regulation
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Mining industry invests in politicans; stopped mine safety laws
A bill to help rescue miners in emergencies and protect miners’ safety was defeated in Congress three years ago. After passing the House, the bill, called the S-MINER Act, died in a Senate committee. Mining interests, who were opposed to this bill, gave twice as much money in campaign contributions to House members who voted […]
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Why pricing emissions is the least important policy
Last week, I documented that the public supports trains and auto efficiency standards and renewable requirements, along with other policies sometimes slandered as “command & control” over emissions pricing. This week: some historical perspective on why the public is right, and mainstream environmental groups are wrong. Historically U.S. infrastructure, the basis on which this nation […]
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Obama administration celebrates clean energy investments, reaffirms support for cap-and-trade
On Thursday the Obama administration released its annual Economic Report of the President, which assesses the nation’s economic progress, the challenges ahead, and the administration’s domestic and international priorities. There is a meaty chapter on “Transforming the Energy Sector and Addressing Climate Change” (PDF). Its most striking feature is that it doesn’t back off, at […]
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Are utilities’ plans for shoring up hazardous coal ash dams good enough?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released action plans submitted by 22 coal-fired power plants to improve the safety of the massive dammed surface impoundments where they store toxic coal ash, but environmental advocates question whether the plans do enough to protect the public from disaster. That’s because in the absence of federal regulations treating […]
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Midnight regulations
In the months leading up to President Obama’s inauguration, the Bush administration rushed through a raft of controversial regulations. These “midnight regulations,” like the one that would allow mining waste to be dumped into rivers and streams in West Virginia, caused a major stir at the time — but whatever happened to them? After a […]
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Bill Gates thinks about energy innovation
Bill Gates has written on his blog that we need “innovation, not just insulation” in order to reduce CO2 to manageable levels. His motivation is robust, but his thinking is … far from clear. Because he’s Bill Gates, this is sure to attract attention, but even if he weren’t, this is worth talking about. It […]
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Digging into Obama’s 2011 budget on energy and the environment
The Obama administration released its 2011 budget proposal today and the internets are choked with stories about it. The four biggest green stories are EPA funding, fossil-fuel defunding, nuke and clean energy spending, and the cap-and-trade placeholder. EPA regs are funded The EPA’s budget (PDF), which jumped up by 34 percent least year, will decline […]
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Murkowski’s floor speech on EPA regulations was full of deceptions
This morning Lisa Murkowski took to the floor of Congress to introduce her joint resolution of disapproval, which would overturn the U.S. EPA’s endangerment finding deeming greenhouse gas emissions a threat to public health. It was one of the most spectacular displays of mendacity and misdirection I’ve ever seen from a U.S. senator, and that’s […]
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Hanging EPA regulations around Democrats’ necks
It has been taken for granted on the left that if Congress doesn’t pass clean energy legislation, the EPA will step in to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The threat of that eventuality was supposed to bring intransigent industries and legislators to the table. Only it hasn’t really worked as intended — […]
