For 30 years, I was an appraiser and a frequent expert witness on the value of property. Sometimes government agencies would condemn property under eminent domain, and I would estimate what the agency should pay the owner; at other times, I estimated the value of land or easements given to a conservation group such as…
Category: The Environmental Blog
Behind the Turmoil in Sri Lanka: Government Ban on Synthetic Fertilizers and Pesticides
Sri Lanka, the island country off the coast of India, is in political turmoil and the president says he will resign. A big factor in the tragedy is the country’s “going green,” banning synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Aljazeera reports: “President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s drive to make the country the world’s first to fully adopt organic agriculture—by…
Anti-Nuclear Energy Protests: Did Companies and Greens Collude?
Lee Bressler argues on his blog, The Lee Show: “Producers of fossil fuels want to undermine nuclear energy, so they funded large groups of ‘green’ protesters. “ “These protesters were useful idiots who staged protests and political activism to try to have nuclear plants shut down, block new plants from being built, and advocate for…
No, President Biden, Most of Those Shuttered Refineries Will Not Come Back
The Institute for Energy Research (IER) analyzed the condition of refining and concluded that most closed refining units will stay closed. “About 375,000 barrels per day of the 1.482 million barrels per day of North American refining capacity shuttered since June 2019 may be eligible for restart. President Biden could make it easier for these…
Back to ‘Shoot, Shovel and Shut Up’: Court Drops Trump’s Common-Sense Rules on Endangered Species
“With this change, we’re back to the ‘shoot, shovel, and shut up’ status quo.” (PERC Tweet). A federal district court in California has vacated Trump-administration rules designed to make the Endangered Species Act more fair and effective. The most important rule dealt with the treatment of threatened species, which are species that are not yet…