Comments on: Houston Chronicle's Loren Steffy on Waxman-Markey (can this straight shooter be added to the newspaper's editorial board?)

By: Houston’s Energy Citizens Rally (and why was the Houston Chronicle editorial board silent?) — MasterResource

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 11:37:10 +0000

[...] loosened the grip of climate alarmism and policy activism at the Chronicle despite an opposite view by popular business editorialist Loren [...]

By: GTW

GTW — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:03:38 +0000

The next day after Steffe’s column saw:
1) the emergence of the NCEE (Nat Center for Env. Economics)report noting that the EPA had blocked its release, and its conclusion that the EPA has paid insufficient attentionto the science of global warming;
2) the emergence of a study by the CEI (Comp. Enterprose Inst.) on the censored report;
3) the receipt of a mailing via the Heartland Inst. on a report documenting the miserable condditions of the surface weather stations;
4) and a Chroncle report on the 2009 heat wave, and one in 1980.
All of these cryout for assessment. They surely are food for thought that something else is going on besides the modest yearly growth in CO2 emissions. They define a need for a far more pragmatic editorial coerage than we see day after day. The addition of Steffy to their editorial board would surely e a step in the right direction.

By: Ed Reid

Ed Reid — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:16:45 +0000

Those attempting to monetize environmental externalities costs have not yet been able to choose between the “damage cost” method and the “control cost” method of setting the monetized cost, no less used one of the methods to establish a single cost for any pollutant, no less CO2.

I won’t hold my breath in anticipation of that “blessed event”.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:53:19 +0000

“leading economists have been unable to justify pricing CO2 via government mandates without assuming perfect knowledge”

You have got to be kidding me! More than eighty years after the economic calculation problem was elucidated by Mises, and they still get away with this?

Then again, I suppose it isn’t that shocking.

By: Paul Roberts

Paul Roberts — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:46:16 +0000

Although I haven’t yet read the ERCOT report that Steffy referred to, I suspect that the $27 per month is in addition to the costs we’re already incurring in subsidies for renewable energy, including costs for additional transmission lines.
Whatever the additional cost may be for those of us in the less-regulated markets of Texas, the impact is likely to be far greater in those areas (such as Austin and San Antonio and other regulated markets) where the rates are based on average cost of fuels.