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October 29, 2021
The SEC’s Climate ‘disclosure’ Gambit
Inside the Beltway, most priorities are driven by the perceived political imperatives of the moment rather than by any set of actual principles. The ongoing herculean effort by the Securities and Exchange Commission to promulgate a rule forcing public companies to disclose the “risks” of climate change for their investors is no exception. It is clear that this rule will be followed…
October 18, 2021
Would the Senators Please Remind FERC of Its Mandate?
Confirmation hearings can be bombastic and they can be banal. But there always is the option of reminding agency nominees clearly of the central responsibilities of their jobs upon confirmation, an important opportunity that now presents itself with the hearing October 19 before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee to consider the nomination of Willie L….
October 1, 2021
Manufacturing Consensus
After having been told for over a year that there was a scientific consensus that Covid had a natural origin — and that any suggestion of a possible lab leak in Wuhan was tantamount to a xenophobic conspiracy theory — it now appears that there is not, and never was, such a consensus. And the…
September 27, 2021
Science Needs Fixing, Not Just Funding
The era of constrained federal science budgets is over. With Congress poised to boost public spending on research and development (R&D) by anywhere from tens of billions to hundreds of billions of dollars, science agencies may be preparing for an infusion of federal money on a grand scale that has the potential to transform the institutions of science and technology….
September 24, 2021
The Proposed Methane Fee: An All-downside Proposal
The Methane Emissions Reduction Act of 2021 has been proposed as a “pay-for” – a source of revenue – in the reconciliation infrastructure package. It would impose a “fee” on methane emissions from natural gas and petroleum production systems and related processes, but not on such emissions from agricultural and other operations. Accordingly, it is…
September 20, 2021
What We Really Know About Climate Change
The sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) continues a long history of alarmist predictions with the deeply dubious statement that human-caused climate change has now become “irreversible.” President Biden and many others have called climate change an “existential threat” to humanity; and Biden claimed in his inaugural address to have heard…
August 28, 2021
The Dubious Senate Proposal to Bail out Nuclear Powerplants
Costly economic distortions are an inexorable result of government bailouts for specific industries, the justifications for which are almost always deeply dubious. Consider section 3203 of the proposed Senate Energy Infrastructure Act. It would establish a $6 billion credit program over four years starting in fiscal year 2022 for nuclear electricity plants “projected to cease operations…
August 13, 2021
Should US Policies Transfer Our Wealth to OPEC+?
Incoherence is nothing new in the Beltway, but it’s still quite something to see the Biden administration simultaneously pursue new constraints on U.S. production of fossil fuels as a central component of its “climate” policies, while at the same time attempting to avoid the adverse price effects of that production stance. The administration on August 11…
August 2, 2021
Unmasking Scientific Expertise
In early February 1976, two cases of swine flu were discovered at Fort Dix in New Jersey. The Center for Disease Control identified the virus as Hsw1N1, similar to the one that caused the 1918 pandemic. Serologic testing indicated that the virus had spread to more than 200 recruits. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices soon…
July 21, 2021
Green Infrastructure: Pass It and Then We’ll See What’s in It
With the August recess imminent, the congressional Democrats are desperate to spend huge sums of other people’s money, and “infrastructure” is as useful a rhetorical vehicle for that purpose as any. With their innumerable constituencies’ long wish lists hardly a secret, an infinitely elastic definition of “infrastructure” is a virtue born of necessity, one manifestation of…