Kathleen Hartnett-White

Credentials

“White received her bachelor cum laude and master degrees from Stanford University where for three years she held the Elizabeth Wheeler Lyman Scholarship for an Outstanding Woman in the Humanities. She was also awarded a Danforth National Fellowship for doctoral work at Princeton University in Comparative Religion and there won the Jonathan Edwards Award for Academic Excellence. She also studied law under a Lineberry Foundation Fellowship at Texas Tech University.” [1]

Background

Kathleen Hartnett-White is the distinguished senior fellow-in-residence and director of the Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. [1] Hartnett-White is also a member of the Advisory Committee for the CO2 Coalition, [2] formerly known as the George C. Marshall Institute. [3]

Kathleen Hartnett-White previously worked as Chairman and Commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Prior to 2001, she served as then-Governor George W. Bush's appointee to the Texas Water Development Board where she sat until appointed to TCEQ. Her publications have included articles in National Review, Investors’ Business Daily, Washington Examiner, Forbes, Daily Caller, The Hill, and a number of other Texas newspapers. [1]

Hartnett-White has also held positions as the Director of Private Lands and the Environment for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association in Washington, D.C. She has served as director of the Ranching Heritage Association, and was a special assistant in the White House Office of the First Lady Nancy Reagan. [1]

She is co-author, with Stephen Moore, of Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy published by Regnery, May 2016. [1]

Stance on Climate Change

2015

“Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the gas of life on this planet, an essential nutrient for plant growth on which human life depends. How craftily our government has masked these fundamental realities and the environmental benefits of fossil fuels! […]
Notwithstanding the unscientific declaration of absolute certainty surrounding the politically official science, the climate’s sensitivity to the relatively small increment of human-induced CO2 remains the central unsettled question surrounding the climate issue.” [4]

2014

“IPCC science claims of 95 percent certainty that human activity is causing climate calamity are more like the dogmatic claims of ideologues and clerics than scientific conclusions. ” [16]

Key Quotes

May, 2016

“Green energy remains an inconsequential source of energy in America despite more than $80 billion in direct federal taxpayer subsidies under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.” [5]

March, 2016

”[…] mounting evidence invalidates the modeled predictions of the IPCC— the official scientific anchor of the crusade. For decades, the IPCC models have failed to accurately forecast temperature as observed by the most sophisticated technology: NASA’s remote sensing satellites and balloons.” [6]
“Like it or not, prosperous countries are utterly dependent on the abundant, affordable, versatile, reliable, concentrated, controllable, and portable energy available from fossil fuels. At this point in time, the intermittent, and far more expensive, renewable energies cannot provide the countless energy services on which our long, healthy, affluent, and comfortable lives with personal freedom depend.” [6]

November, 2015

“The official science driving global warming alarmism is based on models built to assume that natural climate variables are extremely sensitive to a relatively small increase in atmospheric CO2 from human activity. But facts on the ground contradict the climate models’ assumption.
Temperatures have not warmed as predicted by the models over the last 18 years. And extreme weather events have not been more frequent or more intense than in the 20th century.” [7]

March, 2008

“Lost in the outcry over carbon dioxide are these considerations:
CO2 represents only 5 percent of global greenhouse gas. CO2 added by human activity such as power plants constitutes only 3.4 percent of all CO2.
As predicted by the reigning science of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the risk of global warming from human-induced greenhouse gases such as CO2 is an uncertain, remote, gradual risk with impacts predicted in 100 years or more.” [8]

Key Deeds

June 17, 2016

Kathleen Hartnett-White wrote an article in The Hill calling for restraint of the “imperial EPA.” White promotes bill H.R. 3880, “The Stopping the EPA Overreach Act.” The bill would prevent the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide, methane and three other greenhouse gases. According to White, the EPA's treatment of carbon dioxide as a pollutant is an example of “regulatory overreach.” [9]

“The truth is that our bodies, blood and bones are built of carbon! Carbon dioxide is a necessary nutrient for plant life, acting as the catalyst for the most essential energy conversion process on planet earth: photosynthesis,” she writes. “[…] How do our national leaders square their public vilification of carbon dioxide with fundamental scientific and economic realities? Such political propaganda has now educated at least two generations of Americans who think carbon is a killer instead of the stuff of life on the earth.” [9]

May 26, 2016

Kathleen Hartnett-White, director of the Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment at the TPPF, went on the One America News Network's Tipping Point to discuss Hillary Clinton's energy policies. [10]

“A significant part of [Hillary's] party is at a predominately extreme position on energy,” Hartnett-White says. [10]

May 23, 2016

Kathleen Hartnett-White is the co-author, with Stephen Moore, of Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy. The Amazon description of the book reads as follows: [11]

“Fossil fuel energy is the lifeblood of the modern world. Before the Industrial Revolution, humanity depended on burning wood and candle wax. But with the ability to harness the energy in oil and other fossil fuels, quality of life and capacity for progress increased exponentially. Thanks to incredible innovations in the energy industry, fossil fuels are as promising, safe, and clean an energy resource as has ever existed in history. Yet, highly politicized climate policies are pushing a grand-scale shift to unreliable, impractical, incredibly expensive, and far less efficient energy sources. Today, 'fossil fuel' has become such a dirty word that even fossil fuel companies feel compelled to apologize for their products. In Fueling Freedom, energy experts Stephen Moore and Kathleen Hartnett White make an unapologetic case for fossil fuels, turning around progressives' protestations to prove that if fossil fuel energy is supplanted by 'green' alternatives for political reasons, humanity will take a giant step backwards and the planet will be less safe, less clean, and less free.” [11]

The Heartland Institute, which hosted Stephen Moore for a talk on his book, describes how the authors “argue that if fossil fuel energy is supplanted by 'green' alternatives for political reasons, humanity will take a giant step backwards and the planet will be less safe, less clean, and less free.” [12]

April 21, 2016

Kathleen Hartnett-White gave a talk at the April Luncheon of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Fort Worth Section. Her talk was titled “The Great Energy Enrichment.” [13]

November 18, 2015

Shortly before the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) Kathleen Hartnett White was interviewed by The Daily Signal where she “outlines important climate questions.” According to Hartnett White, there hasn't been significant global warming in 18 years:

“Temperatures have not warmed as predicted by the models over the last 18 years. And extreme weather events have not been more frequent or more intense than in the 20th century.” [7]

She argues coal, natural gas, and nuclear power are superior to wind and solar, claiming they have a smaller “physical footprint” and that the EPA's Clean Power Plan would “disfigure millions of acres of open space” with wind turbines. [7]

“The kind of energy available in fossil fuels – abundant, affordable, concentrated, versatile, reliable, controllable, storable – was and remains a necessary condition of monumental improvements in human welfare and economic growth that emerged around 1800,” she said. “Policies to supplant fossil fuels – without a fully comparable substitute proven at scale – are immoral.” [7]

With reference to the UN COP21 climate conference, she writes that “We don’t need to supplant fossil fuels at this point in time. We need to help developing countries increase energy availability for their people and use emission control technologies to manage real pollutants.” She concludes that the U.S. Congress should recognize that “CO2 is not a pollutant within the regulatory jurisdiction of the Clean Air Act.” [7]

September 29, 2015

Kathleen Hartnett-White writes in Townhall that Pope Francis's visit to America “is a reminder of the extent to which pure propaganda now circumscribes public discourse about climate change.” [4]

“The climate issue, in all its many dimensions, is not about air pollution as Pope Francis’s recent speeches labeled the issue and as the media parroted his words. The climate change issue is about energy derived from fossil fuels,” White writes.

June 11, 2015

Kathleen Hartnett-White was a speaker at the Heartland Institute's Tenth International Conference on Climate Change in Washington, DC where she discussed “ the economic impacts of federal climate policy” on a panel titled “Energy Realities.” [14]

Video below:

June, 2014

Kathleen Hartnett-White authored a study at the Texas Public Policy Foundation titled “Fossil Fuels: The Moral Case.” [16]

White says that her research was inspired by a “comprehensively researched monograph” written by fellow climate change denier Indur Goklany titled “Humanity Unbound.” [16]

White describes the thesis of her paper as that “fossil fuels, as a necessary condition of the Industrial Revolution, made modern living standards possible and vastly improved living conditions across the world.” [16]

”[…] the greatest beneficiaries of this energy revolution known as the Industrial Revolution were average workers and the most impoverished. Increasing emission of man-made CO2 is tightly correlated with this monumental achievement.” [16]

According to White, ”[fossil ]fuels are superior on many levels to the current alternatives.” With reference to climate change, she claims that evidence for dangerous climate change “weakens” over time. [16]

“Mandates to force an abrupt energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources are naïve and fraught with peril for highly industrialized economies. As this paper detailed, energy sources are not necessarily interchangeable. In energy density, abundance, reliability, versatility, and other advantages, fossil fuels are far superior to wind, solar, and biomass. […]”

“IPCC science claims of 95 percent certainty that human activity is causing climate calamity are more like the dogmatic claims of ideologues and clerics than scientific conclusions. “ she writes. [16]

Hartnett-White spoke about the study at an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation. See video below:

March 14, 2008

Kathleen Hartnett-White published an article in the opinion pages ofThe Hays Daily News [18] where she claims that she made the decision to approve the first coal-fired power plant in texas in 20 years because “[…] equipped with groundbreaking emission controls [the new plant], was a net environmental benefit for Texas,” reports Desmog. [8]

The Wichita Eagle's Editorial blog responded:

She [Harnett White] also makes misleading, unsupported assertions on science, claiming that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change portrays global warming as an 'uncertain, remote, gradual risk with impacts predicted in 100 years or more.' To the contrary, the panel’s study is unequivocal on the high risks of warming, the environmental damage already under way, and the urgency of controlling carbon and greenhouse gases now.” [8]

July 23, 2007

The Dallas Morning News wrote an editorial discussing Hartnett-White's departure as chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality: [15]

“She [Harnett White] has been an apologist for polluters, consistently siding with business interests instead of protecting public health. Ms. White worked to set a low bar as she lobbied for lax ozone standards and pushed through an inadequate anti-pollution plan. She also voted to approve TXU's pollution-intensive Oak Grove coal units, ignoring evidence that emissions from the lignite plant could thwart North Texas' efforts to meet air quality standards,” the editorial reads. [15]

Affiliations

Texas Public Policy Foundation— Senior fellow-in-residence. Director, Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment. [1]
CO2 Coalition — Membor, Advisory Committee. [2]