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…
By Benjamin Zycher | December 29, 2020
During the election campaign, President-elect Joe Biden pledged to end new oil and gas leasing and permitting on federal lands (including federal waters); that is, to ban on those lands the discovery and…
By Benjamin Zycher | December 15, 2020
I betray no secret when I note that Donald Trump is not a man of policy sophistication. It is obvious that he is uninterested even in details that are crucial;…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 28, 2020
During the September 29 presidential debate, Democratic candidate Joe Biden asserted that he does not “support the Green New Deal.” It “is not my plan.” Instead, he supports “the Biden Plan,…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 15, 2020
When proponents of a tax increase resort to the age-old argument that it is justified because those prospectively subject to it are paying less than their “fair share,” observers safely…
By Benjamin Zycher | September 16, 2020
The Trump administration proposed last month a reform of the regulations implementing the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, for decades a source of massive delay and cost increases for federal projects, yielding actual environmental harm because of…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 6, 2020
I betray no secret when I report that the modern litigation drive against the fossil-fuel industry is oriented overwhelmingly toward the age-old money chase rather than a concern with environmental…
By Benjamin Zycher | July 6, 2020
There are no free lunches, an eternal truth that does not bode well for the years-long efforts of public officials in Puerto Rico to avoid the realities attendant upon the…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 18, 2020
No — Carbon taxes and green policies harm economic growth and jobs The close relationships between real gross domestic product, employment and energy consumption for both less and more developed…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 6, 2020
The Trump administration reportedly is considering a proposal to reduce the royalty rate on the future oil and gas production from forthcoming sales of leases for exploration and production in the Gulf…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 28, 2020
The crude oil sector now is confronted by a sharp decline in demand conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and an increase in production attendant upon the price feud between…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 13, 2020
To the Railroad Commission of Texas: Re: Motion for Commission Called Hearing on the Verified Complaint of Pioneer Natural Resources U.S.A. Inc. and Parsley Energy Inc. to Determine Reasonable Market…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 6, 2020
Hard times indeed are hard, and that adjective is wholly inadequate to describe the double whammy now afflicting U.S. crude-oil producers: declining demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 30, 2020
President Donald Trump announced a few days ago that the US Department of Energy (DoE) will purchase “large quantities of crude oil” to be stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), created under authority…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 23, 2020
In the Beltway, no inefficient policy deed goes unrewarded. That is an eternal truth illustrated well by the expansion of federal powers—at the expense of state and local authority—attendant upon…
By Benjamin Zycher | February 19, 2020