Question: Why do you find graffiti on public bathroom walls but not on your own?Answer: Because you own your bathroom---and the rest of your house---so you have an incentive to take care of it. But "everybody" owns the public bathroom---and what everybody owns, nobody owns, and nobody has an incentive to take care of it.Question: Why are massive forest fires more likely to occur on publicly owned land (federal or state) than on privately owned land?Answer: For the same reason you find graffiti … [Read more...]
EPA Takes Aim at Permian Basin in Continued War on Fossil Fuels
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has announced that from now through August 15 it will use infrared cameras mounted on planes to identify large emitters of methane from oil and gas wells in the Permian Basin, an area spanning west Texas and east New Mexico that supplies about 43 percent of the oil produced in America.The concern is that methane, a powerful “greenhouse gas,” contributes to dangerous global warming.It’s true that methane is about 30 times more powerful, molecule per … [Read more...]
Should an Environmental Regulator Teach Old Laws to Do New Tricks?
Eight-and-a-half years ago, E&E News called Joseph Goffman a “law whisperer” because “His specialty is teaching an old law to do new tricks.” The epithet was well enough deserved that Harvard Law Today repeated it five years later.Now, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is considering Goffman’s nomination to become Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation in the Environmental Protection Agency.What could possibly go wrong with a “law whisperer” in charge of EPA’s air and … [Read more...]
A Coalition Letter Opposing the Confirmation of Joseph Goffman as EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation
Washington, DC26th July 2022Dear Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, and Members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works:The undersigned organizations and individuals write to express and explain our opposition to the confirmation of Joseph Goffman as Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation in the Environmental Protection Agency.Mr. Goffman served in the EPA’s Air and Radiation Office during the Obama administration as Senior Counsel 2009-17 and in addition as Associate … [Read more...]
States’ Opposition to Federal Social Cost of Carbon Use Survives Supreme Court Decision
For years the federal government, especially its Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has sought to use “social cost of carbon” (SCC) as justification, at the cost of billions of dollars, for regulations making it more difficult to drill for and use fossil fuels. That practice can continue—for now.On May 26, the Supreme Court declined a request from 11 states to block the Biden Administration from using the estimated SCC in regulatory activities. The states had argued that the modeling to … [Read more...]
Biden’s Crude Oil Policies May Be The Cause of Shortages and Inflation
A year before being inaugurated President in 2021, Biden professed that “we are going to get rid of fossil fuels.” Before the recent inauguration, America, for the first time since Harry Truman was president about 70 years ago, had finally become crude oil independent and no longer relied on unstable Petro-powers and foreign crude oil supplies.The unintended consequences of attempting to rid America and the world of crude oil usage are being realized in supply shortages and soaring prices … [Read more...]
Who Is Saule Omarova, and How Does She Use Climate Alarm to Attack Fossil Fuels and Private Banking?
Do you know who Saule Omarova is? She's President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Never heard of the OCC? It's "an independent bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury that ... serves to charter, regulate, and supervise all national banks and thrift institutions and the federally licensed branches and agencies of foreign banks in the United States."Kinda powerful.And what would Saule Omarova want to do, if confirmed? You might … [Read more...]
Comments On Federal Scientific Integrity
Guest column by Kenneth Haapala, President, The Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)“It is one thing to impose drastic measures and harsh economic penalties when an environmental problem is clear-cut and severe. It is quite another to do so when the environmental problem is largely hypothetical and not substantiated by careful observations. This is definitely the case with global warming.” - Frederick Seitz, 17th president of the United States National Academy of SciencesThis paper … [Read more...]
As We Spend Earth Day Inside, Let’s Get Creative about Conservation
Why incentives matter more than ever this Earth Day. Guest column by Hannah Downey and Holly FretwellIt is sobering that much of the world will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day sheltered inside. Rather than wandering in nature, we are wondering what comes next. In the midst of this uncertainty, politicians and interest groups are still finding time to push for environmental regulations. In passing the most recent coronavirus-response legislation, intended for emergency economic … [Read more...]
Do Health Risks from Mercury Justify Stringent Regulations on Coal-Fired Power Plants?
[Editor's Note: The announcement December 27, 2018, by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that it is revising cost findings behind its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) ignited a firestorm of complaints on the ground that mercury is a known neurotoxin that can cause brain damage in infants and young people. While that is true, it's also true that the risk depends greatly on the degree of exposure---and there is compelling evidence that mercury emissions from coal-fired … [Read more...]
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