The ironic thing in the debate over carbon policies is that opponents of massive new federal taxes and regulations don’t need to go to obscure websites or ideological Think Tanks to get their talking points. On the contrary, those of us who are very wary of giving the government more power over the entire energy [...]
Latest News
Beware of the Stealthy Carbon Tax
June 14, 2013 | Bus Tour, Emissions Standards, Facts, Greenhouse Gases, News, Threats
Heritage Foundation: Carbon Caps a “Cure Worse Than the Disease”
In a new study, the Heritage Foundation estimates that recent proposals to limit carbon dioxide emissions in the United States would be a cure worse than the disease. In particular, by the year 2100 the cumulative net damages to the world economy could exceed an astonishing $100 trillion, and in not a single year do [...]
Tesla Repays Feds, Should Thank Competitors for Success
Tesla Motors repayed a $465 million dollar loan from the federal government yesterday, nine years ahead of schedule. While being touted as a major success for the future of renewable energy and Zero Emissions Vehicles in particular, the truth behind Tesla’s façade of success is worrisome. The company’s first profitable quarter demonstrates the difficulty of [...]
Drawing the Wrong Line in the Sand
The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert recently published a comment entitled “Lines in the Sand,” arguing that President Obama should not approve the Keystone XL pipeline because of the climate impacts of using oil. Kolbert’s argument is flawed for multiple reasons including the fact that she fails to consider the actual climate impact and the [...]
Renewable Fuel Standard: A Misguided Policy
Ethanol advocates delight in touting the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) as an “American Success Story.” Yet several years after its passage, some in Congress are finally realizing that the RFS stands not as a central-planning success story but as a symbol of misguided government mandates. The RFS requires refiners to blend ever-growing amounts of ethanol [...]
May 22, 2013 | News
Marshall Institute Lays Out “Five Circles of Carbon Tax Hell”
The George C. Marshall Institute has released a new study from James DeLong outlining what it refers to as “the five circles of Carbon Tax Hell.” The study is very readable and concise (only 34 pages of main text), yet at the same time offers a comprehensive survey of the main problems with a carbon [...]
May 16, 2013 | Bus Tour, Emissions Standards, Greenhouse Gases, News, Threats
Ethanol Mandates Distort Corn Market
A recent Bloomberg article underscores the government distortions in the fuel and food sectors. The piece discusses the rising price of ethanol because of expected supply problems: Ethanol’s discount to gasoline narrowed to a four-month low on speculation that the slowest pace of corn planting since 1986 will make it difficult to replenish supplies. The [...]
May 3, 2013 | Bus Tour, Facts, News, Renewable Fuel Standard, Threats
Does Your Senator Support an Energy Tax?
In dueling votes last month, U.S. senators took a stand either for or against a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Although symbolic, the votes separated those who want to impose yet another tax on American consumers from those who understand that more taxes mean less prosperity. By a vote of 53-46, the Senate expressed support [...]
April 22, 2013 | News
Federal Regulations Drive Up Gasoline Prices
Lately an argument has broken out over the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and whether it drives up gasoline prices. The recent controversy was sparked by a WSJ article discussing the shocking fact that Renewable Identification Number (RIN) credits—which are one way of complying with the federal standard—had shot up in prices from about 7 cents [...]
April 12, 2013 | Bus Tour, News, Renewable Fuel Standard, Threats
The Biofuel Mandate and EPA’s Costly Tall Tale
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set mandatory levels of cellulosic biofuel for refiners to blend into transportation fuels. In order to restrain EPA, the law requires that the mandate be based on an estimate from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) as to how much cellulosic biofuel [...]
April 5, 2013 | Bus Tour, News, Renewable Fuel Standard, Threats
Prepare for Higher Gas Prices
EPA Will Increase Gasoline Prices and Reduce Fuel Economy with Its Bid to Further Reduce Sulfur in Gasoline The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided that the sulfur content of gasoline must be further reduced from 30 parts per million to 10 parts per million on an annual average basis by January 1, [...]
April 4, 2013 | Bus Tour, News, Threats, Tier 3 Standards
New Study on the Impact of RFS Implies There Is No Need for the RFS
Earlier this week, the Renewable Fuels Association released a report arguing that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is only slightly raising gasoline prices. The implication of the report is clear—there is no need for RFS. If the RFS has positive benefits, as the report claims, or only slight costs, then there is no need [...]
March 29, 2013 | Bus Tour, Facts, News, Renewable Fuel Standard
The Boom in the Bakken Continues
The new era in American energy being brought on innovative hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technologies has made, North Dakota, the poster child of the domestic energy boom. In 2012, North Dakota was the second largest oil producer, boasting the nation’s lowest unemployment rate at 3.6%. North Dakota’s emergence as an energy giant is a [...]
March 27, 2013 | News
Senator Whitehouse’s Duplicitous Carbon Tax Amendment
Last weekend the Senate rejected an amendment to the FY 2014 budget that would have enacted a carbon tax. For those interested in affordable energy and job creation, this was a good thing. Still, it’s worth walking through the actual wording of Senator Whitehouse’s amendment to see just how duplicitous it was. Even if someone [...]
March 26, 2013 | Bus Tour, Emissions Standards, Facts, Greenhouse Gases, News, Threats
Ethanol “Blending Wall” Leads to Gas Exports
A recent WSJ article explained how the ethanol mandate is leading to a “blend wall” that paradoxically leads U.S. refiners to export their gasoline, raising pump prices at home. This is just another fantastic example of government policies having unintended consequences. Before looking at just how serious the problem is, let’s set the context by [...]
March 18, 2013 | Bus Tour, News, Renewable Fuel Standard
Everybody Agrees that CAFE Standards Are Inefficient
Often in the policy debates on government regulations, you will have free-market people decrying inefficient impediments to business, while the other side will tout the (alleged) benefits to the environment or whatever the social goal happens to be. Yet a new MIT study—from a group that is very sympathetic to carbon regulatory policies—documents how inefficient [...]
March 6, 2013 | Bus Tour, Corporate Average Fuel Economy, Facts, News, Threats
Boxer-Sanders Carbon “Fee” Relies on Huge Bait-and-Switch
A recent story in EnergyGuardian (sub. req’d) centered on Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-R.I.) support for the carbon “fee” bill introduced by his colleagues Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Fortunately, the newly-released NERA study gives us a quantitative estimate of how much their scheme would hurt the U.S. economy. The whole episode fulfills the [...]
February 28, 2013 | Bus Tour, Emissions Standards, Facts, Greenhouse Gases, News, Threats
New NERA Study Shows Economic Dangers of a Carbon Tax
A new study by NERA Economic Consulting, prepared for the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), documents the economic dangers of a federal carbon tax. The study is very conservative in its assumptions (as I’ll explain below), giving the benefit of the doubt to the proponents of a carbon tax. Even so, there study reaches two [...]
February 28, 2013 | Bus Tour, Emissions Standards, Facts, Greenhouse Gases, News, Threats
Deficit Reduction Through Energy Development
The new report from Joseph Mason, “Beyond the Congressional Budget Office,” explores the various ways that the CBO’s recent estimates vastly understate the economic activity and tax receipts that would be generated if the federal government merely got out of the way of the development of domestic oil and gas resources. In the present [...]
Fracking and Federalism
A funny thing has happened in the fracking wars: All of a sudden, the interventionist groups who are usually fans of centralized power—such as having the federal government issue edicts on carbon emissions—all of a sudden have discovered the virtues of federalism. Specifically, they don’t want state governments limiting the ability of local governments [...]
