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September 20, 2022
Adverse Energy Taxes in the Inflation Reduction Act
The process of political meddling in energy markets is endless, an eternal truth that will not prove different for the energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. Most public attention has been directed at the massive subsidies and favoritism directed at unconventional electricity — wind and solar power in particular — and electric vehicles, rather than the tax provisions, less…
September 8, 2022
The Rather Mixed Legacy of Mikhail S. Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev deserves substantial credit for the reductions in U.S./Soviet tensions during the late 1980s, for the perestroika and glasnost “reforms” — simultaneously too little and too much as tools with which to preserve the Soviet Union — of Soviet communist totalitarianism, for the reduction in the internal security clampdowns by the KGB, for the easing…
August 16, 2022
Bill Gates Approves
Always good for a laugh, the New York Times opinion page has few peers as a dependable repository of supreme silliness. Day after day, year after year: It delivers ignorance of basic facts, bad analysis, endless non sequiturs, dishonesty by omission. All of that and more (or less) for a very reasonable price; it truly is the gift that…
August 11, 2022
Enthusiasm for the CHIPS and Science Act Is Overblown
Will the CHIPS and Science Act be an inflection point for the U.S. scientific enterprise? The often overlooked “science” portion of the new bill is the culmination of one of the core legislative priorities of Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Todd Young (R-IN): the Endless Frontier Act (EFA)—an attempt to jumpstart American science and innovation…
August 9, 2022
Banning Exports of Crude Oil and Refined Products Would Increase Prices
A number of perverse Beltway ideas never seem to die despite their underlying fallacies. The latest such nostrum is the argument that a renewed ban on the export of crude oil and refined products would reduce domestic fossil-energy prices, as asserted in a recent letter to President Biden from four U.S. senators urging Biden to “preserve petroleum supplies…
August 5, 2022
What Does Senator Joe Manchin Believe He’s Getting?
Numerous news reports have emerged about the reforms to the energy infrastructure permitting process that Senator Joe Manchin has obtained as promises from President Joe Biden, Senator Chuck Schumer, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in exchange for his support for the “Inflation Reduction Act.” That title sets a new standard for Beltway disinformation: Inflation is a monetary phenomenon,…
July 29, 2022
A New Policy Chief Brings Order and Stability to Biden’s Science Agenda
After two years of controversy and turmoil, President Biden’s federal science agenda finally may be getting back on track. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation just voted to advance the confirmation of Dr. , the nominee to fill Biden’s only empty cabinet position — director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and…
July 20, 2022
Letter: The Losing Politics of a Carbon Tax
Note: This letter to the editor appeared in the Wall Street Journal on July 20th, 2022 in response to the Journal’s July 9, 2022 op-ed titled “Is a Carbon Tax the Only Way to Stop the Greens?” Mr. Jenkins is not correct that a carbon tax would “bring us all the energy we want ….
July 19, 2022
West Virginia v. EPA and the SEC Climate Risk Disclosure Rule
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is in the process of finalizing its proposed “climate risk” disclosure rule for public companies. But the SEC has a huge amount of work to do, as the problems with the rule as proposed are legion, reflected by the voluminous economic, legal, scientific and policy- and sector-specific criticism that it has received. And that was before the Supreme Court issued…
June 30, 2022
5 Questions for Tony Mills on Federal Science Policy
Early in his presidency, Joe Biden promised to be a leader on science policy with proposals for new advanced research projects agencies centering on biomedical and climate research. And now, working their way through Congress are two bills designed to boost federal support for scientific research, the America COMPETES Act and US Innovation and Competition…