In a speech today, our ally and friend across the pond, British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a pitch for nuclear power. Of course the folks from Greenpeace tried to disrupt it (even though some of their folks have switched sides on the issue) but Blair was undaunted. Got a bit of Churchill in him, that boy.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one, but the UK is beset by soaring energy prices and shrinking supplies, coal falling into disfavor. Yet just a short Chunnel ride away in France, they are quite bullish on nuclear, building a bunch of plants with more on the way. They get 80% of their power from nuclear and are Europe’s largest exporter of power. Can you imagine having so much of the stuff that you can export it? So Blair launched his nuclear effort to the dismay of the enviros, who continue to feel their grip slipping away on all this issue.

Here’s a link to Eric McErlain’s NEI blog that covers all of this pretty well and here’s a link to an article about Blair’s speech, and here’s a link that summarizes his key points and has a link to the full text.

Don’t forget to drop a note to your Member of Congress and urge them to act to boost the domestic supply of energy.

OK, here’s what happened at the UN Climate Change meeting in Montreal today, a meeting that one of the commenters over on Red State said should be called “The UN Conference on How to Throw Mud at the United States and Make Them Pay for Something.”

Our man in Montreal, the State Department’s Dr. Harlan Watson, said:

“With regard to what the United States is doing on climate change, the actions we have taken are next to none in the world.”

Worse yet, he’s dead-on right. That pretty much hacked off all the other countries who are still kicking themselves for getting suckered into this boneheaded deal known as Kyoto (which our Senate rejected 95-0).

So, in essence, nothing happened in Montreal today. Go figure.

After a one-week respite, time for another Wednesday Poster of the Week, another classic poster from the NAM archives. This is another one from the World War II era, with messages tying manufacturing to the war effort. Manufacturers still make the things that make our troops safe on the ground, on the sea and in the air, as it has always been. So here we go with another timeless message — an image that’s a little dated, admittedly, but nostalgic and retro. No matter — defense in the field still begins in the factory. They just make more sophisticated stuff.

Enjoy. Click on the image to enlarge it.

The Blogger-in-Chief was hesitant to write on this topic, so it looks like his humble apprentice gets the leftover scraps.

We were only just slightly annoyed when we turned on ABC last night to watch the Barbara Walters’ (anybody remember Barbara WaWa?) special, “The Ten Most Fascinating People of 2005.”

We waited in great anticipation through the entire hour-long special to see if she decided to lump a manufacturer–any manufacturer–into her list.

Nope.

Here was her “list” of “fascinating people”:

Dakota Fanning
Jamie Foxx
Condoleezza Rice
Teri Hatcher
Thomas Mesereau
Lance Armstrong
Beth Holloway-Twitty
Tom Cruise
Kanye West
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall

Wup dee do. Kinda lame, if you ask us.

A couple questions:

Where are the manufacturers in that list? We only make everything that these “fascinating” people use everyday.

What was Barbara Walters’ criteria?Perhaps these people were chosen because many are considered popular and “cool?” Manufacturers are cool too, ya know. We even make cool stuff. In fact, this blog has a whole section on Cool Stuff Being Made.

When was the last time Barbara Walters went on a plant tour? We think if she went on one, she’d surely find it fascinating.

Loyal readers of this blog (both of you) will recall that when People magazine listed their Hottest Beach Bodies we called for a boycott because not one manufacturer was included in that list.

Somebody should call for a boycott of Barbara Walters.

Any takers?

Oh, and Barbara, 2005 isn’t over yet. There’s still a month to go, by our count. Anytime you want to amend the list, we’ll happily invite ourselves.

These were the words NAM President John Engler used late yesterday upon learning of the Treasury Department’s decision not to cite China for currency manipulation.

We think most of you understand this issue. For years, China has been manipulating its currency, keeping it artificially low, thus making their goods cheaper and giving themselves a competitive leg up as a result. We can compete with the best of them given a level playing field, but this tilts the field in their favor. Our policy is clear: currencies should be set by the market, not by individual governments. In the past several years, China has amassed almost $700 billion in foreign exchange reserves — almost all in dollars — in order to suppress the value of their currency, the yuan. In our view, this is in clear violation of International Monetary Fund rules that prohibit the manipulation of exchange rates to gain an unfair advantage. China is now in the league of law-abiding nations in groups such as the World Trade Organization, and they are expected to comply with the same rules the rest of us do, like WTO and IMF rules.

We had hoped the Treasury Department — as part of its semi-annual review — would cite China as a currency manipulator, but that was not the case. “The initial steps by China to increase its exchange rate flexibility”, said Treasury Secretary Snow in a statement appended to their semi-annual report, “played an important part in this decision.” It is true that China has finally un-pegged its currency to the dollar, but while important symbolically, it was an infinitesimal move at best. We agree with Secretary Snow and President Bush, who both said in recent weeks that China needed to do more.

As Gov. Engler said, this decision dismayed us greatly and left us very disappointed. We will continue to press the Administration and the IMF on the issue. China ought to stop manipulating its currency, period. Enough is enough.

Brace yourself — a 10-day international climate control conference has opened in Montreal. Prepare yourself for a constant drip, drip, drip of hysteria from the global climate change folks. Understand that this is not a happy gathering. First, their focus at this meeting is supposedly India and China, who did not sign the Kyoto Accords in the first place, but are fiercely competing with all those that did. What’s worse, it’s a meeting of countries who signed onto the Kyoto Accords (except for us, who were smart enough to not buy into the politics of it all), and who will largely miss their targets for reducing emissions. No matter, at least they signed it — kinda like Liz Taylor signing a marriage license — we’re sure it made them feel better but in the end, it didn’t mean a damned thing.

So here’s a running calculator showing what the Kyoto accords are costing and underneath a thermometer that shows the infinitesimal impact it will have by 2050 — in thousandths of degrees. Here’s a link to fact sheet on climate change from us and (in case you need another source) here’s a link to a US Department of State fact sheet– not exactly a bunch of partisan political hacks — with some info on what we are doing on the issue while the rest of the world wrings its hands, kicks themselves for signing this agreement in the first place and misses its targets by a mile.

Oh, and remember, the decision not to sign the Kyoto Accords squeaked through the US Senate by a vote of 95-0 during the Clinton Administration.

Excellent piece in yesterday’s Wall St. Journal on line “Opinion Journal” from John Fund under this title on energy policy. Subtitled, “Washington policy makers stand in the way of sensible energy polices”, he pretty much his the nail on the head. He says therein, “In reality, high energy prices are often the direct consequence of misguided government policy.” How right he is. He must be reading the blog…

He ends with a pitch for nuclear power. The French get more than 80% of their power from nuclear, while we lag at about 20%. On one hand, enviros encourage NIMBY’s who don’t want nuclear plants in their areas, but then they also usurp the role of the Alaskans, who favor drilling in ANWR, as if they don’t know what’s best for themselves. Between a rock and a hard place, that’s where our energy policy lives.

Fund’s says to “expect a firestorm of controversy when the new Bush nuclear policy is announced.” He concludes:

“If Members of Congress are afraid to challenge the orthodoxies of the green lobby, they can’t be too surprised if President Bush exercises national leadership in a dramatic way to make sure the lights stay on while Washington fiddles. Some of them may privately even be thankful someone is willing to break a small part of the energy gridlock.”

Time to wrest control of American’s energy policy from a small band of rabid envoris and give it back to the people — the same people who are paying a lot more for energy and the same people who will be shivering this winter, thanks to the enviros.

If you agree, drop a note to your Member of Congress and let ‘em know.

Ok, we got a nice response to our recent Webinar that we held on November 15th after we mentioned it on this site.

So, time again for another shameless self promotion. But first, a small quiz::

Did you know that in you can reduce your tax liability through charitable contributions of inventory?

Did you know that Congress recently limited the deductibility of costs related to personal use of aircrafts?

Do the words cost segregation and IC-DISC sound foreign to you?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above, then, you may be interested in our free webinar on “Tax Savings for Manufacturers” (non-manufacturers can attend as well).

Here’s a link to learn more and to register.

So, you thought that just because it was Thanksgiving we’d maybe take a week off and not broadcast our weekly radio show?

Nope. Yesterday’s radio show featured an interview from Manufacturing Institute President Jerry Jasinowski on the macro view of the new 2005 Skills Gap Survey.

Then, SMM Michael Nelson, president of Mayday Manufacturing in Denton, Texas, describes his own micro struggle to find qualified workers.

Later on in the show we chat with a Congress Daily energy reporter Darren Goode comments on ANWR, OCS and more, and Claire Buchan, chief of staff to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, speaks about China and free trade. All this, along with music from Sam Cooke, Jackson Browne and David Bowie.

Click here to listen to the show or click here for our PodCast feed.

This week we’ll keep pressing Congress to open up domestic supplies of energy so we can begin to bring down the soaring costs of all types of fuels. As we’ve said in this space many times before, the poor and seniors, those on a fixed income, those trying to make ends meet every month will have the enviros to thank for higher energy bills this winter. Why? Because thanks to a handful of radical environmentalists, our energy policy has been held hostage: No nuclear plants built, no oil exploration, no natural gas exploration, no more coal. Guess what happens if you shut off supply, and demand increases? We’d be right about where we are. This ain’t rocket science.

Here’s a great backgrounder on ANWR. It’s a solid effort by our own Keith McCoy. It is really eye-opening, chock-full of — God forbid — facts. Yikes! We thought it might be nice to inject some facts into this debate. Among them are:

– First and foremost a reminder that Alaska is almost twice the size of Texas. The drilling footprint for ANWR is a fifth the size of Dulles Airport.

– If we look at the mean calculations of 10.4 billion barrels of oil, ANWR would supply every drop of petroleum for the entire state of Arkansas for 144 years, Missouri for 71 years or South Dakota for 479 years.

– The caribou herd in the North Slope has increased from 5,000 in 1977, at the beginning of oil development, to 27,000 in 2000. Alaska Fish and Game has published the most recent census showing the population is now more than 31,000. If exploration interferes with migration or calving, the Department of the Interior will shut it down.

– Sen. Walter Mondale said in 1973 — when the Congress approved the building of the Alaska Pipeline — “It has always been my position that we need Alaskan oil and that this oil should flow to the lower 48 as soon as possible, consistent with environmental safeguards and the greatest benefit for the entire country.” That pipeline has carried as much as 2 million barrels a day from Prudhoe Bay. For twenty years it has provided as much as 20 percent of our domestic production.

Write your Member of Congress. Tell them to get on the stick.