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April 17, 2023
OPEC Remains an Obstacle for Biden’s Green-Energy Fantasy
Can it surprise anyone that the multiple Biden–administration gambits intended to save the planet are proving perverse in every possible dimension? This is the case in particular for the fossil-fuel industry, both in the U.S. and internationally: In a nutshell, the administration seeks a long-term decline in investment and production on deeply dubious “climate” grounds, while at the same time begging foreign producers to increase output so as…
April 10, 2023
The EPA Regulatory Reconsideration of Fine Particulates
I betray no secret when I report that much regulatory policy has been deeply politicized, and that is a vast understatement when it comes to many EPA actions under the Clean Air Act. Consider the regulation — the promulgation of a new National Ambient Air Quality Standard — of fine particulate matter (“PM2.5”), which, under…
March 28, 2023
The Energy Transition Is a Delusion Indeed
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 in silliness: The “energy transition” is a massive shift, wholly artificial and politicized, from conventional energy inexpensive (Table 1b and here), reliable, and very clean given the proper policy environment,…
March 3, 2023
Letter: Schumer’s “Free-Market” Defense of ESG Falls Flat
Note: This letter to the editor appeared in the Wall Street Journal on March 2, 2023, in response to the Journal’s March 1, 2023, op-ed titled “Republicans Ought to Be All for ESG.” Sen. Chuck Schumer argues in favor of a regulation explicitly allowing retirement-fund managers to include environmental, social and governance objectives as investment criteria,…
January 25, 2023
Don’t Foul Up the Federal Supply Chain with Global Warming Nonsense
For the Biden administration, climate is everything, and everything is climate. The latest example of this single-minded obsession is a proposed amendment to the Federal Acquisition Regulation that would require “certain Federal contractors disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risk and set science-based targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.” The proposed regulation cites four executive orders…
January 19, 2023
Letter: Cows Are Not Going to Solve Global Warming
Note: This letter to the editor appeared in the Wall Street Journal on January 19, 2023 in response to the Journal’s January 17, 2023 op-ed titled “There’s a Climate Solution in Dairy Cows’ Stomachs.” In “There’s a Climate Solution in Dairy Cows’ Stomachs” (op-ed, Jan. 17), Fred Krupp and Antoine de Saint-Affrique manage to get everything wrong. Agriculture contributes about a…
December 12, 2022
This Winter We Will See the Dangerous Results of Climate Alarmism
Despite alarmist media claims, there is no evidence that a climate “crisis” looms in our future, let alone imminent danger of a climate catastrophe. Nevertheless, we are now witnessing decisions by the Biden administration and other countries that could endanger lives around the world this winter. In an effort to reduce GHG emissions, the administration…
October 28, 2022
California’s EV Mandate Will Harm Every State
California has established a requirement that 17% of a given manufacturer’s new vehicle sales in the state be “zero-emissions vehicles” by model year 2023, increasing to 35% in 2026 and then in steps to 100 percent by 2035. The ostensible purpose is a decrease in vehicle carbon dioxide emissions, but with the technology currently available…
October 7, 2022
Joe Biden’s Ad Hoc Use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Notwithstanding vociferous criticism of the politicized use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by the Biden administration, such drawdowns have been employed for decades by Democratic and Republican administrations alike as an ad hoc and futile response to short-run increases in fuel prices. Unlike the case for all previous administrations, which viewed the domestic production of fossil fuels as a positive or at least necessary objective, the major difference introduced…
October 6, 2022
Renewables Subsidies and the Institutionalization of Irresponsibility
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 subventions are more subtle, and vastly more destructive. That is a central implication of the massive policy favoritism now directed toward unconventional electricity — hugely expensive, unreliable,…