surround the administration’s handling of the remaining $1.3 billion. Could this have been drawn from a fund bankrolled by American taxpayers and housed at Treasury, called the Judgment Fund? And why were the 13 payments in amounts of one cent less than $100,000,000?

The Judgment Fund has long been a controversial vehicle for federal agencies to detour past one of the most pointed prohibitions in the Constitution: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”

The Judgment Fund, according to a Treasury Department Web site, is “a permanent, indefinite appropriation” used to pay monetary awards against U.S. government agencies in cases “where funds are not legally available to pay the award from the agency’s own appropriations.”

In March, in letters responding to questions about the Iran settlement sent weeks earlier by Representatives Edward Royce and Mike Pompeo, the State Department confirmed that the $1.3 billion “interest” portion of the Iran settlement had been paid out of the Judgment Fund. But State gave no information on the logistics.

The 13 payments that may explain what happened are found in an online database maintained by the Judgment Fund. A search for “Iran” since the beginning of this year turns up nothing. But a search for claims in which the defendant is the State Department turns up 13 payments for $99,999,999.99.

They were all made on the same day, all sharing the same file and control reference numbers, all certified by the U.S. Attorney General, but each assigned a different identification number. They add up to $1,299,999,999.87, or 13 cents less than the $1.3 billion Messrs. Clinton and Kerry announced in January.

Together with a 14th payment of just over $10 million, the grand total paid out by Treasury from the Judgment Fund on that single day, January 19, for claims pertaining to the State Department, comes to roughly $1.31 billion.

Treasury has provided no answers to my queries about whether these specific payments were for the Iran settlement. Nor why these transfers comprised 13 payments, each of which was a cent under $100,000,000. Nor whether the $10 million related to the same matter.

The Judgment Fund database contains over the past year no other payouts pertaining to State that come anywhere near the scale of $1.3 billion of the announced with Iran. And it contains no details on what the State Department might have done with the $1.3 billion.

It does say, as a general matter, that “Defendant Agency Name is the same as the Responsible Agency Name.” It leaves open the question of whether it was State rather than Treasury that determined by what route and in what form the funds would reach their final destination.

State has refused to disclose even such basic information as the date on which Iran took receipt of the $1.3 billion. As recently as August 4, a State spokesman told the press: “I don’t have a date of when that took place.”

Nor has the administration answered whether the $1.3 billion was transferred to Iran via the banking system, or, like the $400 million, in cash. According to the Judgment Fund web site, the “preferred method” for payments is “by electronic fund transfer,” approved by the relevant government agency, to the party receiving the award.

But, the Weekly Standard noted last week, President Obama recently defended his $400 million cash shipment to Iran on the grounds that “We don’t have a banking relationship with Iran… We could not wire the money.”

The Judgment Fund’s public database provides no information about where precisely the $1.31 billion in January payments went, or how. The Fund’s web site does provide blank “Voucher for Payment” forms, requiring administration officials to provide such details, and sign off on them.

These payouts from the Judgment Fund were made within days of the announcement of the Iran settlement. The Judgment Fund’s web site states that while its bureaucracy has recently become more efficient, “processing times” for payments still take “6 to 8 weeks.”

If the multiple 10-digit payments of January 19 do turn out to be connected to the Iran settlement announced January 17, that would suggest that the Judgment Fund completed its processing for Iran in a mere two days one of which — Monday, January 18 — was a federal holiday.

Ms. Rosett, a Foreign Policy Fellow with the Independent Women’s Forum, a columnist of Forbes and a blogger for PJMedia, is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.

Deportation is Almost at a Full Halt

Posted on August 22, 2016August 22, 2016 by Denise Simon

Interior Enforcement Plummeting Under Obama Admin’s New Deportation Program

DailyCaller: The Obama administration’s new program to work with local and state law enforcement on deportations has resulted in a dramatic decrease in interior immigration enforcement, government data reveals.

Detainer requests to local and state law enforcement are down across the board for aliens who have committed violent, drug, and sex crimes. The data comes from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse which obtains government statistics through Freedom of Information Act requests. A detainer request is when Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE) asks a state or local jail agency to hold an alien in custody so ICE is able to take them into custody.

ICE shifted from the Secure Communities program to the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) in the beginning of Fiscal Year (FY) 2015. In FY 2014, ICE had 159,210 requests to local and state law enforcement agencies to detain non-citizens for up to 48 hours. That number dropped 41.3 percent to 95,085 in FY 2015.

The purpose of the PEP is to focus on deportations of aliens who have committed serious “Level 1 offenses.” But, comparing FY 2014 and FY2015, data shows a decrease in detainer requests for aliens who have been convicted of assault, driving under the influence, selling cocaine, robbery, and sexual assault. The amount of detainer requests for aliens convicted of murder dropped from 603 to 343, a 43.2 percent drop.

At the same time as detainer requests have decreased, ICE “notices” have increased. With the announcement of the PEP, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said that ICE is phasing out detainer requests and instead using requests for notifications. These are “requests that state or local law enforcement notify ICE of a pending release during the time that person is otherwise in custody under state or local authority.” (RELATED: ICE Gets Extra Billion To Deport Illegals, Deports 200,000 FEWER)

While notices were supposed to replace detainers, ICE continues to use the latter. In November 2015, a year after PEP was put in place, ICE had 4,942 detainer requests and 1,204 requests for notice.
With the new program in place ICE’s total requests for detainers and requests for notices have plummeted. In October 2014, the last month of the prior Secure Communities program, there were 11,201 detainers. A year later there were 6,146 detainers and requests for notice combined in October.

Detainer requests during the Obama administration peaked with 309,697 in 2011. That same year there were about 225,000 interior deportations. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, ICE is on pace to complete 63,700 interior deportations in 2016.

**** Remember this past June and the Supreme Court decision:

ABAJournal: The U.S. Supreme Court has split 4-4 in a challenge to President Barack Obama’s power to implement a deferred deportation program, leaving in place a nationwide injunction blocking the initiative.

The New York Times calls the tie vote “a sharp blow” to Obama’s program and “a rebuke to his go-it-alone approach to immigration.” The Washington Post called the deadlock “a significant legal defeat” for Obama.

Obama told reporters that the deadlock is “heartbreaking” for millions of immigrants and its effect will be to freeze his deferred immigration program until after the election.

Obama’s program offers deportation deferrals to immigrants who have lived here since at least January 2010, have no serious criminal record, and have children who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. The program is known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA.

Challengers had claimed Obama’s executive action violated the Administrative Procedure Act and Obama’s constitutional duty to “take care” that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed. Texas was one of 26 states that challenged the program.

“Today’s decision keeps in place what we have maintained from the very start: one person, even a president, cannot unilaterally change the law,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “This is a major setback to President Obama’s attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law.”

The case is United States v. Texas.