The John Locke Foundation, a free-market think tank in North Carolina, opposes the state’s plan to allow offshore wind turbines off the North Carolina coast. Author Jon Sanders says the expensive plan would raise electricity rates and reduce tourism while having no measurable impact on climate change. From the report (emphasis added) : Costs and…
Category: The Environmental Blog
Why the Supreme Court Reined in the EPA
On June 30 the Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, decided that the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, a major change in the way carbon dioxide from power plants would be regulated, had exceeded the agency’s authority. (The plan had not gone into effect, partly because of multiple legal challenges, which ended on Thursday.)…
Interesting Links . . .
- No new gas stations in Los Angeles?
- Canada’s “Zero-Plastic Waste 2030” program will cost $13 billion (Canadian dollars), gain only $619 million benefit, says Fraser Institute’s Ken Green.
- Australian Scientists Discover Styrofoam-eating “superworm.”
- Supreme Court agrees to hear a case that would define “waters of the United States” for EPA regulatory purposes.
- Why does electricity usage go down? Income inequality, says Resources for the Future.
- Ford trying to get more congressional support for electric vehicles, says the Washington Post.
PERC: Slow Environmental Reviews Hold Back Wildfire Prevention
Parts of the West are engulfed by wildfire every year, mostly on U.S. Forest Service land. The Forest Service has two techniques to prevent wildfires: mechanical treatments (usually thinning the forest) and prescribed burns (setting controlled fires to clear brush and shrubs). But environmental reviews are causing drastic delays before the process can even start….
Will Behind-the-Scenes Lobbying Block Effort to End Conservation Easement Tax Schemes?
After years of crackdown efforts by the Internal Revenue Service, Congress is coming closer to removing incentives that allow enormous tax deductions for conservation easements. Richard Rubin writes in the Wall Street Journal: “A bipartisan group of lawmakers said it hopes to complete legislation to curb tax breaks for land-rights deals this year, but as…
Big Wind and Solar Companies Using ‘Hardball Legal Tactics’
Should rural communities be able to limit the number of wind and solar projects in their regions? Or do the renewable companies have a legal right to put turbines and solar panels on any property they can buy? Complicating the issue is the fact that many renewable projects would not be built without billions of…