“Judicial protection of the decision of American consumers over many decades to choose the best energy products–and in this case petroleum products for transportation and home heating–is common sense. This law will better protect Americans than court decisions, however favorable, against the anti-energy, anti-consumer extremists with false pretenses.”
The Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026 (S.4340), introduced in the Senate by Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and in the House by Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.), proposes to protect energy companies from climate change lawsuits and state-level penalties. This legislation is in response to climate activism in 11 states, two of which (Vermont and New York) have enacted “climate superfund” laws. The other nine states looking seeking judicial payouts are California, Hawaii, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
A press release from Rep.…
Continue ReadingEd. Note: Hydropower (“white coal”) was once the lone alternative to coal for electrical generation, supplying about one-third of U.S. supply in 1950. Today, hydro supplies around six percent of national power (and falling). The post below speaks to the political imbroglio of this energy source with the example of Michigan.
Michigan regulators have granted Consumers Energy a two-month delay in dealing with its controversial plan to sell 13 small and elderly hydroelectric plants to a Maryland-based private equity firm.
The Jackson, Mich., investor-owned utility last week (Sept. 8) asked the Michigan Public Service Commission to remove a decision on the company’s unusual hydro selloff from its scheduled Sept. 10 meeting until November. The utility said it wants “an opportunity to resolve the issues in this case cooperatively” with the parties to the case.…
Continue Reading“Currently, in many car markets, an electric car is more expensive to purchase upfront than a comparable gasoline- or diesel-powered model, which tends to be the biggest consideration for most consumers.” (New York Times, August 18, 2026, below)
The statistic of increasing global sales of electric vehicles (EVs) is often cited as if consumers in an open, free market prefer EVs to internal combustion engines. A careful reading of a recent New York Times article, “The Gulf Oil Shock Is Pushing E.V. Sales to New Heights Globally” (August 18, 2026), supports the counter-thesis that EV sales are driven by special government favor. Here-today-gone-tomorrow EV subsidies (as in the U.S.) raise the question of sustainability. From a government-neutral, consumer-first perspective, EVs are not sustainable.
“Electric car sales are on track to hit record highs this year,” begin Mira Rojanasakul and Brad Plumer, “with 29 percent of all new cars purchased around the world expected to be either purely battery-powered models or plug-in hybrids,” versus four percent in 2020.…
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