California is the center of the political campaign to induce pension funds and others to divest from fossil-fuel investments, justified as a path toward environmental improvement. Unsurprisingly, a new study finds that divestment would lead to…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 21, 2017
It’s been a long and winding road toward the resolution of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority bonded debt. It totals $9 billion, the largest single component of Puerto Rico’s overall debt of about…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 21, 2017
This piece originally appeared as “NY attorney general is the ‘Energizer Bunny’ of Exxon deceit” in The Hill. When last we observed New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s pursuit of ExxonMobil, he…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 15, 2017
Now, this is entertainment. “This” is The Washington Post’s Fact Checker “analysis” posted online less than four hours after President Trump ended his speech announcing the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate…
| June 6, 2017
Mr. Trump yesterday announced that he would withdraw the U.S. from the international climate agreement reached in Paris in late 2015, but would seek to renegotiate it so as to achieve…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 2, 2017
There is a time to weep and a time to laugh. And the recent letter from ExxonMobil urging President Trump not to exit the Paris climate agreement provides a time for both, with a…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 30, 2017
My colleague Jim Pethokoukis deserves applause for his recent argument that the effects of increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations are uncertain, notwithstanding the loud assertions of many, and that incremental policy interventions are vastly…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 25, 2017
Let us put aside initially any dispute about the science and evidence underlying the Paris COP-21 agreement to limit global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Let us ask instead what the agreement ostensibly…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 25, 2017
Thee heat is on, not because summer beckons, but instead because of a pressure campaign now being aimed at the new California Attorney General, Xavier Becerra. An alliance of environmentalists, plaintiff attorneys,…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 18, 2017
Is it “discriminatory” to trim the subsidies bestowed upon a given class of power consumers by everyone else? Would those customers be transformed into second-class citizens? That is the gist…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 16, 2017
Saudi Aramco has announced its intention to sell up to 5 percent of itself to investors as part of a larger plan by the House of Saud to diversify the Saudi economy…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 3, 2017
Environmentalist ideology and political ambition in combination make for a dangerous blend, and nowhere is that truth clearer than in the context of climate politics, the valuation of fossil-fuel reserves…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 11, 2017
Pain is painful, in particular for policymakers confronted with tough decisions and difficult compromises. And so kicking the can down the road is a time-honored fallback position for the political…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 5, 2017
Energy policies in the U.S. historically have been shaped by poor analytic arguments, resulting in an incoherent policy environment driving costs and prices upward. The adverse resulting effects have afflicted…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 27, 2017
The latest quarterly earnings reports season looms on the horizon, providing full employment for business reporters, accountants, attorneys, various species of number crunchers, prognosticators, kibitzers and pizza delivery firms catering…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 13, 2017