Largely ignored amid the presidential and congressional races on Nov. 4 was the fact that several environmental ballot initiatives faired poorly. In California, no less than three state or local initiatives to mandate more renewable energy or subsidize alternative vehicles went down to defeat by convincing margins. Granted, some of …
Perhaps the oddest reaction to the financial meltdown and looming recession comes from environmental activists and bureaucrats who see it as a rationale to transform the economy along green lines. They argue that the old brown economy has shown itself to have reached the point where it no longer generates …
Bad energy policy usually involves repeating the mistakes made from 1970 to 1980 — windfall profits taxes, federally subsidized alternative energy sources, price controls, and others. All of these old ideas are back in play, even though their track record for worsening rather than solving the nation’s energy problems is …
Twenty-five percent of America’s oil production and a significant amount of onshore refining capacity and pipeline infrastructure is located in the hurricane-prone central and western Gulf of Mexico — and much of it was in the path of Hurricane Gustav. Fortunately, unlike Katrina and Rita in 2005 and other past …
The Democratic National Convention in Denver endeavored to be “the most environmentally sustainable political convention in modern American history,” according to the convention’s Director of Greening (really) Andrea Robinson. But how much green will all that green end up costing the rest of us? From recycled tote bags and name …
Sometimes the common sense of the American people bursts onto the political scene and changes the conventional wisdom in Washington. Such is the case with offshore drilling and may soon be the case with global warming policy. After all, throughout 2001-2006, a Republican congressional majority working with a Republican oil …
Today, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson denied Texas its requested waiver of the ethanol mandate. While a disappointment, the decision was not unexpected as the Bush administration continues to defend its ethanol policy and argue that its adverse economic impacts are minor. In any event, the real answer is …
