Voters in the state of Washington will vote November 8 on Initiative 732, which would impose a “carbon tax” on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and thus on energy, while reducing…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 18, 2016
In a recent editorial in support of a carbon tax, The Washington Post complains that “Americans are burning record amounts of gasoline,” arguing that “one of the most glaring … flaws” of…
By Benjamin Zycher | September 29, 2016
The Beltway lobbying machine is nothing if not inventive. The latest evidence for this eternal truth is a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis arguing that…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 16, 2016
It is hot. It is humid. Even sound intellects have trouble maintaining focus in the dog days of Beltway August, a phenomenon illustrated recently by my esteemed colleague and good…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 15, 2016
In a recent essay on the solar photovoltaic (PV or “rooftop”) power market, Mark Muro and Devashree Saha of the Brookings Institute applaud the net metering system of subsidizing such rooftop installations,…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 1, 2016
The heat is on. I refer not to the beginning of summer, nor the looming global warming apocalypse for which there is little evidence, nor an election season sure to be characterized by personal…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 27, 2016
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced recently a workshop to be held on June 21, with the title “Something New Under the Sun: Competition and Consumer Protection Issues in Solar Power.” Accompanying…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 20, 2016
The modern rationales for energy subsidies have varied in prominence over the decades, but none has been broadly discredited in the public discussion despite the reality that each suffers from…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 15, 2016
This note responds to the FTC request for public comment attendant upon the workshop scheduled for June 21, 2016 on the topic “Competition and Consumer Protection Issues in Solar Power,” as described…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 9, 2016
Benefit/cost analysis: It sounds so scientific, so rational, so impartial. So sound as a tool with which to resolve conflicting assertions about the wisdom of regulatory proposals. So divorced from…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 6, 2016
Residential consumers of electricity in California pay almost 17 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), a price higher than those of every other state in the lower 48, except New York and…
By Benjamin Zycher | January 19, 2016
Good things come to those who wait, and the waiting is minimal when it comes to the endless stream of entertaining silliness offered by the U.N. climate-change bureaucracy. On November…
By Benjamin Zycher | November 6, 2015
Puerto Rico and its various government entities owe creditors $72 billion, an enormous debt that Gov. Alejandro García Padilla has described as “unpayable.” Over 11 percent of that total is…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 14, 2015
On Monday President Obama announced the final “clean power plan” regulation for greenhouse gas emissions from electric generating plants, the centerpiece of the broader Climate Action Plan being implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency.…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 5, 2015
Government policies virtually without exception create economic distortions, so that policy reform can yield results highly counterintuitive. That is the case with the emerging effort to end the current U.S.…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 4, 2015