March 8, 2022
Observations on Banning Vs. Sanctioning Russian Crude Oil
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 perhaps unsurprising that some basic principles are being forgotten, unfortunately a ubiquitous characteristic of Beltway analyses. In particular: A U.S. ban on the importation of…
March 2, 2022
President Biden’s Science Agenda Is Imploding
President Biden promised to reinvigorate American science. After a tumultuous four years in which a populist upsurge, a bombastic president, and the worst public health crisis in a century had pushed the social contract between science and the public to the breaking point, he pledged to restore science to a place of preeminence in the federal…
February 17, 2022
Some of the Public Policies That Factor in Rising Energy Costs
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 you’re explaining you’re losing, a reality that drives most such public officials away from analytics — even if we assume that they understand them —…
February 9, 2022
Natural Gas Export Limits and the Brownsville U-turn
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 property to be redistributed to favored constituencies. If additional evidence of this truth were needed, look no further than a recent letter from ten U.S. senators to…
February 3, 2022
Arnold Schwarzenegger Gets a Sunburn
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 choices favored by the environmental Left. Indeed, it is fair to describe it as a civilian approximation of an armored personnel carrier. And good for Arnold: he…
February 3, 2022
Improving Research Funding Efficiencies and Proposal Diversity Through NSF Science Lottery Grants
The United States no longer leads the world in basic science. There is growing recognition of a gap in translational activities — the fruits of American research do not convert to economic benefits. As policymakers consider a slew of proposals that aim to restore American competitiveness with once-in-a-generation investments into the National Science Foundation (NSF), less discussion has been…
January 26, 2022
Biden’s Approach to Climate Action Drives Energy Conflict, Not Cooperation
One year in, the Biden administration finds itself in an energy and climate bind. Its climate policies are a continuation of policies that President Obama adopted during a period of low energy prices. But now high oil, gas and electricity prices are threatening to derail President Biden’s commitment to climate action. The traditional U.S. approach to climate action…
January 26, 2022
How a Federal Regulator Is Hijacking Energy Policy
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 Commission, whose legal mandate is straightforward: “Economically Efficient, Safe, Reliable, and Secure Energy for Consumers . . . at a reasonable cost through appropriate regulatory and market…
January 25, 2022
Is This Still an Emergency?
With a new variant running rampant, an enormous wave of cases, hospitals under strain, mask mandates returning, states of emergency being redeclared, and schools reverting to virtual learning, it is easy to get the sense that we have slid back to where we started. A raft of news articles in late December described the perilous and demoralizing feeling that the country…
January 13, 2022
Will the Climate Industry Move the Goalposts Again?
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 the “experts” in pursuit of bigger budgets and “research” grants. There are the editors of the peer-reviewed journals, transforming “science” into a propaganda exercise. There are the bureaucrats massively…