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...]
A ‘Plan B’ for addressing climate change and the energy transition
I have a new article published in the latest issue of International Affairs Forum. The topic of this issue is Climate Change and Energy. Mine is one of twenty papers. A range of topics are covered. My article is the least alarmed among them. You may recognize several of the authors, which include Don Wuebbles and Bill McKibben.Here is the text of my article:Climate change is increasingly being referred to as a crisis, emergency, existential threat, and most recently as ‘code red.’ Climate change … [Read more...]
Playing Telephone with a Climate Report: Politicians Obscure Science, Media Fall in Line
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just released its latest big report, this one titled Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change (a mere 2,913 pages). Practically nobody will ever read it. (I confess haven't.) Its Technical Summary is just 142 pages. (No, haven't read that yet, either.) Its Summary for Policymakers is a mere 64 pages. (Still nope---though this one I might actually try to read in the next week or so.)Why would I write about a report of … [Read more...]
Global Temperature Has Not Been Rising Steadily
The new Pause has lengthened by another month. On the UAH satellite monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature dataset, seven and a half years have passed since there was any trend in global warming at all. As always, if anyone has seen this surely not uninteresting fact mentioned in the mainstream news media, let us know in the comments. One of the best-kept secrets in what passes for “journalism” these days is that global temperature has not been rising steadily (or, since October 2014, … [Read more...]
Hundred-Year-Old Mistake Comes Back to Bite US
In 1920, to protect American shipping from foreign competition, Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act, also known as the Jones Act. Section 27 requires that ships carrying goods from one US port to another be built and flagged in the US and owned and crewed mostly by Americans.While they can make sense in terms of national defense if they prevent the country from becoming dependent on hostile foreign nations for commodities and manufactured goods critical for national defense, such … [Read more...]
New Cobalt Mine in Idaho Could Start a Trend Good for People and the Planet
Regardless how stringent climate policies are, or how rapidly we move from internal combustion to electric vehicles, increasing battery needs around the world presage a huge increase in demand for cobalt.Right now, as Ronald Stein and Todd Royal demonstrate in their book Clean Energy Exploitations, most of the world’s cobalt comes from mines with very low environmental protection standards and huge human rights problems—child and slave labor in highly toxic settings, sometimes at the point of a … [Read more...]
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