“Gov. Kasich has walked away from his commitment to renewable energy. He and the Legislature are creating an unfriendly business environment in Ohio. Legislators rammed through restrictive rules without due process, and millions of dollars already invested based on the previous set of rules may now be lost without any public debate. This will force clean energy developers and manufacturers to move to neighboring states with similar resources and friendlier business climates.”
– Tom Kiernan, CEO, American Wind Energy Association, AWEA Press Release, June 16, 2014.
Is that a threat, Mr. Kiernan? Because states neighboring Ohio should indeed bristle at your words. Perhaps some legislatures will even muster the bravery to follow suit and protect their citizens with wind turbine setback distances measured from property lines – the way most other safety related zoning measurements are.…
Continue Reading“Enron was a political colossus with a unique range of rent-seeking and subsidy-receiving operations. Ken Lay’s announced visions for the company—to become the world’s first natural-gas major, then the world’s leading energy company, and, finally, the world’s leading company—relied on more than free-market entrepreneurship. They were premised on employing political means to catch up with, and outdistance, far larger and more-established corporations.
– R. Bradley, “Enron: The Perils of Interventionism,” EconLib, September 3, 2012.
A debate is currently playing out over the future of the Import-Export Bank, which comes up for Congressional reauthorization this September. In “End Corporate Welfare? Start With the Ex-Im Bank,” Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, a free-market advocacy group, pin-pricked the notion that small business was the beneficiary of taxpayer-guaranteed loans.…
Continue Reading“EPA’s actions routinely violate the Information Quality Act…. The closed circle of well-paid ‘peer reviewers’ employed by EPA, coupled with its close relationships with numerous Big Green environmentalist pressure groups, hardly satisfies [IQA] requirements. Worse, EPA consistently drags its feet on responses to FOIA requests….”
The Food and Drug Administration requires that companies seeking approvals of medical product meet high standards for the quality, integrity, and transparency of data and information submitted in support of applications. Missing information means products won’t be approved; improprieties in studies or submissions mean companies and employees can face fines, jail, or other penalties.
What if the same standards applied to government agencies regarding the scientists and institutions they hired or utilized? Their taxpayer-supported work affects virtually every American.
Last year, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Congress enacted 72 new laws, while federal agencies promulgated 3,659 new rules.…
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