One central characteristic of the Biden administration is its contempt for the letter of the law. When laws interfere with overriding political objectives, they are cast aside, and the courts are often…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 29, 2023
The Biden administration’s regulatory onslaught is no mere rumor. It’s a harsh reality deeply problematic for the rule of law, for the concept of self-government, for the institutions of our constitutional republic, and for…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 8, 2023
The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency is nothing if not ambitious, striving as only a bureaucracy politicized and single-minded can to save the world from the purported ravages of the climate “crisis.”…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 31, 2023
The “energy transition” continues to receive thunderous applause from all the usual Beltway suspects, an exercise in groupthink fantasy amazing to behold. For those with actual lives to live and thus uninterested…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 28, 2023
Beltway silliness is as unavoidable as the summer humidity because rent-seeking groups, both economic and ideological, have powerful incentives to advocate legislation that would advance their interests at the expense…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 28, 2023
Notwithstanding some recent declines, domestic crude oil prices in the U.S. are about 45% higher than when President Biden was inaugurated. Global crude oil prices are about 48% higher. U.S. gasoline prices are about a dollar…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 6, 2023
In the wake of the midterm election results, President Biden has made it clear that “I’m not going to change,” in particular with respect to his view that “the oil companies are…
By Benjamin Zycher | November 21, 2022
The joy of spending huge amounts of tax dollars — Other People’s Money — is a truth obvious and eternal, but the corrupting effects of a systemwide shift toward such…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 6, 2022
Note: This letter to the editor appeared in the Wall Street Journal on September 30th, 2022 in response to the Journal’s September 26, 2022 op-ed titled “Both Parties Should Support…
By Benjamin Zycher | September 30, 2022
Like the deeply destructive “Inflation Reduction Act” that will do no such thing, the “permitting reform” bill (summarized here) released last week by Senator Joe Manchin carries a title — “The Energy Independence and Security…
| September 27, 2022
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…
By Benjamin Zycher | September 20, 2022
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…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 16, 2022
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…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 9, 2022
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…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 5, 2022
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…
By Benjamin Zycher | July 20, 2022