Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul Join Forces to Legalize Hemp

The push to legalize domestic hemp production is gaining steam.  

Matthew Hurtt | March 4, 2013

Supporters of industrial hemp gained a powerful ally in Washington several weeks ago when Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) joined fellow Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul and Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) as a co-sponsor of S.359, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013. The House companion, sponsored by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), has 28 co-sponsors. The bills would amend the Controlled Substances Act to exclude industrial hemp, the domestic production of which has been illegal since 1970.

Though manufacturing hemp is currently just as illegal as growing smokable pot, 10 states already have frameworks in place for industrial hemp production. The problem is that the Drug Enforcement Administration classifies all forms of hemp as a controlled substance, despite the fact that industrial hemp generally contains less than 0.3 percent THC, or anywhere between 1/6 to 1/66 the amount you'll find in marijuana. If you tried smoking hemp, you'd exhaust yourself before you got high.

Federal regulations do not differentiate between marijuana and its non-psychoactive cousin, which is used in the production of many useful items, including clothing, rope, biofuel, construction materials, and pulp for paper products. According to David West of the North American Industrial Hemp Council, more hemp products are exported to the United States from places like China and Canada than any other nation on earth.

The most recent victory for industrial hemp at the state level came when SB50, a bill to create a framework for licensure in Kentucky, passed unanimously out of the Senate Agriculture Committee and by 31-6 on the Senate Floor. Sen. Paul (who donned a shirt made of hemp during his testimony), Rep. Massie, Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, and former CIA Director R. James Woolsey all testified in favor of the bill in committee.

"The specter of people getting high on industrial hemp is pretty much exactly like saying you can get drunk on O'Doul’s," Woolsey testified. But there's another angle to the anti-hemp argument. Law enforcement groups claim hemp farmers could cultivate marijuana with substantial amounts of THC among an industrial hemp crop. Woolsey debunked this notion, saying marijuana growers would “hate the idea of having industrial hemp anywhere near” their crops because cross-pollination leads to less THC in marijuana, rather than more THC in hemp. As Reason’s Jacob Sullum has noted, “In Colorado… the managers of indoor marijuana grows (currently serving the medical market) are worried about drifting pollen from hemp farms, which could make their plants go to seed instead of producing lots of lovely buds and resin.”

American policymakers have had a love-hate relationship with hemp. Despite being widely produced in colonial America and grown by some of the Founding Fathers, the U.S. government can't seem to make up its mind about the plant. The U.S. allowed domestic hemp for nearly two centuries before passing the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, which imposed onerous licensing requirements and taxes on hemp producers. When Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941, thereby cutting off the U.S. Navy from its sole provider for rope fiber, the U.S. launched the "Hemp for Victory" campaign, which sparked Kentucky's hemp farming revival. The Feds reversed their stance yet again with the passage of the Controlled Substances Act in 1970.

Hemp is also a historically popular crop in Kentucky. In 2002, Purdue University released a study claiming that “[f]rom the end of the Civil War until 1912, virtually all hemp in the U.S. was produced in Kentucky.” Even today, industrial hemp farming would have tangible benefits for Kentucky, where tobacco has waned in recent years. Congressman Massie, who operates a family farm in Garrison, Kentucky, has taken the lead on legalizing industrial hemp in the House. In a recent press release, he said,

Industrial hemp is a sustainable crop and could be a great economic opportunity for Kentucky farmers. My wife and I are raising our children on the tobacco and cattle farm where my wife grew up. Tobacco is no longer a viable crop for many of us in Kentucky and we understand how hard it is for a family farm to turn a profit. Industrial hemp will give small farmers another opportunity to succeed.

Despite testimony from an all-star lineup in the Kentucky Senate Agriculture Committee, the measure faces a “tougher time” passing the House, according to Speaker Greg Stumbo; and it will face an even greater challenge making it past Governor Steve Beshear, who sympathizes with Kentucky's anti-hemp law enforcement community.

Nevertheless, half of Kentucky’s congressional delegation supports the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013 and state Agriculture Commissioner Jim Comer said it was a “top priority” for Kentucky’s agriculture lobby. McConnell, whose increasingly amiable relationship with Rand Paul seems to be making him lean in a slightly more libertarian direction, explained in a joint statement with the junior senator from Kentucky:

I am proud to introduce legislation with my friend Rand Paul that will allow Kentucky farmers to harness the economic potential that industrial hemp can provide. During these tough economic times, this legislation has the potential to create jobs and provide a boost to Kentucky's economy and to our farmers and their families.

Relaxing restrictions on industrial hemp production would allow American farmers to successfully compete. Under the current restrictions, American consumers are sending hundreds of thousands of dollars abroad annually and creating jobs in China, Canada, and elsewhere rather than buying products made from hemp that has been grown in the U.S.A.

Buying Congress in 2012

Thursday, January 5, 2012 by TomDispatch.com
Time to Stop Being Cynical About Corporate Money in Politics and Start Being Angry 
by Bill McKibben

 

My resolution for 2012 is to be naïve -- dangerously naïve.

I’m aware that the usual recipe for political effectiveness is just the opposite: to be cynical, calculating, an insider. But if you think, as I do, that we need deep change in this country, then cynicism is a sucker’s bet. Try as hard as you can, you’re never going to be as cynical as the corporations and the harem of politicians they pay for.  It’s like trying to outchant a Buddhist monastery. 

Here’s my case in point, one of a thousand stories people working for social change could tell: All last fall, most of the environmental movement, including 350.org, the group I helped found, waged a fight against the planned Keystone XL pipeline that would bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Canada through the U.S. to the Gulf Coast. We waged our struggle against building it out in the open, presenting scientific argument, holding demonstrations, and attending hearings.  We sent 1,253 people to jail in the largest civil disobedience action in a generation.  Meanwhile, more than half a million Americans offered public comments against the pipeline, the most on any energy project in the nation’s history.

And what do you know? We won a small victory in November, when President Obama agreed that, before he could give the project a thumbs-up or -down, it needed another year of careful review.  (The previous version of that review, as overseen by the State Department, had been little short of a crony capitalist farce.)  Given that James Hansen, the government’s premier climate scientist, had said that tapping Canada’s tar sands for that pipeline would, in the end, essentially mean “game over for the climate,” that seemed an eminently reasonable course to follow, even if it was also eminently political.

A few weeks later, however, Congress decided it wanted to take up the question. In the process, the issue went from out in the open to behind closed doors in money-filled rooms.  Within days, and after only a couple of hours of hearings that barely mentioned the key scientific questions or the dangers involved, the House of Representatives voted 234-194 to force a quicker review of the pipeline.  Later, the House attached its demand to the must-pass payroll tax cut.

That was an obvious pre-election year attempt to put the president on the spot. Environmentalists are at least hopeful that the White House will now reject the permit.  After all, its communications director said that the rider, by hurrying the decision, “virtually guarantees that the pipeline will not be approved.”

As important as the vote total in the House, however, was another number: within minutes of the vote, Oil Change International had calculated that the 234 Congressional representatives who voted aye had received $42 million in campaign contributions from the fossil-fuel industry; the 193 nays, $8 million.

Buying Congress
I know that cynics -- call them realists, if you prefer -- will be completely unsurprised by that. Which is precisely the problem.

We’ve reached the point where we’re unfazed by things that should shake us to the core. So, just for a moment, be naïve and consider what really happened in that vote: the people’s representatives who happen to have taken the bulk of the money from those energy companies promptly voted on behalf of their interests.

They weren’t weighing science or the national interest; they weren’t balancing present benefits against future costs.  Instead of doing the work of legislators, that is, they were acting like employees. Forget the idea that they’re public servants; the truth is that, in every way that matters, they work for Exxon and its kin. They should, by rights, wear logos on their lapels like NASCAR drivers.

If you find this too harsh, think about how obligated you feel when someone gives you something. Did you get a Christmas present last month from someone you hadn’t remembered to buy one for? Are you going to send them an extra-special one next year?

And that’s for a pair of socks. Speaker of the House John Boehner, who insisted that the Keystone approval decision be speeded up, has gotten $1,111,080 from the fossil-fuel industry during his tenure. His Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell, who shepherded the bill through his chamber, has raked in $1,277,208 in the course of his tenure in Washington.

If someone had helped your career to the tune of a million dollars, wouldn’t you feel in their debt? I would. I get somewhat less than that from my employer, Middlebury College, and yet I bleed Panther blue.  Don’t ask me to compare my school with, say, Dartmouth unless you want a biased answer, because that’s what you’ll get.  Which is fine -- I am an employee.

But you’d be a fool to let me referee the homecoming football game. In fact, in any other walk of life we wouldn’t think twice before concluding that paying off the referees is wrong. If the Patriots make the Super Bowl, everyone in America would be outraged to see owner Robert Kraft trot out to midfield before the game and hand a $1,000 bill to each of the linesmen and field judges.

If he did it secretly, the newspaper reporter who uncovered the scandal would win a Pulitzer. But a political reporter who bothered to point out Boehner’s and McConnell’s payoffs would be upbraided by her editor for simpleminded journalism.  That’s how the game is played and we’ve all bought into it, even if only to sputter in hopeless outrage.

Far from showing any shame, the big players boast about it: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, front outfit for a consortium of corporations, has bragged on its website about outspending everyone in Washington, which is easy to do when Chevron, Goldman Sachs, and News Corp are writing you seven-figure checks.

This really matters.  The Chamber of Commerce spent more money on the 2010 elections than the Republican and Democratic National Committees combined, and 94% of those dollars went to climate-change deniers.  That helps explain why the House voted last year to say that global warming isn’t real.

It also explains why “our” representatives vote, year in and year out, for billions of dollars worth of subsidies for fossil-fuel companies. If there was ever an industry that didn’t need subsidies, it would be this one: they make more money each year than any enterprise in the history of money. Not only that, but we’ve known how to burn coal for 300 years and oil for 200.

Those subsidies are simply payoffs. Companies give small gifts to legislators, and in return get large ones back, and we’re the ones who are actually paying.

Whose Money?  Whose Washington?
I don’t want to be hopelessly naïve. I want to be hopefully naïve. It would be relatively easy to change this: you could provide public financing for campaigns instead of letting corporations pay. It’s the equivalent of having the National Football League hire referees instead of asking the teams to provide them.

Public financing of campaigns would cost a little money, but endlessly less than paying for the presents these guys give their masters. And it would let you watch what was happening in Washington without feeling as disgusted.  Even legislators, once they got the hang of it, might enjoy neither raising money nor having to pretend it doesn’t affect them.

To make this happen, however, we may have to change the Constitution, as we’ve done 27 times before.

This time, we’d need to specify that corporations aren’t people, that money isn’t speech, and that it doesn’t abridge the First Amendment to tell people they can’t spend whatever they want getting elected. Winning a change like that would require hard political organizing, since big banks and big oil companies and big drug-makers will surely rally to protect their privilege.

Still, there’s a chance.  The Occupy movement opened the door to this sort of change by reminding us all that the system is rigged, that its outcomes are unfair, that there’s reason to think people from across the political spectrum are tired of what we’ve got, and that getting angry and acting on that anger in the political arena is what being a citizen is all about.

It’s fertile ground for action.  After all, Congress’s approval rating is now at 9%, which is another way of saying that everyone who’s not a lobbyist hates them and what they’re doing. The big boys are, of course, counting on us simmering down; they’re counting on us being cynical, on figuring there’s no hope or benefit in fighting city hall. But if we’re naïve enough to demand a country more like the one we were promised in high school civics class, then we have a shot.

A good time to take an initial stand comes later this month, when rallies outside every federal courthouse will mark the second anniversary of the Citizens United decision. That’s the one where the Supreme Court ruled that corporations had the right to spend whatever they wanted on campaigns.

To me, that decision was, in essence, corporate America saying, “We’re not going to bother pretending any more. This country belongs to us.”

We need to say, loud and clear: “Sorry. Time to give it back.”

Super Committee Picks in Place

Tuesday, August 9, 2011 by Politico.com
Super Committee Picks
by Manu Raju & John Bresnahan

In the first of what will be a closely watched selection process for a powerful new deficit panel, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he will appoint Democratic Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.), Max Baucus (Mont.) and John Kerry (Mass.) as his three choices for a super committee charged with finding more than $1 trillion in spending cuts by the end of this year.

Murray will serve as co-chair of the 12-member panel. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will select her co-chair and two other panelists, as required by the next debt limit agreement signed into law by President Barack Obama last week. Minority Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell will each select three additional members.

“The Joint Select Committee has been charged with forging the balanced, bipartisan approach to deficit reduction that the American people, the markets and rating agencies like Standard and Poor’s are demanding,” Reid said in a statement. “To achieve that goal, I have appointed three senators who each posses an expertise in budget matters, a commitment to a balanced approach and a track record of forging bipartisan consensus.”

Reid’s three picks are intended to show the Nevada Democrat is serious about forging a bipartisan deal to head off $1.2 trillion in spending cuts required under the debt deal. The super committee was Reid’s contribution to the bipartisan agreement to end the debt limit fight.

Murray is the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and close to Reid and the rest of the Senate Democratic leadership. Baucus is the chairman of the powerful Finance Committee, while Kerry - the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee - has been lobbying for a spot.

Reid and Pelosi had been considering whether to install candidates who will draw a hard-line against deep entitlement cuts, particularly if Republicans don’t bend on new taxes. The Democratic leaders want loyalists who won’t give the panel majority support for a cuts-only approach, which could target popular programs like Medicare and Social Security.

“The number one criteria should be someone who fights for revenues and if Republicans continue to rule out revenues, then the Democrats have to play proper defense in response,” said a senior Democratic aide.

In an email sent to her colleagues Monday evening, Pelosi said her caucus was committed to “protecting” Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - and said that the new panel should deliberate in public settings so that it achieves a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction.

“Many of you have expressed your interest in serving on the Joint Committee,” Pelosi told her colleagues. “I have and will be reaching out to each of you before making any decision.”

Leaders have until next week to announce their picks for the closely watched panel, although Reid’s opening move is expected to speed up that process.

The membership will be crucial, since any deal that receives a majority support will be fast-tracked through the House and Senate for consideration before year’s end.

All four party leaders face internal politics as they try to choose members who will both represent their caucus’ interests and try to show a level of seriousness amid a fiscal crisis that led Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history. And the appointees must be able to withstand withering criticism from their bases if they cut a compromise deal - or public outrage if they fail to reach an accord at a time of historic deficits.

Many Hill insiders believe vulnerable lawmakers won’t be appointed to the politically charged panel.

While most of McConnell’s GOP caucus is dead set against raising revenues, even by keeping income tax rates the same and eliminating preferences in the tax code, Reid has a much more diverse collection of colleagues, which made it more challenging for him to find members who will stay loyal to the party while also trying to cut an effective deal.

Reid also has to defend 23 Democratic-controlled Senate seats in 2012, versus only 10 for McConnell.

Democratic insiders said Reid came “under pressure” from several fronts - first, progressive and liberal members want at least one of their own named to the joint panel in order to ensure that their positions on spending and entitlement cuts are factored into any final recommendations.

“What I don’t like is revenues not being part of it, and I’m going to fight to make sure it’s included” in the super committee, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said last week.

By choosing Baucus, Reid may unnerve some liberals who have been skeptical of the Montana Democrat’s deal-making with Republicans over the years. But Baucus also has held the party line on raising revenues and attacking GOP budget plans to overhaul Medicare, a role he played in the budget talks with Vice President Joe Biden.

And by choosing Murray, the DSCC chief, Reid opens himself up to GOP criticism for choosing the Democratic senator whose foremost concern is 2012 Senate politics heading into a daunting election year.

“It is shocking that Harry Reid appointed his chief fundraiser to a committee that will be the central focus of every lobbyist in town,” said one Republican official.

Kerry, who has drawn fire from the right for calling S&P’s move a “tea party downgrade,” has been eager to add to his Senate resume a sweeping domestic achievement.

Noticeably absent from Reid’s choices are the three Democrats who served as part of the bipartisan Gang of Six who proposed a sweeping budget deal, which the majority leader never embraced.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Reid’s top deputy and Gang of Six member, signaled his interest in serving on the super committee. Reid’s No. 3, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, informed leadership he did not want a spot on the panel.

For McConnell, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) is widely expected to get the nod, given his conservative credentials, ties to McConnell and his work in the Biden group.

But if Republicans stay united, they’d need one additional Democrat to break ranks and back a cuts-only approach - so McConnell may want to choose a senator with bipartisan appeal who is loyal to leadership, like either Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) or Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).

At a townhall in Winchester, Ky. on Monday, McConnell told a crowd that he wanted “significant entitlement reform” to be part of the mix that the super committee proposes. Last week on Fox News, McConnell declared that tax increases were essentially off the table.

“What I can pretty certainly say to the American people, the chances of any kind of tax increase passing with this, with the appointees of John Boehner and I, are going to put in there are pretty low,” McConnell said.

Upping the rhetoric, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) issued a memo to his colleagues on Monday evening to blast the S&P’s suggestion that revenue raisers be part of the mix and to insist that higher taxes should not be part of the super committee’s solution.

“I believe this is what we must demand from the Joint Committee as it begins its work,” Cantor said to House Republicans.

Cantor is a possible choice for the committee - and Boehner may choose similar hard-nosed conservatives to throw a bone to tea party-backed lawmakers skeptical of his handling of the debt ceiling debate.

Pelosi has not yet indicated who she will pick, but Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, is a possible pick, according to Democratic sources. Other potential selections include Reps. James Clyburn (S.C.), the Assistant Democratic Leader, and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), the top Latino in the Democratic Caucus.

If the super committee reaches an accord, its recommendations would be quickly sent to the House and Senate floors, forcing lawmakers to cast an up-or-down vote on whether to send the proposals to President Barack Obama’s desk for his signature or veto; if it fails, it could trigger an across-the-board series of cuts, including to defense programs that Pentagon officials say are vital to national security.

Many Republicans are eager to avoid deep defense cuts, providing an incentive for their party to win Democratic backing on the panel.

Congressional Leaders Reach Patriot Act Deal

(FUCKERS! Constitution-violating FUCKERS!--jef)

Friday, May 20, 2011 by Politico.com
Leaders Reach Patriot Act Deal
by Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

Top lawmakers in the House and Senate reached a deal to extend the Patriot Act for four years, a week before key provisions were set to expire.

 The pieces of the law that allow the federal government to compel businesses to release records, issue roving wiretaps, and monitor so-called “lone wolf” terror suspects were set to run out on May 27. The outline of the deal between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) still needs to pass both chambers in the next seven days to avoid a lapse in the law.

Reid went to the Senate floor on Thursday afternoon to file cloture on the bill, setting up a vote for Monday night.

“Sens. Reid and McConnell have introduced a clean, four-year extension of the Patriot Act, one of the critical tools the intelligence community has to keep America safe. The Senate will consider this legislation next week,” said Michael Brumas, a McConnell spokesman.

Extending the Bush-era surveillance law has not been a slam dunk for House GOP leaders this year. In fact, Republicans were unable to muster enough votes to fast-track the bill through the House earlier this year because of objections from lawmakers ranging from libertarian-minded conservatives to liberal Democrats. When a 90-day extension passed earlier this year, Republicans needed Democrats to carry it across the finish line.

House Republicans were readying to push through their own, more ambitious, bill this week. They were going to take up Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner’s (R-Wis.) bill, which extended the business records and roving wiretap provisions for six years, and the “lone wolf” element permanently. Several House Republicans were averse to extending anything permanently, including conservative House Republicans like Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana.

If the bill is amended in either body, its changes will need to be adopted by both chambers. The House is only scheduled to be in session through Thursday and the law expires Friday, making time of the essence.

Before their week-long recess this week, House Republicans had started the hard sell on the Patriot Act. They had a closed briefing with Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller, and heard stern warnings from House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Cailf.) that they should get their questions answered before voting “no.” GOP aides and lawmakers were also saying that the death of Osama bin Laden should give urgency to extending the law, although the Patriot Act deals with domestic surveillance, not foreign.

Another plus for both parties: the four-year compromise places the vote in 2015 — which is not an election year.

Civil liberties groups reacted with anger to the news of a four-year extension for the controversial law without committee review.

“That is how the Patriot Act first came into being 10 years ago—without meaningful debate,” said the Bill of Rights Defense Committee in a statement issued on Thursday night.

“Today, despite the prior approval of the Senate Judiciary Committee of a bill introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to impose some (albeit inadequate) reforms, the congressional leadership is dictating the result of a long overdue policy debate that has never happened.”

GOP Senators Vow to Block Any Nominee for Consumer Bureau

Friday, May 6, 2011 by The Hill

by Peter Schroeder 

 

Nearly every Republican senator is vowing to block any presidential nominee to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) unless major changes are made to the agency.

In a letter sent to the president Thursday, 44 GOP senators said that any pick to become the first director of the CFPB, regardless of political affiliation, will be unacceptable unless the bureau is significatly altered to reduce its "unfettered authority."

"The Dodd-Frank Act failed to provide any real checks on the CFPB director’s powers. Once confirmed, the director effectively answers to no one," the lawmakers wrote.

The demands set up a high stakes showdown between the Senate GOP and the White House, which has yet to name a nominee even as the CFPB works to get up and running by July.

"The CFPB as created by the deeply-flawed Dodd-Frank Act is set to be one of the least accountable and most powerful agencies in Washington," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). "The reforms outlined are necessary before we will consider any nominee to head this agency.”

"This about accountability," added Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee. "The bureau, as currently structured, lacks any semblance of the checks and balances inherent in the Constitution."

Specifically, the lawmakers are demanding the top of the CFPB be changed so that instead of being run by a single director, it is headed by a board of directors. They also want the CFPB's budget to fall under the jurisdiction of Congressional appropriators — currently the CFPB is set up to receive its budget from the Federal Reserve. And finally, they want other regulators to be able to block CFPB regulations if they deem it could endanger the safety and soundess of banks.

The list of demands is comparable to legislation currently pending in the House and Senate that would curb the CFPB's power. A subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee advanced three bills Wednesday that would make similar changes, and companion legislation has been introduced in the Senate.

Congressional Democrats have blasted the bills as surreptitious attempts to kill the agency before it is started. And CFPB architect and presidential advisor Elizabeth Warren has said any attempts to change the agency are mere efforts to "defund, delay and defang" the bureau, which was hotly contested by the GOP in the debate over the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that created it.

Shell report predicts peak oil now or soon, ponders ‘Depression 2.0′

By Stephen C. Webster | Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

The industrial doomsday scenario put forward by peak oil theorists isn't just for far flung voices on the Internet anymore.

Peak oil is not a problem of Earth's supplies: there's plenty of oil in a variety of forms. The difficulty is in how much energy it takes to recover and process it. And if it hasn't happened already, soon the demand for energy commodities will soar past existing production capacity and crash headlong into the brick wall of declining discoveries.

The economic effects of this could be devastating to the human populations within industrialized societies, to say the least.

That's not just the line from Noam Chomsky, Michael Rupert and Dmitry Orlov: the second largest company in the world, Shell International, a major player in the energy commodities industries, is saying it too.

In a recent "Signals & Signposts" report by Shell, forecasting energy scenarios through 2050, the oil giant predicted a growing volatility in the price of oil and a coming period of "extraordinary opportunity or misery."

As the demand for oil buts up against actual production and remaining reserves, the climbing price of oil will cause the gross domestic product of all nations to decline, they predict.

In another section, Shell calls these economic effects "Depression 2.0." Though that scenario is introduced as "unlikely," the rest of the report does not paint a rosy outlook.

Climate and environment

Shell predicts that as the energy industry struggles to meet global demand, "environmental tension will swell and spread."

They add: "Political, industrial and individual choices will determine whether these tensions can be resolved and whether the solutions will be benign or harmful to us."

Within what they called a "zone of uncertainty," energy entrepreneurs will have "extraordinary opportunity" for growth if the right assemblage of technology is made available. However, Shell adds that competition and "natural innovation" in energy efficiency would only account for a moderation in demand of about 20 percent by 2050.

Meanwhile, between 2000 and 2050, demand for easily accessible energy will triple, they predict.

China, Shell adds, is preparing to institute its own cap-and-trade system for regulating carbon emissions. Businesses around the world, they noted, have already largely started to accept that climate regulations will soon become a reality for global trade and have begun to budget accordingly.

But even the most rapid improvements in renewable technologies, like electric cars or microorganisms that convert captured carbon into liquid fuel, won't help much in the near term.

"New energy technologies must be demonstrated at commercial scale and require thirty years of sustained double-digit growth to build industrial capacity and grow sufficiently to feature at even 1-2% of the energy system," they wrote.

The bumpy peak

Shell predicts in clear terms what journalist Michael Rupert said in his recent film "Collapse": more shocks to the industry loom ahead, which will lead to increased price volatility, producing rapid inflation and deflation on the consumer level.

And if that phenomena hasn't already begun, they add, it will be in full-boar by the end of this decade.

Interestingly enough, Shell also predicts that "[the] longer the delay in climate policy action, the more likely shocks become."

One such example would be the potential for peak output in Saudi Arabia. If it were a reality and word got out that their fields would be in permanent decline, it could produce extreme price variations and social unrest amid worsening economic conditions. A series of US diplomatic cables from 2007-2009, published by secrets outlet WikiLeaks, revealed that the former head geologist in charge of exploration for the Saudi oil firm Aramco, who retired in 2004, has expressed very serious concerns that this was happening.

This admission would seem to run counter to Shell's political strategy, which has been to help fund the obfuscation of efforts toward climate policies. They were particularly generous with former Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who was a loyal supporter of their interests.

According to the nonprofit activist group Oil Change International, as of August 2010 Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) topped the list of US politicians who've benefitted handsomely from the generosity of the oil and gas industry. He's accepted over $1.8 million from them.

Other names atop the list, they add, include "Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) at $1,707,173; Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) at $1,147,558; Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) at $1,123,006; Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) at $1,094,811; and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) at $1,004,514."

Read the full report here (PDF).