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July 13, 2021
Litigation Against Fossil Producers Is Litigation Against Energy Consumers and Voters
Supply and demand form the oldest and most powerful framework we have for analyzing price shifts for goods and services. Increase the cost of supplying a given good, and — presto! — its price will rise, imposing economic costs not only upon the producers but emphatically upon the consumers of the good. Which brings us to…
June 16, 2021
The Modern Case for Competition in Power Markets
Sometimes localized controversies highlight an issue of far broader significance, a truth illustrated well by the ongoing battle over electricity policy in Virginia. The central question in a nutshell: Will power consumers be allowed to purchase electricity by choosing among alternative suppliers in a competitive market? Or will they continue to be constrained by the choices of…
May 26, 2021
The Dumbest New York Times Op-ed of 2021
Summer still is weeks away, but already we have a winner in the fierce competition for the coveted title of “Dumbest New York Times opinion column of 2021.” The envelope please… and the winner is “Why Charles Koch Wins When Our Energy System Breaks Down,” by someone named Christopher Leonard. One really does have to read this column to…
May 21, 2021
Fiction Vs. Reality on Fossil-fuel Subsidies
Some political targets are temporary, little more than props deployed in pursuit of a tactical advantage in the Beltway skirmish of the day. Others are permanent fixtures in the landscape, the foundations of an ideological worldview impervious to facts, reasoning, and the perverse outcomes that the attendant policy imperatives would engender. Prominent among the latter is…
May 12, 2021
Would a Phaseout of Hydrofluorocarbons Avoid Half a Degree of Global Warming?
In a recent “Daily on Energy” report for the Washington Examiner, Josh Siegel and Abby Smith reported: “This morning, the EPA unveiled a proposal to begin limiting potent greenhouse gas coolants known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. It’s a significant step to curb climate change, as phasing down HFCs could help avoid roughly 0.5 degrees Celsius of warming.” The claim that…
April 15, 2021
Where We Are Headed: Making the US Poorer and OPEC+ Richer
The light at the end of the COVID tunnel is brightening, in substantial part as a result of the global inoculation effort, however slowly and unevenly. With this improving public-health outlook comes a prospective renewal of worldwide economic growth generally, and in industrial, commercial, and transportation sectors in particular. That would engender an expansion in the…
January 23, 2021
Climate Policy Is the Purview of Congress, Not the Courts
The Supreme Court on January 19 heard oral arguments in a case (BP PLC v Mayor and City Council of Baltimore) that addresses an exceedingly narrow topic: whether or not the “federal officer jurisdiction” doctrine should direct climate lawsuits by states and municipalities against energy producers into state or federal court. Most such lawsuits attempt to…
January 18, 2021
Keystone XL Opposition Not Based on Facts
Everything old is new again: The Biden administration reportedly will revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, opposed during the Obama years, favored during the Trump term, and now disfavored yet again. But one reality is eternal: The arguments against Keystone XL are as weak today as ever. The all-purpose climate argument is the…
January 7, 2021
End Discrimination in Bank Lending
The opposition to “discrimination” by political activists has not prevented them from applauding constrained access to capital by such politically unpopular businesses as producers of fossil fuels and firearms or operators of for-profit colleges and private prisons. The list of disfavored economic sectors will only grow over time as government engages in ever-more economic favoritism. This…
December 29, 2020
Comment Letter to OCC on Rule for Fair Access to Financial Services
My name is Benjamin Zycher. I am a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. This letter responds to a request from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for comments on its proposed “Fair Access to Bank Services, Capital and Credit” rule (hereinafter referenced as the “Fair Capital Access” rule),…