Opponents of genetically modified (GM) crops raise a number of questions and objections to growing them and including them in the food supply. Although they cite scientific research to support their claims, a careful review of the literature suggests there is very little evidence to support any of the claims about harmful health effects of GM food. For this reason, combined with the many potential benefits, governments should not restrict the use of genetically modified organisms … [Read more...]
Why do Ranchers Grouse about Federal Regulations to Protect Sage Grouse?
One of the basic principles of environmental stewardship is that the people closest to a problem are likely to understand it best. Yes, there might be exceptions when experts from outside can come to understand it better, but what really happens in those instances is that the outsiders get up close. If they don't, they won't. A great illustration of this is the unintended consequences of federal regulations meant to protect sage grouse, an allegedly endangered species in some of the American … [Read more...]
Why Should America Expand its Nuclear Energy Sector?
I've long thought the primary obstacle to the great expansion of nuclear power's contribution to America's energy needs is excessive regulation imposing safety standards that go far beyond what's necessary and thus pushing costs prohibitively high. I still think so, and one of the challenges Republicans in Congress should take on is revising bringing those rules into conformity with the reality: that nuclear energy generation as practiced in the United States, in both military and civilian … [Read more...]
Judith Curry confirms: climate models can’t justify policy—ANY policy
For years we at the Cornwall Alliance have been saying that the disagreement between model predictions (or projections or simulations, call them what you will) of global temperatures and real-world observations means the models are invalidated and therefore provide no rational basis for predictions of future temperature and therefore no rational basis for policies meant to respond to such predictions. Now one of the world's leading climatologists, recently retired Professor Judith Curry, Chair … [Read more...]
What Will DC Circuit Do with Clean Power Plan?
Tomorrow the DC Circuit Court will hear, en banc, a case in which 28 states are suing the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), alleging that it lacked statutory authority to impose President Obama's landmark environmental regulation, the Clean Power Plan (CPP), on the states. EPA claims the authority under an obscure piece of the Clean Air Act, Section 111(d), but a straight reading of that section in context with the rest of the Act implies otherwise. Congress never intended to … [Read more...]
A Ground-Level View of the Cost of Unwarranted Regulation—and How to Reduce It
Many complaints of the costs of environmental (and other) regulations give us the view from 30,000 feet. In his new article "The Long Arm of the European Community," at American Thinker, Norman Rogers paints the picture at ground level---and it isn't pretty. It's not just that the regulations impose enormous costs but also that they often are based on complete, or nearly complete, ignorance of the activities being regulated. From his 25 years of experience heading a small electronics … [Read more...]
Can We Defend Liberty against a Militarized EPA?
Did you know that the federal Environmental Protection Agency spends millions of dollars on guns, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear, and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities? You read that right—EPA, not the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines. Why? Because EPA regulations are so ubiquitous, so onerous, and so contrary to the spirit of our freedom-loving nation that ordinary Americans find … [Read more...]
Unelected, Unaccountable Greens Dictated Clean Power Plan to EPA
Emails obtained by the Energy & Environment Legal Institute under FOIA demonstrate that EPA almost certainly violated federal law by using private email to correspond with the Natural Resources Defense Council, correspondence in which NRDC essentially drafted critical parts of the "Clean Power Plan," or even, as the Wall Street Journal puts it, "the rule," not just critical parts. Imagine if some pro-coal organization(s) had done the same in the preparation of an EPA regulation. The Left … [Read more...]
Senate Committee Issues Damning Report on EPA’s “Sue and Settle” Practices
The Senate Environment & Public Works Committee last month issued a damning 73-page report, by the Committee's Majority Staff, exposing the widespread and corrupting use of "sue and settle" practices by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the Obama Administration, to form and promote its policies. It's not pleasant reading, and citizens who favor transparency, accountability, and equal access and oppose secrecy, autocracy, and favoritism in government agencies need to be … [Read more...]
Ethanol: A Federally Mandated Killer
Terry Scanlon of the Capital Research Center leads his latest email this way: When you gas your car with 10% ethanol, you're dragged into the Renewable Fuel Standard morass run by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). This environmentalist policy is so terrible, even the greens have turned against it. But as a government program, it's immortal. Our latest "Green Watch" documents how this disaster funnels money from consumers to crony capitalists, reduces your car's mileage, raises food … [Read more...]
