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California’s Gov. Brown Issues Carbon Neutrality Order, Signs Renewable Energy Bill
California Governor Jerry Brown (D) on September 10th issued Executive Order B-55-18 establishing a statewide goal to “achieve carbon neutrality as soon as possible, and…
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Ninth Circuit Opens Pandora’s Box in Oregon Fuel Standards Case
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld Oregon’s Low Carbon Fuel Standards (LCFS), dismissing a lawsuit filed by U.S. refiners, truckers,…
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Energy Dominance: Department of Interior Breaks Previous Records for Oil and Gas Lease Sales
“In a testament to the Trump Administration's America First Energy Plan, the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) third-quarter oil and gas lease sale in New…
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IPCC Overestimates Climate Sensitivity: Study
A new study by climate scientists Judith Curry and Nic Lewis, published in the August 2018 edition of Journal of Climate, estimates median values…
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Securities and Exchange Commission Drops Probe of ExxonMobil over Climate Risk
The Wall Street Journal reported late last Friday that Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulators have “decided against trying to penalize the energy giant over its…
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Trump Revision of Obama-era Fuel Economy Rules Is No Climate Disaster
In a recent article in Energy and Environment News, several prominent climate scientists bash the Trump administration’s proposed rollback of the Obama administration’s…
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Mileage Rule for New Cars Everything Free Marketers Hoped
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on August 2nd proposed to revise Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards and…
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Will Trump Auto Rule End California’s Regulation of Fuel Economy?
The Trump administration is expected tomorrow to release its proposed revisions of the Obama administration’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and motor vehicle greenhouse…
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Final Repeal of Obama-era Clean Power Plan Expected in 2019
“EPA will not complete a replacement for the Clean Power Plan until at least early next year,” E&E News reported July 27, citing the Environmental…
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You Don’t Have to Be a Climate Skeptic to Oppose a Carbon Tax
In an op-ed published yesterday by CNS News, I explain why a carbon tax is not a conservative policy. The occasion for the piece…
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Federal Judge Dismisses Big Apple Suit against Big Oil
U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan on July 19 dismissed New York City’s climate change lawsuit against British Petroleum, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and…
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Interior Department Announces Region-wide Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas Lease Sale
On July 12, Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt announced that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will offer approximately 78 million acres offshore…
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Climate Change, Fossil Fuels, and Human Well Being
Climate campaigners demand ever-greater government control over energy markets, resources, and infrastructure. Many believe the best thing governments can do with fossil energy is “…
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Pruitt Leaves EPA Well Positioned to Advance Trump Pro-Growth Agenda
Scott Pruitt resigned as EPA administrator following months of controversy over a growing list of purported administrative improprieties. Ousting Pruitt has been a progressive movement objective from…
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Federal Judge Dismisses California Cities’ Climate Lawsuit
U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup this week dismissed the climate change lawsuit brought by Oakland and San Francisco against British Petroleum, Chevron,…
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Should FERC Consider Potential Climate Impacts of Proposed Interstate Gas Pipelines?
As CEI's Marlo Lewis notes in comments submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, neither the National Energy Policy Conservation Act nor the Natural Gas Act…
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Solar ‘Incentives’ Are Busting Out All Over
Ever wonder why installations of household solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and utility-scale solar power have surged since 2014? The declining cost of solar technology is…
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EPA Asks for Public Comment on Improving Cost-Benefit Analysis of Regulations
On June 7, the Environmental Protection Agency issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking soliciting information on how the agency estimates costs and benefits in…
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The Constitutional Cure for the Paris Agreement
Today marks the first anniversary of President Trump’s Rose Garden speech announcing his intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. That speech…
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On Honesty and ‘Honest Brokers’ in Government Science
Today’s E&E News has an interesting article about Richard Yamada, a Ph.D. mathematician who is the key official helping Administrator Scott Pruitt reshape science…
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UK Climate Campaigners Demand More Market Rigging
Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom “are warning of a ‘dramatic and worrying collapse’ of clean energy investments in Great Britain in the last…
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Justice Department Brief Defends Oil Companies against California City Lawsuits
The Department of Justice last week filed an amicus brief supporting oil companies’ motion to dismiss claims by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco that the firms…
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Zero Emission Vehicles Can Increase Air Pollution: Study
A new report by economist Jonathan Lesser of the Manhattan Institute challenges the conventional wisdom that zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) are superior to new internal…
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California to Require Solar Panels on New Homes
“California is set to become the first state to require solar panels on all newly built single-family houses,” the Los Angeles Times reports. Not…
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New York Attorney General and Climate Campaigner Schneiderman Resigns
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned on May 8th within hours of The New Yorker publishing an exposé in which four former girlfriends…
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Do Tourists Cause Global Warming?
Nature Climate Change yesterday published a study measuring the “carbon footprint of global tourism.” It’s big. Taking into account all tourism-related expenditures for transport, shopping,…
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Multi-State Petition against EPA Vehicle Standards Makes Weak Legal Case
California joined by 16 states and the District of Columbia yesterday petitioned the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to stop Environmental Protection Agency administrator…
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House Panels Grill Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Pruitt
On April 26th, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt testified in separate hearings before the environment subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce and…
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Scalise, McKinley Introduce Anti-Carbon Tax Resolution
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) on Thursday introduced H. Con. Res. 119, which “Expresses the sense of Congress…
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Free Market Groups Call for Repeal of Clean Power Plan
Public policy analysts from 20 free-market organizations today filed a joint comment letter in support of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s proposal to repeal…
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What Exxon Knew: AEI Panel on Recent Climate Change Litigation
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) this week held a panel discussion titled “What did they know, and when did they know it?” on the growing swirl of…
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Massachusetts Court to Exxon: Turn Over All Climate Documents Since 1976
Another day, another investigation in search of a crime. “Massachusetts’s top court on Friday ordered Exxon Mobil, Inc. to turn over company records to the…
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Misfiring on All Cylinders: New York Times’ Attack on Pruitt’s Fuel Economy Reset
Greenhouse gas/fuel economy standards encourage automakers to reduce average vehicle size and weight. That is hardly surprising. It takes less fuel to move smaller, lighter…
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California Climate Change Litigation: Will Big Oil Learn How to Fight?
This week, Chevron lawyer Ted Boutrous told federal Judge William Alsup that “There’s no debate about climate science.” His company “accepts the consensus of the scientific…
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Climate Policy: What It Means for Pompeo and Kudlow to Be Replacing Tillerson and Cohn
If people are policy, the Trump administration’s commitment to the President’s pro-growth energy agenda has become clearer and firmer. Last week, Mr. Trump …
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Trump Ousts Tillerson: What’s Next for the Paris Climate Treaty?
President Trump this morning ousted Rex Tillerson from his post as Secretary of State and plans to replace him with CIA director Mike Pompeo.
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Everything You Need to Know about the Clean Power Plan
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, nineteen other state attorneys general, and the head of the Mississippi department of environmental quality recently filed a superb …
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Some Critical Points Often Overlooked in the Climate Policy Debate
To date, the political process has determined that the potential risks of carbon dioxide regulation outweigh the benefits. That’s why despite more than 20 years…
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Clean Power Plan: Just Repeal, Don’t Replace
The Environmental Protection Agency is in the process of repealing President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, the principal regulatory component of his Paris Climate Treaty emission-reduction…
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Fourth National Climate Assessment: Pat Michaels Calls for “Reset” of U.S. Global Change Research Program
The comment period for the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Fourth National Climate Assessment closed on January 31, 2018. Cato Institute scientist Patrick Michaels identifies two…
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Climate Litigation: ExxonMobil Strikes Back
ExxonMobil this week asked a Texas district court for authority to depose and obtain documents from “ExxonKnew” campaign legal strategist Matt Pawa and…
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Will Trump Finally Pull the Plug on the Paris Climate Treaty?
In his upcoming state of the union address, President Trump should finally reject the Paris Agreement, explain his reasons, and announce a plan to get…
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Will Trump EPA Reconsider California Greenhouse Gas Waiver?
The Trump Justice Department will no longer use Clean Air Act enforcement penalties to provide multibillion-dollar subsidies for electric vehicle infrastructure.
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Cheery News for the New Year: Our Increasingly Livable Climate
Humanity in the Age of Global Warming is healthier, wealthier, and less at the mercy of extreme weather than the people of previous times.
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Trump Liberates Pentagon from Obama’s Climate Obsession
Defense analysts and military planners should focus on bona fide threats to U.S. national security and international stability, not on the speculative impacts of greenhouse…
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Trump Reviews and Renews Regulatory Rollback Agenda
On December 14, President Trump outlined his administration’s deregulatory achievements to date and regulatory reform goals for 2018. He emphasized the importance of cutting…
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Results Are In: Freedom to Export Lowers Energy Prices
A study released today by Texans for Natural Gas (TNG) demolishes the long-running scare campaign waged by corporate rent seekers, eco-activists, and “progressive” politicians…
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Obama Administration’s ‘One National Vehicle Program’ Actually Three—or Four
The House Energy and Commerce held a hearing yesterday on corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for motor vehicles.
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EPA Finalizes 2018 Renewable Fuel Standard Targets
Caving to pressure from Iowa Republican Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to slightly increase rather than slightly decrease the overall…
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Does the Paris Agreement Imperil Global Trade?
Foreign officials and climate activists are already demanding the imposition of carbon tariffs on U.S. firms if President Trump withdraws from the Paris Climate Agreement.
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Carbon Tax: Political Poison for the Conservative Movement
The struggle for hearts and minds in this country is to no small degree a contest between a movement that is pro-energy and anti-tax and…
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EPA Releases Report on Pro-Growth Energy-Related Actions
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week released a report on its actions to implement President Trump’s “Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and…
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Would Coal Miners Do Better Under Obama than Trump?
That’s allegedly the big takeaway from a presentation given on Tuesday, October 17, to the Energy Bar Association by Brattle Group analyst Marc Chupka.
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EPA Proposes Clean Power Plan Repeal Rule
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt will soon release the agency’s proposed rule to repeal the Clean Power Plan.
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CEI Calls on EPA to Reconsider More-Stringent Fuel Economy Standards
On Thursday, October 5, the Competitive Enterprise Institute submitted comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding its Final Mid-Term Evaluation (MTE) of greenhouse…
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President Trump Outlines ‘American Model’ Tax Code
On Friday, September 29, President Trump outlined his tax reform package in a speech to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in Washington, D.C.
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Former Gov. Christie Todd Whitman: Partisan of EPA Overreach
Gov. Whitman supported Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and was in favor of the Obama administration's so-called Clean Power Plan.
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Washington Post Profile on CEI Climate Work Misses Half the Story
The Post’s story was weeks in the making, and although it gets some things right, the story continually injects presumptions and bias, resulting in an…
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Study Challenges Warming Link to Syrian Civil War
There is no clear and reliable evidence that anthropogenic climate change was a factor in Syria’s pre-civil war drought…
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Does Global Warming Increase Motor Vehicle Fatalities?
A new study by retired Yale University epidemiologist Leon Robertson blames global warming for a 7 percent increase in U.S. road deaths in 2015 compared…
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Smart Move to Repeal Department of Interior ‘Valuation Rule’ on Minerals
The repeal ensures that coal leasing and sales can continue while the agency develops and adopts a new rule informed by public comment.
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Motor Vehicle Fuel Efficiency Standards Are Inefficient: Study
The federal government’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program is a highly inefficient method for reducing either motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions or U.S. oil…
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EPA to Revise Greenhouse Gas Rules for Refurbished Trucks
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt this week approved a petition to revise the agency’s heavy truck greenhouse gas emission standards rule.
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Jeff Clark Will Make an Excellent Assistant Attorney General
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote this Thursday on the nomination of Kirkland & Ellis attorney Jeffrey Bossert Clark to be…
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Dramatic Estimates of Future Heat-Related Deaths Hype, Not Fact
Contrary to Killer Heat’s alarming message, U.S. heat-related mortality should continue to decline in coming decades.
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EPA Proposes Renewable Fuel Standards for 2018
The gap between statutory obligations and marketplace reality are too big to be managed via ad hoc yearly adjustments.
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Will the Swamp Let Trump Reform Fuel Economy?
The administration should explore the legal implications of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which prohibits states, like California, from adopting or enforcing laws or…
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Kids’ One-Sided Climate Change Lawsuit Scheduled for Trial
Judge Thomas Coffin, U.S. Magistrate for the District of Oregon, yesterday set a trial date of February 5, 2018 to hear a lawsuit by a group of…
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Is Shareholder Activism Surging or Peaking?
We could be seeing the crest of a movement juiced by the false expectation that Hillary Clinton would become president.
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Big Oil Wants Congress to Gouge Consumers
Earlier this week, the carbon tax advocacy group Climate Leadership Council (CLC) announced its List of Founding Members. “Founding Corporate Members” include three oil…
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New Study Finds Carbon’s Private Benefits Exceed Social Costs
Private benefit of carbon dioxide exceeds social cost by anywhere from about 4:1 to 34:1.
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Exiting Paris Should Weaken Carbon Tariff Threat
Will other nations attempt to punish President Trump for pulling out of the Paris Agreement by imposing “border taxes”—aka carbon tariffs—on U.S. exports?…
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Will Paris Exit Harm U.S. ‘Clean Tech’ Firms?
We’ve heard it for months. If President Trump pulls out of the Paris Agreement, America will be “hobbled in the global race for clean energy…
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Trump’s Reported Decision to Withdraw from Paris Agreement Right Choice for America and the World
It is now widely reported that President Trump has decided to keep his campaign promise to “cancel” America’s participation in the Paris Climate Agreement.
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Dog Bites Man (Climate Science Establishment Attacks EPA Administrator Pruitt)
This week the journal Nature: Scientific Reports published an article by Ben Santer and eight other climate science establishmentarians rebutting a comment made by…
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Paris Agreement: Is the State Department Running Its Own Game?
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson caused a stir when, on May 11, he signed the Fairbanks Declaration at the Tenth Ministerial Meeting of…
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Two GOP Governors Support Paris Agreement, But President Trump Shouldn’t Be Impressed
So, if the Governors’ stated reasons don’t explain their support for the Paris Agreement, what does? Perhaps cheap environmental virtue combined with a belief that…
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President Trump Should Ignore Advice of Obama Administration Officials on Paris Agreement
Trump’s greatest contribution to American democracy and international energy policy would be to repudiate the politics of plunder, starting with its most grandiose embodiment—the Paris…
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Industrial Energy Consumers to White House: “No Benefit” to Paris Agreement
There is “no benefit” to U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement, the Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) argues in a letter sent to President…
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Trump Must Show Energy Companies He Will Fight Politics of Plunder
Energy producers will stand up for themselves only if Trump shows, by his actions, that he will fight for them.
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Paris Agreement: Carbon Tax Elders Offer More Bad Advice
The same GOP elders who have been pushing what American Enterprise Institute economist Ben Zycher charitably calls “The Deeply Flawed Case for a Carbon Tax”…
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The Paris Agreement and the Imperial Presidency: My Response to David Bookbinder
The Paris Agreement thus casts a long dark shadow not only on U.S. energy producers but our future as a self-governing polity.
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Misdirected Paris Agreement Debate Fixates on Meaning of ‘May’
This being Washington, D.C., the world capital of misdirection, debate on whether President Trump should keep his campaign promise to “cancel” America’s participation in the…
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Paris Agreement: Why Trump Should Ignore Obama Officials’ Legal Counsel
President Trump is expected to decide soon whether he will keep his campaign promise to “cancel” America’s participation in the Paris Agreement.
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Trump Issues Executive Order on ‘America-First Offshore Energy Strategy’
President Trump issued an executive order on Friday directing the Departments of Interior and Commerce to “encourage energy innovation, exploration, and production” in U.S. offshore areas including…
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March for Climate Another Demonstration of Groupthink
Trump threatens the climate industrial complex by questioning its certitudes, demoting its policy priorities, and proposing to cut its budget.
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Activist Attorneys General Urge Trump to Stay in Paris Agreement
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is the gift that keeps on giving. Yesterday, Schneiderman and 13 other Democratic attorneys general urged President…
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Energy Policy in Trump’s First 100 Days
President Trump’s energy and climate record is one of solid achievement so far. However, until Trump cancels America’s participation in it, the Paris Agreement will…
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Saving Coal: Most Foolish Reason to Support Paris Agreement
A gaggle of coal-industry interests is aggressively lobbying the Trump administration to stay in the Paris Agreement, which they claim President Trump could modify to…
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White House Floats Excuses to Break Trump’s Promise to Cancel Paris Climate Treaty
This week, White House senior advisers will meet to discuss the future of U.S. involvement in the Paris Climate Treaty.
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Yet Another Study Confirms Ecological Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
So-called carbon pollution has done much more to expand and invigorate the planet’s greenery than all the climate policies of all the world’s governments combined.
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Capitol Hill Climate Science Dispute Yields Advantage to Skeptics
Earlier this week, American Meteorological Society executive director Keith Seitter clashed with University of Alabama atmospheric scientist John Christy over global warming claims.
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The Great Greenhouse Rollback Begins
On Tuesday, March 28, President Trump signed his Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. The E.O. directs agencies to suspend, revise,…
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Trump Must Avoid ‘Read My Lips’-style Blunder on Carbon Tax
Someone should remind Trump that carbon-tax elder statesman and CLC leader James Baker is recycling the fatal advice he gave to President George H. W.
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Concerns over Vintage Climate Change Video Ignore Current Science
A 1991 climate change documentary is being touted by environmental activists as evidence of irresponsible corporate behavior.
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Science Committee Spotlights Major Flaws in Calculating ‘Social Cost’ of Carbon Dioxide
Estimating the "social cost" of carbon is a highly speculative enterprise that should not be guiding federal policy on energy and the environment.
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Failure to Renounce Paris Climate Deal Would Create Major White House Policy Conflict
On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would “cancel” U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement. He now appears to be back-pedaling.
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EPA Urged to Reconsider Last-Minute Obama Mileage Rules
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers petitioned Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt this week to re-evaluate greenhouse gas emission standards for new cars that were…
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Will Trump EPA Challenge California’s De Facto Authority to Regulate Fuel Economy?
Former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is now Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Pruitt led the coalition of 27 states, more than…
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GOP Beltway Veterans Pitch Trump on Carbon Tax
A group of former Republican White House and cabinet officials advocated a carbon tax in a meeting with Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn, Ivanka Trump,…