Thanks to Rachel Frazin of The Hill, we have a good idea of the flimsiness of the EPA’s recent proposed ruling on coal- and gas-fired power plants. She observes that under the ruling, coal-fired power plants must cut their carbon dioxide emissions by 90 percent by 2030 if they expect to operate beyond 2039, while…
Category: The Environmental Blog
Are Conservation Leases the Key to Resolving Competing Demands on Public Lands?
This guest post by Shawn Regan is a substantive analysis of the recent proposal by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management to allow leasing of public land for conservation purposes. Regan is vice president of research at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Mont.
Most conservation issues involve balancing competing uses of natural resources. Should a parcel of land be developed for energy production, harvested for timber, grazed by livestock, managed as wildlife habitat, or set aside as open space? In a world of scarce resources, the main question is: How do people best resolve these competing demands?
Inspector General Warns Energy Dept. about “Immense Risks” of Big New Lending Programs
The New York Times recently reported on the Dept. of Energy’s frantic effort to lend $400 billion before the election of 2024. In doing so, the Times article publicized a critical report by the Office of the Inspector General dated November 2022. That report, along with a memo to the energy secretary from Inspector General Teri Donaldson, identified numerous risks that had just been increased by the ballooning plans for loans. These increases (no surprise!) had been authorized by the CHIPS Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the IRA (“Inflation Reduction Act”).
If You Won’t Do It, They Will—With Strings Attached
New York’s state legislature has just directed the state’s public power provider to build renewable energy projects. The law instructing the New York Power Authority includes language about “environmental justice” and labor that socialists would love—in fact, socialists do love it. The Democratic Socialists of America lobbied for the law and the group is gearing…
Friday Links: Getting $400 Billion out the Door, Fast-Rising Wind Turbine Prices, and More
- Energy Department in a hurry to lend $400 billion by the 2024 election.
- Tired of your slow-moving dishwasher? It’s going to get worse, for a lot of appliances.
- Wind turbine prices are up 38 percent over the past two years.
- There is no such thing as a “green” energy transition. Renewables can’t do what fossil fuels do, engineer says.
- And there’s more.
What You Should Know about the Latest Threat to a Free Society
The Heartland Institute has published a study of ESG—the environmental, social, and governance movement increasingly adopted by companies and investors. Jack McPherrin calls it “one of the gravest threats facing the free societies of the world today.” “At its core, ESG is a social credit scoring system that ideologically aligned elites and subservient bureaucratic authorities…