- PERC warns against tightening particulate standards—tighter standards would preclude prescribed fires.
- Can you make regulation even more onerous? Biden just did it.
- California insists on all-electric trucks.
- “Climate Change Papers You Should Read.” A guide by David Legates for Cornwall Alliance.
- 2023 Farm Bill going green? Activists push for a “food waste reduction office” in USDA , funded at $120 million a year.
Author: Jane Shaw Stroup
FTC Gets 60,000 Comments as It Proposes New Guide against “Greenwashing”
In its job of protecting the public from deceptive advertising, the Federal Trade Commission issues “Green Guides.” The commission is now dealing with 60,000 comments [“nearly 60,000 responses to questions it posed”] on its proposed update, reports Valerie Volcovici of Reuters. This will be the fourth revision since the guides began in 1992. The “Green…
Appellate Court Throws Out Berkeley Ban on Gas Hookups, But Activists See Workarounds
On April 17, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ban by Berkeley, California, on using natural gas in new construction. The court decided that the 1975 federal Energy and Conservation Act Law (EPCA) preempts local regulation of natural gas, Jonathan Adler in the Volokh Conspiracy said. Adler quoted the leading judge’s opinion: “By…
Thursday’s Links
- Cold weather causes many more deaths than hot weather does but you’d never know it from WHO or the Economist.
- Portland to spend $2 million to block off 16 blocks downtown for a zero-emission delivery zone (no gas-fired delivery vehicles allowed).
- Energy Dept. offering $3 billion to investors if they sell solar panels to people with low credit scores (or, in the case of Puerto Rico, rickety electric grids). (Behind a paywall).
- ‘The U.S. Forest Service’s job of tackling the wildfire crisis just got a lot harder.’
- China is expected to have 45 percent market share of solar panels sold in the U.S. this year .(Behind a paywall.)
Something Is “Dreadfully Wrong” with the Electricity Grid
“The near failure of the Texas power grid, coming just 4 minutes and 37 seconds from a complete collapse on February 14, 2021, was the first alarm bell that something was dreadfully wrong with US power grids,” writes Ed Ireland on Master Resource. Another alarm bell has rung in the form of a new report…
Monday Links: No “Tipping Point” for Climate, Lots of Subsidies, What Role Property Rights?
- U.S. and Canada compete in subsidies! Canada will pay Volkswagen $750 million to help it build a battery factory, plus billions based on future battery production.
- Biden promises $1 billion for international “Green Climate Fund,” plus $500 million to slow deforestation in Brazil (if Congress is willing).
- Gary Galles: Property rights provide profit incentives to reduce environmental costs and damage.
- “There is no tipping point beyond which Mother Earth wrestles control of the whole climate system away from human beings and proceeds to punish us for our sins.”