A Free-Market Energy Blog

Ignored Science, Neglected Economics: D.C. Circuit Upholds EPA Greenhouse Gas Rules

By Chip Knappenberger -- June 28, 2012

“The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a decision affirming EPA’s first round of greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations in all respects.”

Last year, I outlined  the case being made against the EPA’s issuance of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions regulations. The case was being brought before the Washington D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by a group of petitioners which have become collectively known as the Coalition for Responsible Regulation, and made up of large number of businesses, business associations and several states. The petitioners argued on several different grounds that the EPA was wrong in the way that it determined that GHGs were an endangerment to the public health and welfare as well as in the manner in which it was going about issuing regulations.

Earlier this week, the Court handed down its decision—a unanimous finding in support of the EPA on virtually all counts.…

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'Determined Gentleman' vs. Big Wind (E&E News Profiles Droz, Taylor)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 27, 2012

In business and in government, lesson after lesson has been learned against trusting the ‘smartest guys in the room.’

Remember Enron, where doubters were told by CEO Jeff Skilling that they just didn’t ‘get it’? … the alarmist climate scientists who have long stated that the science is settled…. the Obama Administration energy decision-makers who know which technologies are ‘environmentally sustainable’ and are ‘commercially promising’?

F. A. Hayek warned against the ‘pretense of knowledge” where an intellectual elite via government coercion plans for the rest of us. Economist/educator Russell Roberts (Mercatus Center, George Mason University) explained what Hayek meant in a Wall Street Journal piece, “Is the Dismal Science Really a Science?”

If economics is a science, it is more like biology than physics. Biologists try to understand the relationships in a complex system.

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Pandora's NAAQS: CEI Comments on U.S. EPA's 'Carbon Pollution Standard'

By -- June 26, 2012

“Some good may yet come of this. A policy crisis over NAAQS regulation of  man-made greenhouse gas would finally make clear that Massachusetts v. EPA created a constitutional crisis by authorizing the EPA to enact policies that the people’s representatives have not approved and would reject if proposed in legislation and put to a vote.”

Yesterday, June 25, 2012, I submitted the following comment on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Standards of Performance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions for New Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units, what EPA ideologically describes as the Carbon Pollution Rule. [1]

On behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a non-profit public policy group specializing in regulatory issues, I ask that EPA withdraw the Proposed Rule on the following four grounds:

1. The EPA’s proposal would effectively ban construction of new coal-fired power plants, a policy Congress has not approved and would reject if proposed in legislation and put to a vote.

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Postmodern Climatology: Paltridge Weighs In

By Kenneth P. Green -- June 25, 2012
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'Peak Rock': The ONION Goes Neo-Malthusian (Fixity/depletion curse expands)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 22, 2012
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Wimp Power: Some Quotations from Wind's Critics

By -- June 21, 2012
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New Oil & Gas Talent Needed: Students, Retirees Take Note (industry needs freed renewable-energy talent too)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 20, 2012
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"Nothing is more fungible than a good idea" (U.S. as global high-tech oil/gas leader)

By Steve Maley -- June 19, 2012
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"Wind Farms Canceled, Layoffs Starting" (government dependence is risky business)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 18, 2012
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Why We Should Love the Oil Companies (Straight talk from an industry outsider)

By -- June 15, 2012
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