“Carson used dubious statistics and anecdotes to warn of a cancer epidemic that never came to pass. She rightly noted threats to some birds, like eagles and other raptors, but she wildly imagined a mass ‘biocide.’ She warned that one of the most common American birds, the robin, was ‘on the verge of extinction’ – an especially odd claim given the large numbers of robins recorded in Audubon bird counts before her book.” (John Tierney, New York Times column, June 5, 2007)

Little remembered, the “newspaper of record,” as the New York Times was once known, frankly presented the scientific misconduct and false alarms of the iconic Rachel Carson (d. 1964) fifteen years ago. Still, Carson promoters invoke her memory today in regard to the the climate debate. Physician Hope Ferdowsian recently wrote in the Harvard Public Health:

Sixty years later, the book’s lessons are more relevant than ever….

The filed comments exceeded expectations. The free-market commenters were especially prevalent and displayed great content. Some trade associations also deserve special recognition.

Biden’s “whole of government” Department of Justice is becoming far less likely to challenge DOE on matters of fuel neutrality.

Good news! Filed comments opposing the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Energy Conservation Standards for Residential Conventional Cooking Products (Ovens)” beat the other side in quantity, quality and range. The sheer volume of opposition comments makes a summary difficult, as does the new format of the regulations.gov website (requiring each numbered comment be opened one-by-one to identify the sender’s identity). There are 2,650 comments in this docket, dating back to Feb 24, 2014. [1]

The following table is provided to give examples of some of the more thorough yet diverse comments opposing adoption filed in the last few days before the comment period closed on April 17th:

Review of Comments

The filed comments exceeded expectations. The…

“My strong first impression is that OMB Circular A-4 is particularly useful for more expediently advancing the administrative state’s ‘all of Government’ agenda to combat the ‘existential threat’ of anthropogenic global warming.”

Last Friday April 7^th, The Hill reported:

The White House is [re]forming the country’s regulatory system, announcing a new executive order and guidance that experts say could be used to justify both more and stronger regulations. On Thursday, the White House released an executive order reducing the number of regulations that undergo a more rigorous White House review and promoting public participation from previously underrepresented groups at its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

The Hill’s article, “White House Issues Reforms to the Regulatory Process,” quoted two experts from organizations that generally support the climate alarm/forced energy transformation side of the debate.…

“Flush with your cash, utilities tried to build plants with unproven technology; they launched projects with unfinished designs and unrealistic budgets; they misled regulators and the public with schedules that promised bogus completion dates; they hid damning reports from investors and the public; they tried to silence critics and whistleblowers.”

“In the mid-2000s, power companies across the South, including SCANA, NextEra, Duke Energy and Southern Company, had their robust lobbying machines running at full throttle. An energy gold rush had begun…. (- Tony Bartelme, below)

Tony Bartelme, senior projects reporter for the Charleston, South Carolina Post and Courier wrote an interesting exposé that should be revisited for its relevancy to the problem of utility ratebase economics: “Power Failure: How utilities across the U.S. changed the rules to make big bets with your money” (December 10, 2017; updated December 28, 2022).…