President Obama has picked another “winner” among green technologies meant to portend an energy revolution. This time it is a Korean-owned battery factory in Michigan, part of a $2.4 billion government investment in electric car battery technology in spite of a global glut of battery supply. However, the question is not really whether the technology is a good or bad idea but rather why the federal government is making these investment choices in the first place. Perhaps it is because the government has a valuable role to play in spotting …
Here’s a principles-of-economics question: Suppose the U.S. gross domestic product (national income) is currently $14 trillion. Then suppose the U.S. raised all tariff, income tax, and sales tax rates to 100 percent. How much money would the government collect? If you realized that nobody would generate taxable income under such a regime and answered “zero,” congratulations. If, instead, you answered $14 trillion, you may have a future at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), because that is how they analyze (score) the fiscal impacts of the Kerry–Lieberman climate change bill. In …
The recent explosions in Massey’s Upper Big Branch coal mine and on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig highlight the tragedy of workplace fatalities. Though improvement in statistical averages do little to lessen the loss of those whose loved ones have died, the American workplace has gotten safer which means fewer will be grieving. The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries reached a record low in 2008: 3.6 per 100,000 full-time workers. Yet with the recent noted losses in the oil and coal industries, some might think that workplace fatalities could be …
At the press conference accompanying the political hara-kiri by his director of the Minerals and Management Service, President Obama changed topics and said, “Now let me make one broader point, though, about energy. The fact that oil companies now have to go a mile underwater and then drill another three miles below that in order to hit oil tells us something about the direction of the oil industry. Extraction is more expensive, and it is going to be inherently more risky. … The easily accessible oil has already been sucked …
For his sake, let’s hope that Bruce Arnold at the Congressional Budget Office doesn’t get the Gabriel Calzada treatment from the American Wind Energy Association and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. To freshen your memory, Gabriel Calzada is the economist at the King Juan Carlos University who got out his calculator and analyzed the green job situation in Spain—the same Spain whose job-crushing subsidies are supposed to be a model for our green recovery. The professor found that subsidizing green energy costs more traditional jobs than are created in the …
Why has American’s concern with global warming dropped to dead last among issues surveyed (even dead last among environmental issues)? Because a great deal of their concern was based on projections that have been dramatically toned down or exposed as outright fraud. The hysteria is unsupportable and people have caught on. The very active 2005 hurricane season, underscored by hurricanes Rita and Katrina, put the national psyche in a receptive mood for Al Gore’s inaccurate portrayal of 2005 as the base of an exponentially growing hurricane horror story. Subsequent quiet …
Data show 2009 was a record year for lobbying on energy issues. 1747 clients (firms and groups) hired lobbyists to work in the area of energy and nuclear power. This is a stunning 93 percent increase from 2006. This increase may be stunning, but it isn’t surprising. With literally trillions of dollars put into play by various cap-and-trade bills over the last three years, it would have been surprising if lobbying hadn’t grown by leaps and bounds. Though initially offered as legislation to fight global-warming, the justifications for cap and …
The global-warming economics coming out of Washington doesn’t match the global-warming economics of Copenhagen. For instance, according to Senator John Kerry (D-MA) cutting CO2 creates jobs and stimulates the economy. At least that’s what the press release describing his cap-and-tax legislation claims. But in Copenhagen this view of economics gets turned on its head. In Copenhagen Senator Kerry talks about the need to pay other countries to adopt the CO2-limiting regulations that supposedly create jobs and stimulate an economy. If the mandates, regulations, and energy taxes needed for carbon caps …
Senators Lieberman, Graham, and Kerry have come forward with a bold, new proposal on global warming… or not. Here is Senator Lieberman’s description of the “new” proposal: “You remember the artist formerly known as Prince?” Lieberman said. “This is the market-based system for punishing polluters previously known as ‘cap and trade.’ “ Who will be punished under this re-badged clunker? The Center for Data Analysis estimated that cap-and-trade legislation will cost the economy $7-9 trillion in lost national income and lead to millions of lost jobs (even after credit for …
On November 23, 2009 the Congressional Budget Office issued “Economic and Budget Issue Brief: The Costs of Reducing Greenhouse-Gas Emissions.” This brief echoed many of the points The Heritage Foundation has made in its reports, WebMemos, blogs and our responses to a request from Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. For example: A. The CBO correctly notes that efficiency mandates (standards) don’t lower the cost of cap and trade. Here’s how they say it: “However, standards would tend to increase the costs of a cap-and-trade …
