The political class needed to blame somebody for the run-up in energy prices, and settled on "speculators" as the designated villains. The mob grew to include everyone from Barack Obama to John McCain, and Bill O'Reilly to Hugo Chávez. Congress held over 40 hearings this summer. It was cynical, sure, but serious people assumed that the politicians were in on the conceit.

Maybe not. While some kind of crackdown on the U.S. oil futures market is inevitable after so much political agitation, Congress has begun to believe its own demagoguery. The Senate may vote on a bill this week that will drive commodities trading overseas and decrease oversight and market transparency. Call it a Sarbanes-Oxley for energy.

Because commodity futures trading is a complex financial instrument, "speculation" makes an expedient scapegoat for edgy lawmakers and even aggrieved industries -- such as the airlines. But it performs a vital price-discovery function. Major energy producers and consumers, such as refiners, buy and sell these contracts to lock in oil at a future price, as a shock absorber against volatility. Essentially, they're bets that reveal market expectations about the supply and demand of oil, as well as the rate of inflation.

Of all the overblown predictions of a future global warming apocalypse in the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Analyses of the Effects of Global Change on Human Health and Welfare and Human Systems,” the one the agency should be most ashamed of is its claim that warming will exacerbate ozone, otherwise known as smog. The others, like increased hurricane and flood damage, are also at odds with the actual trends and scientific evidence. But smog is within the agency’s expertise, and it knows full well its assertions are misleading.

The claim that global warming worsens smog is based on the fact that, all other things being equal, hotter temperatures create more smog. This is why smog is a summertime problem. Thus, EPA argues that continued warming will lead to “ozone levels more likely to increase than decrease.” The agency then projects more smog related health problems like cardiovascular and pulmonary illnesses.

However, as EPA knows, all other things are not equal. The agency’s own data shows that emissions of the pollutants that form smog are declining, and regulations already in place ensure that this decline will continue. Thus, even if future temperatures are higher, we will almost certainly see continued reductions in smog levels.  Source

Now that an executive-branch ban on offshore oil exploration has been lifted, the time has come for Democrats in Washington to lift their own ban on increased domestic supply. Americans are demanding that Congress do something about record-high gas prices. They recognize that prices will not go down unless supplies go up. And they also know that the only thing now standing in the way of more domestic supply is the Democratic refusal to allow it.

A recent Pew poll provides the evidence of a growing consensus on the issue. As gas prices have spiked by about 30% over the past five months, the percentage of Americans who support more domestic energy exploration and less reliance on Middle East oil has jumped too, to 47% from 35%. Most striking: Among self-described liberals, support for increased domestic exploration has jumped to 45% from 22% in just five months.

Swift and dramatic public opinion shifts like this are rare, and Democrats are starting to take notice. Just last month, most Democrats on Capitol Hill were reiterating their long-held opposition to any new domestic production. Their presidential nominee was saying that less consumption, not more supply, was the only answer to the problem. In the face of growing public frustration, their opposition is melting away. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated as much recently when he said exploration was "not off the table." At least 12 other Senate Democrats have joined him since.

Environment: The world's leading crusader on climate change is said to be making some fellow Democrats nervous. With gasoline north of $4 a gallon, it's no surprise.

Al Gore has been storming the planet with a message that boils (no pun intended) down to two points. First, global warming is the greatest crisis facing mankind. Second, the cost of solving this problem is either not all that big a deal or well worth paying — take your pick.

It's a mix of environmental panic and economic complacency, and it has so far earned Gore a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar.

But if Oslo and Hollywood are showing unconditional love, Washington is a tad more ambivalent. The Hill, the daily newspaper covering Congress, reports that some members of Gore's own party were uneasy about him taking his crusade to the nation's capital, where on Thursday he delivered a major address on climate change.

When is a car not a car? When you decide to call it a bicycle. When is a horse not a horse? When you decide to call it a cow. Just because you call something a name that does not properly describe it does not change its reality, but I live in New Jersey where reality is subject to the whim of the morons we elect to represent us.

Thus, I give you a piece of legislation sponsored by State Senator Bob Smith that would redefine wind turbines and solar panels as “agriculture.” And all this time you thought agriculture was about growing crops and raising livestock.

An Associated Press article in the July 1 edition of The New Jersey Farmer, one of my favorite publications, the headline read, “N.J. weighs bill encouraging alternative farm energy.” It would define solar and wind energy generation as an “agricultural activity.”