OpenMarket

The paper “Climate Migration Myths,” published in the latest edition of the prestigious journal Nature Climate Change, is a large-scale beat-down of the notion that climate change is causing significant mass migrations. Ingrid Boas (Wageningen University, Netherlands) and her 31 co-authors flatly state that this notion is “without an empirical scientific basis” and that it is a product of a “self-referencing narrative in [the] scientific literature and policy reports.”

The House Ways and Means Committee on November 19th released a draft of its “Growing Renewable Energy and Efficiency Now (GREEN) Act” (summary). The sponsors propose to extend, increase, and create tax credits for various non-fossil energy-related technologies, such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels.

This week’s press is abuzz with a paper just published by Zeke Hausfather and others in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. It purports to show that early (1970s and '80s) climate models are doing just fine, with a special concentration on NASA’s James Hansen and the 1988 model he showcased in front of Congress, initiating the still-raging global warming hubbub.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same” is a wise observation, and it’s particularly true in politics. I’ve been following solid waste management policy for about 30 years, and every so many years there is a new spin on the so-called “garbage crisis.” The circumstances may change but the problem remains the same: politicians think they can better manage waste than individuals in a free marketplace. Time and again, their fatal conceit is proved wrong.

Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) led a group of scholars and advocates from 13 free market organizations urging Congress to exercise close oversight over potential new government price controls on America’s freight railroads. Specifically, we requested congressional railroad overseers to closely monitor an upcoming December 12 and 13 hearing at the Surface Transportation Board on revenue adequacy and the underlying proceedings before the Board.

Last week the attorneys general of Texas and Nevada announced the withdrawal of their support of a multistate lawsuit to block the merger of cellular telephone and Internet service providers T-Mobile and Sprint. This follows similar announcements from the attorneys general of Mississippi and Colorado earlier this year. With these announcements, more state attorneys general now support the merger than oppose it.

Singapore’s recent policing of online content provides an instructive example of the difference between private curating of material by platform owners and dangerous curtailing of free speech by governments. 

While the nation celebrated Thanksgiving with family and friends, rulemaking agencies published new regulations ranging from almond information to missile accidents.

One of the main responsibilities of pension fund managers is to work to maximize investment returns in order to grow the plan’s assets and thus meet payout obligations to future retirees. Given the fixed nature of the payout obligations, achieving that requires for a substantial share of investment to go toward relatively safe assets, such as government bonds, for which gains are steady and mostly reliable, rather than spectacular. But what happens when interest rates go negative?

Congress averted a government shutdown until December 20th by passing a continuing resolution. The Fall 2019 Unified Agenda was also released, which compiles all rulemaking agencies’ upcoming plans. Wayne Crews has more on that. Meanwhile, rulemaking agencies published new regulations ranging from college radio to redesignating unclassifiable areas.