By Wallace Kaufman This is Part I of a three-part article. For Part II, see Hunters’ Last-Ditch Defenses. For Part III, see Will the Anti-Hunters Pay for Their Pleasure? Many or most readers will soon strongly, even angrily, disagree with the conclusions of this essay, so let’s begin where we almost certainly agree. Hunters and…
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Friday’s Links
A new crime appears in California: recycling fraud. H-T Waste Dive. Africa’s worst infestation of locusts in 75 years, thanks to the war against pesticides. Democrats propose a “National Climate Bank” to invest in climate innovation —with $35 billion from the U. S. government.
Thursday’s Links
Sales of electric vehicles fell 6.8 percent in 2019. British newspaper the Guardian halts fossil fuel ads, accepts auto ads. H-T Charles Rotter. Subsidies, regulation, or both? Recycling bills percolate through Congress.
What Do California and Australia Have in Common?
Periodic fires. Environmental regulations that make things worse. Climate change alarmists who want to blame anyone who doesn’t think like they think.
What Happened to California?
Here’s Todd Royal of Law & Liberty on the forest fires in California:
What we are witnessing is a “man-made power outage problem” caused by Democratic Party-aligned environmentalists, activist judges, and the California Air Resources Board. Obama-era environmental regulations rewrote decades-old solutions to forest management by eliminating controlled fires to clear away dead foliage, and allowed plaintiffs attorneys and judges free reign to impose crushing judicial and regulatory costs for basic land management. If these regulations continue unabated then PG&E’s grid will continuously be shut off when hot winds affect their customer base.
Trump Has Backed Off Freezing 2020 Fuel Efficiency Standards
Replacing the Obama administration/California standards for vehicle CO2 emissions with the Trump administration’s Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles rule would have insignificant impacts on climate change. This is Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute:
As explained in my congressional testimony this week, according to the Obama administration’s own climate modeling, replacing the current CO2 standards with the SAFE rule would add only 0.003°C to global average temperatures 81 years from now—an undetectably small and climatically inconsequential change.
However . . .
Turbulence Ahead for Wind Energy
Ken Artz of the Heartland Institute reports that U. S. wind energy faces hard times:
- The federal tax credit for wind energy ends Dec. 31, 2019.
- Countries are dumping wind turbines on the U. S., hurting U.S. producers.
- The Internatiinal Trade Commission is considering tariffs on turbines and parts.
Writes Artz:
The wind industry is entirely dependent on government favoritism, says Rob Bradley Jr., Ph.D., CEO of the Institute for Energy Research.
“Cronies live and die by the government sword,” Bradley said. “Each and every wind project depends on large tax subsidies as well as preferential federal regulations to be built.
“It is ironic—and rare—the wind industry finds itself on the losing end of government policy, but tariffs on imported parts are just that,” Bradley said.
“How about eliminating all the subsidies, along with the tariffs, and let the market, not government, decide what electrical generation is best?” Bradley said.