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July 21, 2020
Comment Letter to DOL on ‘financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments’
This comment letter responds to a request from the Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, for comments on its June 30 proposed rule “Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments” (hereinafter the “Financial Factors” rule) focusing on “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) investing by private pension plans governed under the Employee Retirement Income Security…
July 8, 2020
Proxy Advisory Firms and the Need for SEC Protection of Investors’ Fiduciary Interests
Opportunities to spend other people’s money are addicting, an eternal truth that now has emerged in full force in the context of corporate governance. Large, publicly-owned businesses, and public-pension funds managing the assets of many people, command substantial resources. The uses of those resources traditionally have been constrained by the fiduciary interests of the investors who…
July 6, 2020
Litigation Against Fossil Fuel Producers Is an Obnoxious Money Chase
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 improvement. The climate–change lawsuit game by now is old, old news, the central characteristics of which are the inanity of the claims and the inventiveness of the lawyers. For the latest iterations…
June 23, 2020
The American Economic Association Turns Toward Wokeness
In a recent Statement distributed to the membership of the American Economic Association, the Executive Committee led by AEA President Janet Yellen condemned killings of black people by police, violent racism, and such manifestations of inequality as the disproportionate COVID-19 death toll and unemployment experienced by black people. Whether or not such sentiments are noble is beside…
June 17, 2020
Toward Serious Reform of Benefit/cost Analysis Under the Clean Air Act
The Environmental Protection Agency has published and solicited public comments on its draft rule reforming the benefit/cost analytic methodology applied to new regulations promulgated under the Clean Air Act (CAA). However boring this topic may seem, it is exceptionally important: Such regulations can yield substantial environmental improvement at reasonable costs, or they can impose massive costs upon…
May 18, 2020
The PREPA Debt Deal and the Future of Puerto Rico Creditworthiness
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 commonwealth’s staggering public debt of over $70 billion. The $9 billion debt of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) remains one of the largest…
May 14, 2020
Blackrock Discovers the Joy of Other People’s Money
While genuflecting to its fiduciary responsibility to “promote long-term value” for those whose assets it is managing, Blackrock—the largest asset manager in the world—has announced in the form of a public letter from its CEO Larry Fink to corporate managements that henceforth “Sustainability [will serve] as Blackrock’s New Standard for Investing.” It is unsurprising that nowhere in the various materials issued…
May 6, 2020
Can We Tackle Both Climate Change and Covid-19 Recovery?
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 economies mean that policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions would reduce economic growth and employment. The reason is straightforward: they would increase the cost…
May 5, 2020
Benjamin Zycher Responses to Questions for the Record from Chairman Barrasso and Senator Whitehouse
Introduction. This note offers responses to the questions posed by Chairman Barrasso and Senator Whitehouse attendant upon the prepared statement for the record of Dr. Benjamin Zycher of the American Enterprise Institute and Dr. Patrick J. Michaels of the Competitive Enterprise Institute on the proposed S. 2754, “American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2019.”1 The…
April 28, 2020
How the Trump Administration Should Structure Gulf Oil Royalty Relief
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 of Mexico. That proposal is ill-conceived; a far better approach would be a temporary suspension of royalty payments from existing operations, and it is clear…