In a recent hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, EPA assistant administrator Gina McCarthy said under questioning by U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Committee Chairman Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., that her agency – despite issuing regulations that will have a profound affect on electricity production in the United States – “doesn’t live in the energy world.”

It’s one thing to be independent of the industries you’re supposed to be regulating. But even independent regulatory bodies shouldn’t be making rules based on assumptions and models whose results virtually nobody in the field takes seriously. Maybe the EPA should live a little more “in the energy world,” a world it so closely regulates.

Read more at View From a Height.

Recently, we showed Colorado state Rep. John Soper, D-Thornton, telling public school employees to “go someplace else” if they didn’t like being due-paying members of the Colorado Education Association. Soper was speaking in opposition to HB12-1333, a bill that would have permitted teachers to opt out of union membership any time, with a 30-day notice.

The Democrats’ opposition, as you can see from our distilled video above, was largely based on the idea of local control of schools, enshrined in the Colorado state constitution. The repetition of the phrase by Rep. Millie Hamner, D-Summit, and Rep. Judy Solano, D-Brighton, struck me as a drinking game.

The problem is that “local control,” while it does extend beyond curriculum, is not absolute. Read more on View From a Height.

Public school employees in Colorado would have been allowed to opt-out of membership in labor organizations at any time, with 30 days’ notice, under HB12-1333. Currently, the Colorado Education Association allows an unadvertised three-week opt-out window.

Though the bill was eventually killed in a Democratic-controlled state Senate committee, it did pass out of the Republican-controlled House, and the floor debate was especially illuminating. State Rep. John Soper, D-Thornton, on April 25, 2012, explained to teachers that maybe they’d be better off working someplace else…

“I rise and want to discuss a little bit about this bill we’re talking about: Are we going to empower teachers, or are we going to empower labor organizations?  My stand is on this – you know what the rules are going in. If you don’t want to go to work for an organization, you do not have to go to work for an organization. You can go to work for anybody you want to go to. Teachers always got the power. {They don’t say], ‘This is the school you got to teach in.’  You teach where you want to teach.  If you don’t like the rules, go somewhere else. But as long as the rules there, let’s abide by ‘em.”

Rep. Soper may be forgiven for believing that teachers work for the union, not for the schools, but the arrogance of telling teachers to “go somewhere else,” when neighborhood public schools have a virtual (although not total) monopoly on the profession is positively breathtaking.  Moreover, to tell teachers, “you know what the rules are going in,” abdicates the legislature’s most basic responsibility of rule-making, i.e., legislating.

Breathtaking arrogance, perhaps, but also all too typical of the defenders of that most reliable of Democrat constituencies, the CEA.

Ah, the good old days.  This FedEx ad is from the early ’80s, which means the U.S. Postal Service has had at least that long to get its act together.

We recently quoted U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., as opposing eliminating rural post offices, or even reducing their hours or days of service. Her sole substantive argument in favor of continuing to subsidize the USPS was that seniors might not be able to get drugs by mail, although we noted at the time that paying FedEx or UPS for drug delivery had to be cheaper than supporting the entire USPS apparatus.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, the on-budget pension and benefit costs of maintaining current service levels will run to $34 billion over the next 10 years.  That money is going straight to the workers, not to operations, so it’s clear why the Postal Workers and Letter Carriers favor it.

While it might make sense for U.S. Reps. Cory Gardner and Scott Tipton, both Republicans of Colorado, to want to retain rural post offices in their largely rural districts, Rep. DeGette has no such excuse. Indeed, U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., supports the USPS management plan to cut costs and restructure. So what gives?

Well, the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO, and the National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO do. Thus far, in the 2012 cycle, the political action committees of the two unions combined have given more than $1.1 million to Democratic Congressional candidates, and less than $40,000 to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Not surprisingly, the National Rural Letter Carriers Association splits slight less lopsidedly, at about a 7-3 Democratic advantage over the last several cycles, mostly because of Republican representation of rural districts.

So far this cycle, the APWU has given $5,000 to state Rep. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo; $4,000 to state Rep. Joe Miklosi, D-Denver; and $1,000 to state Sen. President Brandon Shaffer, D-Longmont. All three are running for Congress in Colorado, so it’s not clear the APWU has gotten the message about what constitutes a “winnable district.”

If Rep. DeGette hopes to serve in the majority again, union PAC contributions – such as those provided by the APWU and the NALC – will be key to fulfilling that ambition.  We just wish they weren’t being bailed out with our tax money.

We recently featured a video of Sen. Michael Bennet pushing for an extension of the wind energy production tax credit, using jobs as the justification. But he also added this little addendum:

Our businesses need predictability, they need to know who they’re going to be able to employ…

It’s also one of the points that the head of Hexcel, one of those wind companies seeking your tax dollars, makes in the video above, featured on Sen. Bennet’s website and YouTube channel.

It seems the Senator is somewhat uncertain on the subject of business uncertainty.

Yes, he’s sponsored legislation to speed the drug approval process. But he’s been party to a series of both legislation and inaction that have helped the largest policy and regulatory uncertainty in the nation’s modern history, uncertainty which is having a killing effect on business decision-making and investment. Consider:

• Obamacare’s regulatory and tax provisions…
• …which are even depressing the development of new health care facilities
• Failure to deregulate existing electricity markets, ones actually generate electricity in measurable amounts
• Kicking the tax rate can down the road to the fall of an election year
• The failure to pass a federal budget in over three years
• The 2000-page Dodd-Frank regulatory nightmare

As noted in one of the papers cited above, green energy is more easily spooked by regulatory uncertainty, but that’s largely an indicator that it’s more dependent on government subsidies to compete in the first place. We’d find this whole line of argument slightly more persuasive if the Senator actually applied it as a general principle, rather than as a sop to a favored industry.

According to U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., wind tax credits are about jobs. Also on the record, $7,500 in campaign contributions.

“It’s not a philosophical discussion about green energy… These are about jobs in Colorado and across the country…”

In an attempt to appease voters, secure jobs and garner some special interest support, Michael Bennet would extend the Production Tax Credit paying out 2.2¢ per kWh. The PTC has artificially propped up the wind industry since 1992. Senator Bennet even admits the tax credit is a biased use of the system…

“‘Anybody who thinks our existing tax code isn’t picking winners and losers hasn’t studied it closely,’ Bennet said.”

The only losers in this bit of tax code are the taxpaying public like these folks from Minnesota…

“Taxpayers in Minnesota ended up paying $70 million more than they needed to for electricity in 2011 because of “green” energy mandates, according to the Minnesota Rural Electric Association (MREA).”

Rather than end government involvement in picking energy winners and losers, Bennet advocates for working the system to create a few rather expensive green jobs. Senator, you are supposed to be fixing the system not using it to prop up a few unstable jobs.

In his visit to Boulder on April 24, Pres. Obama said this…

“College isn’t just the best investment you can make in your future. It is the best investment that you can make in your country’s future.”

Obama’s rhetoric appeals to current students, future student, and families looking to send kids to college. After all, college provides a greater chance at prosperity. But Obama’s proposal to keep student-loan interest rates low masks a tuition bubble and an estimated $1 trillion in debt.

“The College Board, which tracks each type of financial assistance in a comprehensive annual report, shows total federal aid soaring by more than $100 billion in the space of a single decade — from $64 billion in 2000 to $169 billion in 2010,” wrote Jeff Jacoby in a recent Boston Globe column.

“And what have we gotten for this vast investment in college affordability?” asked Jacoby. “Colleges that are more unaffordable than ever.”

Here’s the evidence from CollegeBoard.org statistics.

Mr. President, the government’s involvement in student aid wastes billions of dollars the country doesn’t have. The tangible result is pushing the cost of a college degree further and further out of reach.

At a recent Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee hearing on gas prices, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., made the following comments:

“We ought to be realistic as policymakers here in Washington that if we’re going to squeeze Iran, that we’re going to see a risk premium then built into international oil markets. I think you all agree. And I think it would behoove all of us, here, when we start to talk about high oil prices, and therefore high prices at the pump; and we become outraged, we first ought to say, for the most part here in Washington, said it’s in our national security interest to squeeze Iran, and as a part of that process, we can anticipate gasoline prices are going to rise. We ought to be straight with the American public that that’s, in part, what’s happening.

“And I do think that Sen. Campbell made some good points about the difference between legitimate hedgers and speculators. It would be interesting to try and differentiate between the two.”

For a man in so pivotal a position to affect the nation’s energy policy, these remarks betray a frightening lack of understanding of how world oil markets work.

Sen. Udall’s claim “that that’s, in part, what’s happening,” takes the Obama Administration’s blame-foreign instability approach one step further, by insinuating that it’s actually a by-product of a desirable policy, that of containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It is true that if we were to embargo Iran, or to prevent its oil from reaching world markets, that it could have some significant effect on oil prices.

That might be what would happen.

However, right now, all of Iran’s oil is, in fact, reaching world markets. The basic forces of supply and demand remain, more or less, unimpeded.

Financial analyst David P. Goldman (aka “Spengler”) shows that there’s no reason to think that it’s what is happening.

Oil prices are going up because as the economy sluggishly recovers, investors are anticipating stronger future demand.  The S&P 500 goes up; so does oil.  Demand goes up, so does price.  Obama may be doing everything possible to bring back the 70s, but so far, he’s avoided imposing an actual Iranian oil embargo, a la Jimmy Carter in 1979.

As for the difference between hedgers and speculators [the latter which Udall reliably blames elsewhere for higher pump prices], it’s true that there’s a difference in investing style and purpose.

But speculators make money by betting that oil prices will move in a certain direction; there is no convincing mechanism to explain how the price of a futures contract or an option can affect the price of oil here and now. Blaming speculators for rising oil prices is like blaming bettors for a horse’s performance on the track.

In a recent telephone town hall, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., stuck up for the current postal service model:

“I’m opposed to closing the post offices, and I frankly think it’s a bad idea to reduce the hours and the days of service.

“One of the key things about…a country like our country, which is so diverse. It has urban areas but then has huge areas that are rural areas, is to have a public mail system.

“And so, for a lot of senior citizens who get their drugs by mail, if they can’t get their drugs by mail, that’s a terrible problem for them.”

Rep. DeGette places herself squarely on the side of those who would abandon the solemn promise of a budget deal (to the tune of $34 billion), for the purpose of subsidizing a dying beast for a few more years.

Her second sentence is a non sequitur. Our diverse country manages to deliver all manner of goods and services in a timely manner to rural areas without having the federal government do the delivery.

As for the final point, both UPS and FedEx do Saturday delivery. If DeGette’s point is that we don’t want to deprive seniors of a convenient and inexpensive way to take delivery of drugs, simply paying for that delivery – or for a portion of that cost – would be less expensive than subsidizing the entire USPS for the same purpose.

Even The Denver Post has come out against the Senate plan:

“The agency should be allowed to hew more closely to its plan, and we’re disappointed that Colorado Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, both Democrats, supported the Senate plan, particularly the piece that delays rural post office closures.”

Certainly, closing under-utilized post offices is a serious issue for areas where such entities are seen as the “heart” of the community. But the closures also are an important piece of what should be a broad strategy to make the USPS more lean and efficient.

The current model is broken beyond salvation. Center-left blogger and columnist Walter Russell Mead has written incisively on a number of occasions about the need for reform, and the left’s unwillingness to embrace it.

At the Boulder County Democratic assembly a month ago, U.S. Sen. Mark Udall’s attempt at clever political rhetoric typified his partisanship.

“Think of it this way: Osama bin Laden is dead and Detroit is alive,” said Udall, according to a Boulder Daily Camera video. “The other guys wanted it the other way around, when you think about it… And using the Detroit analogy, when you want to go forward, what do you put your car in? You put it in D. If you want to go in reverse, you put it in R. Do we want to put it in D or do we want to put it in R? We want to put it in D.”

Udall, up for re-election in 2014, could use some new rhetoric rather than recasting Vice President Joe Biden’s shaky comedy that “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”

Udall’s insinuation that Republicans wanted to keep bin Laden alive is a sad stretch. Come on, Senator.

Recent polling of more than 500 voters in Colorado indicates people aren’t too happy with Udall, giving him an approval rating of 40%, as reported by Colorado Peak Politics. It’s becoming clear that Udall’s appeal has begun to wane.

He ought to try a car with a standard transmission: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and R to get out of those tight spots.