politics

Economic impacts of carbon pricing

Yesterday, I explained why we shouldn’t confuse wealth transfers with taxes. Today, I fulfill my promise to follow up with math. (Contain your excitement!) On the theory that you should (a) stick with what you know and (b) avoid speculating on shoddy data, I’m limiting this math to the electric sector, but the conclusions are […]

Sean Casten Technology

Tax junk food, but also subidize veggies

Soda can … harm your health.The taxman cometh for soft drinks. Or so it appears these days. We already know they’re on the table as a possible funding source for Obama’s health care reform. And behind the scenes, the co-author of an influential paper on the potential positive effect of soda taxes, New York City’s […]

Tom Laskawy Politics

Close friend of Big Meat may be put in charge of food safety

USDA chief Tom Vilsack is once again on the verge of stepping in it regarding his pick for food safety czar, i.e. the head of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. Some may recall that back in March the Obama administration nearly appointed Dr. Michael Osterholm to the post only to back off when […]

Tom Laskawy Politics

Massive economic and policy reform: Easier than you think

It seems to me that we suffer from a failure of imagination. We dream of a low-carbon world, but can’t quite fathom how to get around the massive lobbying clout (and inertia) of the coal lobby. We dream of a world with no more utility obstacles to energy efficiency, but can’t imagine how to undo […]

Sean Casten Politics

Mysterious industry front-group affiliated with Ken Lay’s former speechwriter launches anti-Wa

Memo to Media: Who the heck are these guys and what are they hiding by apparently misstating their origin? E&E News (subs. req’d) reports on a new advertising campaign from a “conservative organization”: The American Energy Alliance (AEA) campaign targets 11 key members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee — all of them moderates […]

Joseph Romm Climate & Energy

Corn ethanol approaches a moment of truth

Courtesy Randy Wick via Flickr [UPDATED 4/24] As expected, California’s Air Resources Board passed the LCFS with the indirect land use component intact. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the actual model to be used in the calculation (including to what extent gasoline will incur an indirect land use penalty) won’t be […]

Tom Laskawy Climate & Energy

Stop the environmental subsidy for factory farms

North Catolina hog-waste lagoon: Smells like CAFO spiritDefMoIn one of the most deliciously perverse (not to say Orwellian) twists in our deliciously perverse (not to say Orwellian) system that is US agricultural policy, the prime beneficiaries of one of the USDA’s main environmental programs are beef, pork, and poultry factory farms. This money, of […]

Tom Laskawy Food

Fossil Energy Reduction Standard: A better RPS

Photo: WhiteGoldWielder via Flickr Previously, I described difficulties with RPS policy, whereby layers of patches designed to address political problems create a convoluted overall structure that yields lousy policy. Today, I outline a better approach. Policy first First a caveat: Too much of our energy policy is developed based on politics. There is a point […]