DOE E-Mails To Wind Energy Lobbyists Cast Cloud Over Green Jobs Proposals

While reading this article from IBD late last night, the name Boone Pickens in addition to George Soros kept surfacing as two people involved in green jobs especially wind power. Then to learn the group that former Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Denise Bode was heading was involved, made us take notice.

Denise Bode left the Oklahoma Corporation as an elected Commissioner in mid term after losing the Congressional primary election the previous summer to Mary Fallin. She left the Commission in April 2007 to head a new natural gas trade association, Clean Skies Foundation, in Washington. She had been speaking around the Country on how the natural gas industry had to elbow their way into discussion about clean energy. Now we learn she was named CEO of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) in January 2009 same time Obama took office.

Bode, as a Democrat, served as the legal counsel focusing on the areas of energy and taxationon on the Staff of then Senator David Boren. Before joining the commission, Bode served for seven years as president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) in Washington, D.C. In 1997, then Gov Keating appointed Bode to the Corporation Commission and she ran as a Republican successfully in 1998 and again in 2004 for permanent terms on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. Denise Bode has a years of experience in oil and gas and is now the head of a wind energy association?

This part of the IBD article jumped out at us:

AWEA CEO Denise Bode called charges it got DOE to produce the study "absolutely false." Yes, the association worked with the administration on the issue, she said, but argued it was just how business is done in Washington.

"Anytime (the DOE's labs) are doing research on something, they usually have independent advisory groups from the industry review what they are saying to make sure it is accurate," she said.

Bode added that this was no different from how things were done under President Bush.
"Have we had a good working relationship? Sure, just as we did with the previous administration," she said.

Gary Schmitz, external affairs officer for NREL, said the agency did the study on its own simply because it believed strongly that the Spanish study was badly flawed.
"This whole idea that we engaged in some lobbying campaign is absolutely not true," he said.

Schmitz concedes NREL staffers kept AWEA in the loop as they did the response — AWEA even peer-reviewed the response study — but said there is nothing unusual about that. They need to work with those industries to research renewable energy.
"Yes, we work very closely with industry, and to suggest that that is wrong is to turn the whole history of R&D and public-private partnerships for R&D" on its head, Schmitz said. The e-mails, he argued, merely show the existing relationships between the NREL researchers and others in the renewable energy industry.

"Quite frankly those relationships go back a long way," he added.

How can a lobbying firm peer review a document from DOE? The Spanish study sent the wind lobby scrambling and if AWEA didn't request the study, you can bet someone at AWEA made a direct inference a study should be done and their fingerprints are all over the study. As we have done the research this morning we have learned more about AWEA, Denise Bode, and T. Boone Pickens.

Oilman T. Boone Pickens and AWEA head Denise Bode are two of the biggest matchmakers bringing the sectors together. Pickens' plan calls for increases in wind energy alongside a transition in the transportation sector from oil to natural gas. Bode, meanwhile, is one of many wind industry leaders to have come from the oil and gas sector, having served as head of the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the American Clean Skies Foundation before taking the helm at AWEA.

But the match may not be made in heaven. Bryan Hannegan, a vice president at the Electric Power Research Institute, said some gas companies balk at the idea. "Privately, they tell us, 'We're not sure if this low-carbon world is going to be a boon or a bane for us,'" he said. Companies don't know "if gas is going to be needed as much in a decade from now," making gas companies and financial backers hesitant to invest.

Experts agree that while natural gas may be the most attractive backup source in today's energy mix, things could change. "There are lots of things you can do to balance the supply and demand" of wind energy, said Steve Clemmer, director of energy research for the Union of Concerned Scientists. He listed several other ways wind could be backed up, including storing wind power, curtailing energy output at low-demand times and turning to other alternatives, such as hydro power.

"As renewables penetrate the market, to the extent that they penetrate the market and force out conventional generation, the first conventional generation that gets forced out is natural gas," said Don Santa, president of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. Members of Santa's group are responsible for transporting 95 percent of the country's natural gas.

Statistics provided by AWEA illustrate the natural gas sector's decreasing share of new energy production. Almost 90 percent of new generating capacity added since 2005 has been a combination of wind and gas, but that ratio has been moving in wind's direction. In 2007, 28 percent of new energy generation came from wind and 60 percent from gas; the next year that shifted to 42 percent wind and 45 percent gas. Source: http://energytopic.nationaljournal.com/2009/11/natural-gas-to-wind-im.php

You read that last paragraph right -- Statistics provided by AWEA about natural gas decreasing share of new energy production. So we have a wind association group dissing natural gas with this study that has kept investors away from natural gas. This doesn't pass the smell test. And there is more:

AWEA chief executive Denise Bode credited the Obama administration's stimulus package with accelerating growth in the sector at a time when many renewable energy experts expected the market to slow as a result of the recession.

"The US wind energy industry shattered all installation records in 2009, chalking up the Recovery Act as a historic success in creating jobs, avoiding carbon, and protecting consumers," she said.

The rapid growth in wind energy also provided further evidence that the US is slowly transitioning away
from carbon-intensive fuels, with the AWEA noting wind power and natural gas are running "neck-andneck" in the race to become the leading source of new electricity generation, together accounting for about 80 per cent of new capacity.

Source: http://www.boonepickens.com/media_summary/012810.pdf

Then we discover the projected costs per green job which we find probably low balling when the final cost per job is added up:

There are already signs that green jobs created in the U.S. are going to be just as expensive as the German and Spanish ones. On January 8, the Department of Energy announced the awarding of $2.3 billion in tax credits to companies for the creation of 17,000 “clean-tech” jobs. At over $135,000 per job, the administration is not yet up to the spending-per-job level of Germany, but that’s probably because it hasn’t concentrated on the vastly ex­pensive solar industry yet.

This is all the more ridiculous when one considers that there are ways to create real jobs in the energy sector that would have a beneficial effect on the economy. For instance, Sen. David Vitter (R., La.) has proposed a “no-cost stim­ulus” bill that would create an estimated 2 million jobs by opening up areas of the Outer Con­tinental Shelf currently off limits to oil and gas exploration, while also stream­lining the licensing of new nuclear plants. Vitter even proposes that oil-and-gas royalties be paid into a trust fund that would promote renewable energy.

Bottom line is that we don't think the green energy jobs stimulus is a good way to spend American Tax Dollars on wind energy and green jobs. Did AWEA ever hear of private enterprise or is this another sector ripe for takeover by the Obama Administration like it did the auto industry of GM and Chrysler? Is that the ultimate goal -- nationalization of green energy?

More emails that have finally been released by DOE are showing what we consider a too cozy relationship with lobbyist by DOE. We don't care if it was done during the Bush Administration, it doesn't make it right.

Time for the entire US Government to start answering Freedom of Information requests honestly and with details instead of redacting or stalling. What happened to the transparency promised by President Obama? Never mind that was for consumption during the campaign and promptly thrown out the window along with his pledge on cutting down lobbyists influencing the Federal Government or becoming political appointees.

This editorial from IBD gives more detail about the Green Jobs that are being touted by AWEA:

DOE E-Mails To Wind Energy Lobbyists Cast Cloud Over Green Jobs Proposals
By SEAN HIGGINS
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 03/10/2010 08:06 PM ET

The Energy Department worked closely with the wind industry lobby to discredit a Spanish report that criticized wind power as a job killer, internal DOE e-mails reveal.

The e-mails obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request show how, starting last April, lobbyists at the American Wind Energy Association became alarmed that lawmakers were citing a study by Spain's King Juan Carlos University. The study found that Spain's massive investments in wind power cost 2.2 jobs for every "green" job created.

The study came out in early 2009 just as the wind lobby was building up its presence in Washington, hoping it could score big in an energy bill then being debated in Congress. Industry lobbyists feared the Spanish study would halt momentum for pro-wind legislation.

Study Fanned Wind's Fears

The e-mails show the wind lobbyists shared their concerns with DOE employees, who agreed the study needed to be refuted. In August, DOE produced a white paper specifically attacking the study.

For example, e-mails show the lobbyists requesting to know when the report would come out and DOE employees hustling to get it published because it was late.

"Is it okay if we send out our response (paper) to colleagues at AWEA and CAP? We promised it to them many weeks ago. It will soon be irrelevant," said energy analyst Suzanne Tegen, co-author of the DOE paper, in a July 29 e-mail to colleagues. CAP refers to the liberal Center for American Progress, which has pushed for renewable energy subsidies and has close ties to the Democratic Party.

CAP Senior Fellow Dan Weiss told IBD the center wasn't involved in drafting or editing the report, though it did promote it on its Web site.

The conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute obtained the e-mails via a Freedom of Information Act request and shared them with IBD. Many of the messages were redacted.

The e-mails are mainly between employees at DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Conspiracy Or Cooperation?

Chris Horner, a senior fellow with CEI, is pushing further FOIA requests to get the remaining documents. He argues that the e-mail timeline indicates the Energy Department produced its study at the wind lobby's request.

"It doesn't seem to be the department's idea," Horner said. "That is clear."

(snip)

David Levinthal, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors lobbying, says "the public should always be concerned about situations where special interest groups are ... allowed to effectively be the fact checkers."
Wind lobbyists' concerns were first raised when the Spanish university's April study asserted that every subsidized renewable energy job in the country cost it 2.2 jobs in the broader economy due to inefficiency and high costs.

Excerpt: Read More at IBD