The light at the end of the COVID tunnel is brightening, in substantial part as a result of the global inoculation effort, however slowly and unevenly. With this improving public-health outlook…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 15, 2021
The Supreme Court on January 19 heard oral arguments in a case (BP PLC v Mayor and City Council of Baltimore) that addresses an exceedingly narrow topic: whether or not the…
By Benjamin Zycher | January 23, 2021
Everything old is new again: The Biden administration reportedly will revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, opposed during the Obama years, favored during the Trump term, and now…
By Benjamin Zycher | January 18, 2021
The opposition to “discrimination” by political activists has not prevented them from applauding constrained access to capital by such politically unpopular businesses as producers of fossil fuels and firearms or operators…
By Benjamin Zycher | January 7, 2021
My name is Benjamin Zycher. I am a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. This letter responds to a request from the Office of the Comptroller…
By Benjamin Zycher | December 29, 2020
During the election campaign, President-elect Joe Biden pledged to end new oil and gas leasing and permitting on federal lands (including federal waters); that is, to ban on those lands the discovery and…
By Benjamin Zycher | December 15, 2020
I betray no secret when I note that Donald Trump is not a man of policy sophistication. It is obvious that he is uninterested even in details that are crucial;…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 28, 2020
During the September 29 presidential debate, Democratic candidate Joe Biden asserted that he does not “support the Green New Deal.” It “is not my plan.” Instead, he supports “the Biden Plan,…
By Benjamin Zycher | October 15, 2020
When proponents of a tax increase resort to the age-old argument that it is justified because those prospectively subject to it are paying less than their “fair share,” observers safely…
By Benjamin Zycher | September 16, 2020
The Trump administration proposed last month a reform of the regulations implementing the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, for decades a source of massive delay and cost increases for federal projects, yielding actual environmental harm because of…
By Benjamin Zycher | August 6, 2020
I betray no secret when I report that the modern litigation drive against the fossil-fuel industry is oriented overwhelmingly toward the age-old money chase rather than a concern with environmental…
By Benjamin Zycher | July 6, 2020
There are no free lunches, an eternal truth that does not bode well for the years-long efforts of public officials in Puerto Rico to avoid the realities attendant upon the…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 18, 2020
No — Carbon taxes and green policies harm economic growth and jobs The close relationships between real gross domestic product, employment and energy consumption for both less and more developed…
By Benjamin Zycher | May 6, 2020
The Trump administration reportedly is considering a proposal to reduce the royalty rate on the future oil and gas production from forthcoming sales of leases for exploration and production in the Gulf…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 28, 2020
The crude oil sector now is confronted by a sharp decline in demand conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and an increase in production attendant upon the price feud between…
By Benjamin Zycher | April 13, 2020