In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama requested that Congress pass legislation mandating a national clean energy standard (CES). A CES targets the CO2 emissions from the electric power industry by setting minimum percentages of total power (electricity) generation that must come from sources that emit no CO2. (It should be noted that CO2 is colorless, odorless, and non-toxic. Therefore, it is a misnomer to call CO2 dirty.) Though this sounds less threatening than cap-and-trade legislation, it can end up being pretty much the same thing. …
Democrats determined to shield the administration from accusations of political cronyism are unwittingly undermining the larger policy vision that they themselves have supported, and the president has championed: the so-called “green energy economy.” Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Diana Degette (D-CO), ranking Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and its investigative sub-panel, respectively, have released a trove of emails between administration officials regarding their support and financing for bankrupt solar company Solyndra. Their goal is to counter Republican suggestions that Solyndra received favorable treatment due to its investors’ political contributions. But in doing so, …
Instead of the intellectual vandalism that typifies too much of Paul Krugman’s writing, it would be more useful if he returned to writing about economics…with facts. In a recent column he says: So if you really believed in the logic of free markets, you’d be all in favor of pollution taxes, right? Hahahahaha. Today’s American right doesn’t believe in externalities, or correcting market failures; it believes that there are no market failures, that capitalism unregulated is always right. What evidence does he use to support this cynicism? Krugman points to …
On Sunday, the government of Australia announced that it will implement a US$24.74 per-metric-ton tax on carbon emissions. The damage the tax is expected to do to the energy sector there, and to the Australian economy generally, offers insight into what the effects of a carbon tax could look like in the United States. The plan will tax 500 of the nation’s largest polluters, and will redistribute some of the revenue in an effort to offset increased costs to energy producers and consumers – though significant economic damage is expected …
President Obama’s infamous words—saying electricity rates will “necessarily skyrocket” under his cap-and-trade program that would impose a costly energy tax on American consumers—are set to come true. Just ask the market. Although cap and trade is not law, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) backdoor train wreck of energy regulations is forcing utilities to file for significant rate hikes in years to come because of the upgrades they will have to make or the complete shutdown of older plants. Take Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E), for instance. In what’s labeled as …
All the world mourned the human toll taken by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Thousands of lives were lost; hundreds of thousands more shattered. Of course, natural disasters inflict economic destruction as well, and estimates of the recent disasters’ cost to Japan are now coming in. Catastrophe modeler Risk Management Solutions Inc. (RMS) puts economic losses from the earthquake and tsunami between $200 billion and $300 billion. That estimate, RMS says, “reflects not only property damage but secondary consequences, such as disruption to power supplies, evacuations and decommissioning of several …
Speaking before a new Congress in his State of the Union address, President Obama gave an alternative suggestion for Congress now that cap and trade is out of the picture. He pitched an aggressive clean energy standard, saying he wants 80 percent of our electricity to come from carbon-free sources of energy by 2035. For reference, the Energy Information Administration shows that carbon-free sources generated 31 percent of our total electricity in 2009 (20 percent nuclear, 7 percent hydroelectric, and 4 percent other renewables). As Kim Strassel points out in …
The Washington Post‘s Juliet Eilperin reported yesterday that “U.S. environmentalists are engaged in their most profound bout of soul-searching in more than a decade” and are planning to “redirect strategies” in the coming year. Faced with the failure of cap and trade and the defeat of “many of their political allies on both the state and federal level” the enviros are shifting focus away from “the toxic partisanship of Washington” and back to “the grass roots.” And just what type of grass roots activism will the left be pursuing at …
With cap and trade out of the realm of possibilities, Members of Congress have turned their attention to mandating so-called clean energy. Some Members hoped for a lame duck vote on a renewable electricity standard (RES), which would require that a certain percentage of our nation’s electricity production come from wind, solar, biomass, and other government-picked renewable energies. With that looking less likely, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu mentioned a clean energy standard that includes other carbon-free sources of energy as a possible compromise between Democrats and Republicans next …
There has been much of speculation that gridlock will characterize the 112th Congress, but not according to Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX), ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Congressman Barton (R-TX) was first elected in 1984 as a part of the Reagan re-election class and “did not come to Washington in 1984 for gridlock, did not come to do nothing, and did not come to say no.” He says the same of 2010, “we are not here to say no.” Barton addressed a group Wednesday at Heritage eager to …
