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…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 29, 2021
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,…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 18, 2021
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…
By M. Anthony Mills | October 1, 2021
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,…
By M. Anthony Mills | September 27, 2021
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…
By Benjamin Zycher | September 24, 2021
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…
By Peter J. Wallison | Benjamin Zycher | September 20, 2021
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…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 28, 2021
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…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 13, 2021
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…
By M. Anthony Mills | August 2, 2021
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.…
By Benjamin Zycher | July 21, 2021
Supply and demand form the oldest and most powerful framework we have for analyzing price shifts for goods and services. Increase the cost of supplying a given good, and — presto!…
By Benjamin Zycher | July 13, 2021
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm late last month “suggested it is possible climate change led to the partial condominium collapse in Miami, FL,” adding that “we don’t know fully” if it did or…
By Benjamin Zycher | July 7, 2021
In both ends of the political spectrum, it seems liberalism has become démodé. From the traditionalist right, R. R. Reno of First Things proclaims, “[w]e’re afflicted by a liberal monoculture” characterized by a “double-pronged…
By M. Anthony Mills | June 21, 2021
The Biden administration made history earlier this year by elevating the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to a cabinet-level post. There have long been science advisory bodies within…
By M. Anthony Mills | June 21, 2021
Sometimes localized controversies highlight an issue of far broader significance, a truth illustrated well by the ongoing battle over electricity policy in Virginia. The central question in a nutshell: Will power consumers…
By Benjamin Zycher | June 16, 2021