Oil Prices, Housing Markets and Power Plants

The president of OPEC predicts even higher oil prices in the near future.

Washington, D.C. suburb Fairfax County, Virginia plans to spend $10 million to prop up the local housing market by buying foreclosed properties.

A judge in Georgia halts construction of a new coal power plant over greenhouse gas concerns, citing the recent Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA.

1. ENERGY

The president of OPEC predicts even higher oil prices in the near future.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Energy Policy Myron Ebell on the domestic resources of oil and gas that could be developed in the U.S.:

“…the offshore areas currently banned from development likely contains a mean estimate of 18.92 billion barrels of oil and 85.79 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that are ‘technically recoverable.’ Yet the United States is the only developed country in the world that bans development of most of its offshore gas resources. This self-imposed ban has put our nation at a competitive disadvantage with Cuba and China. Cuba recently announced that it has negotiated lease agreements with China to explore oil and gas production just 50 miles off the coast of Key West, Florida. The United States can’t develop resources in the FloridaStraits, yet Cuba and China can.”

 

2. CONSUMER

Washington, D.C. suburb Fairfax County, Virginia plans to spend $10 million to prop up the local housing market by buying foreclosed properties.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on the folly of the plan:

“They’re planning to buy up foreclosed houses and use them to house well-paid county employees. What’s most amusing about the plan is that it is being done in the name of ‘affordable housing.’ But even if it succeeds, it will make housing more unaffordable by propping up home prices in Fairfax County, where even a small home costs a minimum of $400,000.”

 

3. LEGAL

A judge in Georgia halts construction of a new coal power plant over greenhouse gas concerns, citing the recent Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Fellow Steven Milloy on how the judge misread the Supreme Court verdict.

“If anything is untenable, however, it is Moore’s misreading of the Supreme Court’s decision. The court did not, in fact, rule that carbon dioxide (CO2) was an air pollutant that must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The court wrote that, ‘we hold that EPA has the statutory authority to regulate the emission of [greenhouse] gases from new motor vehicles.’ So the court only ruled that the EPA may regulate CO2, not that CO2 is an ‘air pollutant’ for purposes of the Clean Air Act.”