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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…
March 29, 2021
The Electrical Engineers Collide with the Climate Politicians
Having suffered for decades from natural disasters, perverse federal policies, local mismanagement and much more, the people of Puerto Rico are in need of reforms in many dimensions, prominent among them a modernized, efficient and reliable electric power system. And that need is more-or-less immediate, as the rickety commonwealth electricity system finally is operating, however…
March 1, 2021
The Electric-vehicle Campaign Comes to Minnesota
Electric vehicles are all the rage, in particular among public officials who do not have to face voters. Not so much among consumers, who know their individual needs and strive to make purchase decisions that satisfy them. These realities explain why the proponents of policies forcing ever more EVs upon the market prefer to implement such…
February 17, 2021
With Politicized Lending, Biden Aims to Revive ‘Operation Choke Point’
In one of the last executive actions of the Trump administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published an important final “Fair Access to Financial Services” rule requiring that large banks and federal savings associations make lending decisions based upon “individualized, quantitative risk-based analysis and management of customer risk.” Translation: The lenders are not to…
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 21, 2021
The Case for Climate Change Realism
There is a long and infamous history of world leaders marking humanity’s “last chance” to avoid the ravages of man-made climate change. In 1989, for instance, the director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program warned that rising sea levels would cause entire nations to disappear if the global-warming trend were not…
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),…
December 15, 2020
Biden’s Incoherent Proposal to Ban Fossil Fuel Leasing on Federal Lands
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 development of fossil energy resources by private companies, and to end approvals of specific drilling proposals that result from leasing rights. Biden further pledged to…