A Free-Market Energy Blog

How NOT to Regulate Pesticides: EU, Canada Lessons for Trump (Part I)

By -- December 15, 2016

“No chemical can both be effective in controlling crop pests and at the same time pass the unrealistically stringent tests imposed by the EU’s BGRD. Catch-22! That’s why EU member nation governments have refused to approve the BGRD for three years.”

The past eight years provided abundant experience with unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats creating new policies, laws, science, and regulations on carbon-based and renewable energy, climate change, air and water pollution, and a host of other topics.

Favored technologies received preferential treatment; those they opposed were hyper-regulated, as they sought to fundamentally transform our economy, agriculture, and living standards.

The new Trump Administration is now taking shape, amid bountiful signals that it will not blindly accept or rubberstamp previous environmental prescriptions. Indeed, the President-Elect’s nominations are generating approvals from many quarters, but howls of outrage from displaced special interests.…

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DOE-designate Perry’s Windy Past (Texas, per-Enron, a wind welfare queen)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 14, 2016

“Added Paul Sadler, executive director of the Wind Coalition, in the New York Times: ‘He [Perry] has been a stalwart in defense of wind energy in this state — no question about it.’”

– Quoted in Kate Galbraith, “As Governor, Perry Backed Wind, Gas and Coal.” New York Times, August 20, 2011.

MasterResource, which plays no (crony) favorites, has been critical of Rick (‘all-energy-things-to-all people’) Perry. Sort of sounds like a politician on the move who wants to fill his political coffers with green money too.

With the news that former Texas Governor Perry is the secretary-designate for the US Department of Energy, I share some quotations from past posts at MasterResource on his pro-wind tenure in Texas. Comments welcome.

“Arguably, Mr. Perry’s most interesting energy efforts have related to wind power, which has boomed under his administration.

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Trump on Verge of WIIN-ing* California Water War Before Taking Office

By -- December 13, 2016

(* Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, 2017 – WIIN Act)

There is no drought….If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that your farmers can survive” – Candidate Donald J. Trump, May 27, 2016, Fresno, California

“If we don’t move now, we run the real risk of legislation that opens up the Endangered Species Act in the future, when Congress will again be under Republican control, this time backed by a Trump administration.”  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), “Latest Compromise Drought Relief Bill Receives Praise, Opposition”, Capital Press, December 7, 2016.

President-Elect Donald J. Trump is poised to score a win-WIIN deal in the California water war as Congress has passed the bi-partisan Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act (WIIN Act – Senate Bill 612). …

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Modelling Global Warming Policy Decisions: Mitigation Fails

By Kent Hawkins --
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Energy & Environmental Newsletter: December 12, 2016

By -- December 12, 2016
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Shelter Ontario’s Citizens from Industrial-Wind’s Tempest: III

By Sherri Lange -- December 9, 2016
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Shelter Ontario’s Citizens from Industrial-Wind’s Tempest: II

By Sherri Lange -- December 8, 2016
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Shelter Ontario’s Citizens from Industrial-Wind’s Tempest: I

By Sherri Lange -- December 7, 2016
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“Risk Assessment ‘Malarky,’ Says Economist” (Cordato rocking back in ’95)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 6, 2016
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Vanishing Vacationland (wind turbines roil the wild)

By Jim Lutz -- December 5, 2016
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