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Oil, business groups predict energy crisis

August 20, 2013

oil pumpA new business group claims that California’s efforts to deal with climate change is setting the stage for another energy crisis.

Californians for Affordable and Reliable Energy (CARE) is a coalition of manufacturers and oil companies, most of which have been working diligently to delay, change, or terminate entirely those efforts.

The group says on its website that “California is approaching an energy crisis — state policies are forcing higher costs and reliability problems.”

According to the results of a study funded by the group itself, energy prices in the Golden State will “increase sharply” over the next few years, due largely to a host of laws, rules and regulations intended to encourage the use of renewable and alternative forms of energy; curtail laws limiting greenhouse gas emissions; and to compel oil companies to utilize bio-fuels.

Among the group’s members are the Western States Petroleum Association, the California Manufacturers & Technology Association, and the California Chamber of Commerce.


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Doesn’t matter what’s the company’s name – or group name – big corporations are all out to **** the average person. Private industry in any shape or form wants to make a buck +++++ no matter who pays for it – but preferably it would be the average person.

Remember the last ‘energy’ crisis? They had fun manipulating the prices and California got taken………


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The real “crisis” is how these dinosaur-tech companies feel about seeing companies like Tesla making serious headway in creating a viable electric car that can be recharged at solar powered charging stationsl.


The other crisis has to do with the vast amounts of toxins oil companies pour into the ground and aquifers in the process of extracting oil from the Earth. Also, the increased potential for earthquakes from altering the pressure ratios in the Earth in proximity to earthquake faults.


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Yes, and all the while, as groups like CARE and ALEC are working to cover up all the damage done by the dinosaurs, and to help those dinosaurs literally take over our government, we are being fed even more lies about what is really going on – in the form of “fake news”. Yes, “fake news”. I urge CCN readers to check out the PR Watch article “Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed” by Diane Farsetta. Here is a quote from the article:


“…the public relations industry uses video news releases (VNRs). VNRs are pre-packaged “news” segments and additional footage created by broadcast PR firms, or by publicists within corporations or government agencies. VNRs are designed to be seamlessly integrated into newscasts, and are freely provided to TV stations. Although the accompanying information sent to TV stations identifies the clients behind the VNRs, nothing in the material for broadcast does. Without strong disclosure requirements and the attention and action of TV station personnel, viewers cannot know when the news segment they’re watching was bought and paid for by the very subjects of that “report.”


The complete article is online at http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary


Once you know this is going on, it becomes fairly easy to spot some of this stuff. I have seen it used a number of times by one of our local TV stations. I suppose it is cheaper than doing their own research and reporting.


Thank goodness we have CCN.


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The environmental NGO’s have been doing this for years and the media spews it all without ever checking on the facts. locally, David Sneed of the T-T is one of the worst offenders.


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Not comparable.


The top echelons of the big business interests lie, cheat and steal in order to get their hands on our money so that they can live high while everyone else struggles. Then they use their huge financial assets (made up, of course, of money they got from us) to hire PR firms to engage in more lying and cheating to protect them from any negative impacts of their bad behavior.


The big mortgage crisis, which was based on conning people, is a great example. It didn’t hurt the bank executives. They still got their bonuses and are still living high. It only hurt their victims.


Very few environmental groups have the money to hire fancy PR firms – probably because they are motivated by a desire to protect us and future generations, not to rob us.


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You clearly no nothing about such groups as The Nature Conservancy, EDF, Green Peace, WWF etc. “No money”, that’s a clueless remark.


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Water and oil don’t mix. Is this a smoke screen?


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Quite often the “crisis” is manufactured by the very group that swoops in to our rescue. It works at every level of government, why no try it in the semi-private energy sector?


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Just so there is no confusion here, I will quote from the Source Watch Web site’s material on ALEC. I trust this will help CCN readers understand why some people are concerned.


“ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC’s operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills.”


and


“ALEC’s agenda extends into almost all areas of law. Its bills undermine environmental regulations and deny climate change; support school privatization; undercut health care reform; defund unions and limit their political influence; restrain legislatures’ abilities to raise revenue through taxes; mandate strict election laws that disenfranchise voters; increase incarceration to benefit the private prison industry, among many other issues”


Thinking adults? Oh, they’re thinking all right.


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Hey, that organization sounds great! I’d like to join!


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Looks like CARE and ALEC have their drones monitoring CCN articles :)


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What is it about Limited Government… Free Markets… and Federalism that frightens you so much? ALEC is no different than Liberal minded think groups except It is a collection of thinking adults not children. If in your opinion this nation is headed in the right direction and there is no need to hear Ideas from others, than you are the problem…not ALEC.


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Stupid is as stupid does California…


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Big business works tirelessly to put out as much propaganda as possible to attempt to counter the facts about their industry and the damage it does, and it’s not just propaganda they engage in. They are also working to change the laws to suit their purposes.


CARE is not the only industry group the public needs to watch out for. There is another big, powerful organization that appears to be doing a lot more damage. I suggest that CCN readers look up an organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There are some good articles on it on the Web site of the American Association for Justice (formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America) and Source Watch, an excellent watchdog group that monitors behind-the-scenes lobbying and fear mongering by big oil and other big business interests.


The American Association for Justice refers to ALEC’s activities as “ghostwriting the law for corporate America”. They note that just one of the organization’s activities is to work on behalf of oil companies “to undermine climate change proponents.”


The Source Watch articles on ALEC are particularly interesting and details, and well worth reading. We all need to know the lengths that big business goes to to control the actions of government and to fool the people into thinking nothing is wrong.


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This is news? That “energy” companies would complain about rules, issue dire warnings about how if they cannot continue with “business as usual” then we will have a “crisis”? Perhaps the true “crisis” would be the reduction if profits for those energy companies if we continue to utilize more renewable energy sources and those dinosaur based companies do not only embrace the alternative means of production but also actually start large scale investing into those technologies. The real reason that renewable energy isn’t a larger factor than it should be has been the lack of true, large scale investment and research. Take all of the dollars that was invested in nuclear energy during the fifties and sixties, convert it into today’s equal and invest that into renewables – our “energy crisis” will be solved once and for all in pretty short order, but the current energy companies won’t be in a position to continue to reap the enormous profits they enjoy now.


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What would you suggest, more solar plants,lets see the boondoggle’s in the Carissa Plains cover hundreds of acres of range and farm land in glass and only produce a fraction of what Morro Bay could do and don’t even make a pimple on an elephants backside to what Diablo can do, so I guess we’ll just put the whole central valley under glass.


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“What would you suggest, …. ” Um, yeah, I did suggest that those same “energy” companies invest in research and development, like was done for nuclear, back during the fifties, sixties, as well as the seventies and eighties. Put an equal amount into renewable research and we can figure out a way to generate all the power we need, pollute less, wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. But the energy companies will have none of it because they fear for their bottom line above all else. There is much more available to renewable sourcing than just solar, perhaps even a few that have not been invented yet; without the research we might just ever know …


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