Let us review the plain language of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (§1344(a)): “The Secretary [of the Interior] shall prepare and periodically revise, and maintain an oil and gas leasing program,” defined by the Congressional Research…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 3, 2022
The Biden administration announced late last week that it would resume leasing of federal lands for fossil fuel exploration and production, but at a scale (144,000 acres) about 80 percent smaller than…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 25, 2022
It is Earth Day 2022 — always falling on Lenin’s birthday, amusingly enough — the official theme of which this year is Invest In Our Planet™. As with every previous Earth Day,…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 22, 2022
Oh what a tangled web it weaves when first the Biden administration practices to deceive. That is a slight paraphrase of Sir Walter Scott’s famous observation, but it is wholly appropriate…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 14, 2022
Never let a crisis go to waste, as the age-old Beltway wisdom goes, but one might think that the Ukraine crisis, in which thousands of innocents are dying and losing…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 28, 2022
Gasoline prices are nothing if not visible, and that such prices are high and rising is unlikely to help the party holding the White House. Average U.S. gasoline prices have risen from about…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 17, 2022
Amid the ongoing debate in the U.S. about the wisdom of banning the importation of Russian petroleum, roughly 5-10 percent of total U.S. petroleum imports (crude oil and refined products), it is…
By Benjamin Zycher | March 8, 2022
Rising energy costs are highly visible and therefore not politically advantageous for politicians with constituencies comprising large numbers of energy consumers. And in politics, as the old saying goes, when…
By Benjamin Zycher | February 17, 2022
Once an entity with powers limited to those enumerated in the Constitution, the federal government has become a Leviathan, a central practice of which is the legalized theft of private…
By Benjamin Zycher | February 9, 2022
News reports last month about a traffic accident involving former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger noted that he was driving a GMC Yukon, a full-size sport-utility vehicle that decidedly is not among the vehicle…
By Benjamin Zycher | February 3, 2022
Sometimes you really do have to hit the mule between the eyes to get its attention. The mule of interest here is not a drug smuggler, but instead the Federal Energy Regulatory…
By Benjamin Zycher | January 26, 2022
The international climate alarmist industry comprises a number of special interests. There are the activists, fundamentally anti-human and deeply disingenuous, demanding that billions of the global poor suffer and die in order that the planet be “saved.” There are…
By Benjamin Zycher | January 13, 2022
Having floated a possible export ban on crude oil as a trial balloon last month, the Biden administration earlier this week abandoned the idea, as opposition emerged quickly from Democrats in oil-producing districts. But the mere…
By Benjamin Zycher | December 16, 2021
Back in the old days, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took its mandate seriously — specifically, to provide: Economically Efficient, Safe, Reliable, and Secure Energy for Consumers . . . at…
By Benjamin Zycher | November 18, 2021
As Washington considers increasing incentives for businesses moving to a clean-energy future, one of the big questions is: Will the “greening” of the economy result in more employment or less?…
By Benjamin Zycher | Marilyn A. Brown | Marc Hafstead | November 9, 2021