President Biden is tightening up the environmental reviews for major projects—thus weakening the infrastructure act he appears to be so proud of. The White House Council of Environmental Quality has just issued new rules for assessing major projects under the 1969 NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act). The rules end President Trump’s relaxation of regulation and…
Category: Jane Shaw Stroup
Are You Paying to Save a Forest that Won’t Be Cut Down Anyway?
This blog has long raised questions about carbon offsets. And now the New York Times is ruminating over them, too—in particular, over the amounts of money that airline passengers pay to “offset” their use of jet fuel. Some airlines (such as Air Canada and KLM) allow you to get rid of travel guilt by paying…
Elon Musk Disputes Tesla’s Removal from “ESG” Index
Elon Musk made news this past week (again) by castigating the S&P Index for removing Tesla from its index of ESG-approved stocks. “ESG is a scam,” he tweeted. “It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.” ESG refers to whether a company is sufficiently active in the areas of “environmental, social, and governance.” Here’s…
Plea: Don’t Force the Post Office into an Electric-Vehicle Boondoggle
“The Postal Service should not be a test dummy for the administration’s speculative goals and it is an insult to taxpayers to treat it this way.” So writes Guy Caruso on RealClearEnergy. Here’s what’s happening: The Biden administration is trying to persuade the Postal Service (USPS) to invest in more electric vehicles. In March the…
Warmer Temperatures, Fewer Deaths
Warmer global temperatures mean fewer global deaths. We’ve said that before, even though the media tend to ignore it. Now Stephen Moore (in his Unleash Prosperity Hotline email) reports on a new British study linking temperatures and deaths over the past two decades. Writes Moore: “Severe cold weather kills far more people than severe warm…
Ben Zycher on the Failings of Biden’s ‘New’ Oil and Gas Policy
Economist Ben Zycher reveals the “perversities, problematic assumptions, and wasteful outcomes made inevitable by the contradictions and incoherence of the Biden leasing policy.” Biden just announced a policy of allowing new leases but charging higher royalty rates. Here’s a summary of Zycher’s observations about this policy: The Biden administration will start leasing on 80 percent…