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Pruitt Cool under Fire at Senate Confirmation Hearing
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on the nomination of Scott Pruitt to be Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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Can Trump, Congress Undo EPA’s Midnight Fuel Economy Regulation?
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Questions Senators Should Ask Rex Tillerson
Tillerson is probably the only influential person President-elect Trump would ever nominate as Secretary of State who supports both a carbon tax and the Paris…
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Can Trump (or Congress) Rescind Obama’s Arctic Drilling Ban?
President Obama yesterday designated “the vast majority of U.S. waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas as indefinitely off limits to offshore oil and gas…
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Can Congress Veto EPA’s Fuel Economy Rush Job?
The Environmental Protection Agency’s recent proposal to keep in place the agency’s model year greenhouse gas emission standards for new motor vehicles is the epitome…
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Trump Picks Scott Pruitt to Head EPA
Yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump picked Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The nomination is significant in several ways.
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EPA Rushes to Lock in Obama Administration Fuel Economy Standards
The Environmental Protection Agency last Wednesday released its proposed Mid-Term Evaluation (MET) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for model year (MY) 2022-2025 passenger vehicles.
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Drain the Swamp: Sunset the Renewable Fuel Standard
“Draining the swamp” includes abolishing the RFS.
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Federal Biofuel Programs Headed for Failure
Today the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released two reports on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.
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Clean Power Plan Is Dead
David Bookbinder, formerly chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club and now a consultant with the Niskanen Center, is one of the sharpest policy experts…
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Which of Obama’s Midnight Regulations Will Get Rolled Back?
Yesterday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and every Republican House Committee Chairman sent a one-paragraph letter to all executive agencies cautioning them “against finalizing…
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Three Climate Policy Executive Orders the President-Elect Should Repeal
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to “cancel immediately” all of President Obama’s “illegal and overreaching executive orders,” and he strongly opposes Obama’s climate agenda.
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Is EPA’s Clean Power Plan “Transformative”?
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The “Voluntary” Component of EPA’s Clean Power Plan Makes It Even More Unlawful
Today I filed a comment letter on the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule titled “Clean Energy Incentive Program Design Details.” The comment period closes today…
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Dog Bites Man: Nature Magazine Endorses Hillary
“Hillary Clinton will make a fine U.S. president.” So declares the title of a recent lead editorial in Nature magazine.
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Global Warming Concerns ‘Not a Blank Check’ for Clean Power Plan
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last week released a 320-page transcript of the September 27th oral argument on EPA’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emission standards…
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Clean Power Plan Oral Argument: Will Limited Government Survive the Age of Global Warming?
It’s now 10 days since the D.C. Court of Appeals heard oral argument on EPA’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emission performance standards for existing fossil-fuel power…
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Legal Vulnerabilities of EPA Power Plan’s Prerequisite Regulation
Washington is still abuzz about the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals oral argument last week on the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emission standards…
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Does Climate Change Cause an Additional 140,000 Deaths a Year?
In a recent Washington Post op-ed, environmental researcher Bjorn Lomborg calls on the next president to “get our priorities straight” on climate change. A…
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Free Market Allies Challenge Legality of EPA’s Clean Energy Incentive Program
On behalf of policy analysts from 13 non-profit free-market organizations and seven independent scholars, I have submitted a joint comment letter…
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What President Obama Will Not Tell Leonardo DiCaprio About Climate Policy
“President Obama will meet with actor Leonardo DiCaprio at an upcoming White House-sponsored arts festival to discuss the dangers posed by climate change,” the Washington…
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Comment on EPA Power Plan’s Alleged Air Pollution “Co-Benefits”
Climate activists assure us that even if we don’t consider global warming a big problem, we should still support carbon taxes, renewable energy quota, and…
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Issues to Watch in Next Week’s Clean Power Plan Oral Argument
Next week the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals hears oral argument on EPA’s so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP), which establishes first-ever carbon dioxide (CO2) emission…
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House Panel Holds Hearing on Its Power to Investigate New York and Massachusetts AGs
On Wednesday (September 14, 2016), the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a hearing on the Committee’s efforts to subpoena documents from the New York…
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Climate Change Already Measurably Harming Society, Study Claims
A UC Berkeley study published online this week in the journal Science purports to quantify the current harmful impacts of anthropogenic climate change. According to…
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Precedent on Environmental Pacts: Treaty or “Executive Agreement”?
President Obama claims the global climate pact negotiated in Paris last December—the so-called Paris Agreement—is an executive agreement, not a treaty, hence is not subject…
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New Study Finds Ethanol More Carbon Intensive than Gasoline
A University of Michigan study published in the journal Climatic Change challenges a fundamental assumption of the life cycle analyses underpinning the EPA’s Renewable Fuel…
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Transport Groups Oppose Obama Greenhouse Gas Power Grab
Twenty-three organizations representing highway users, transportation, vehicle, and energy trade associations filed joint comments last weekend opposing any proposal by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)…
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Trump Presents Energy Policy Ideas in Detroit
In a policy speech yesterday in Detroit, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump outlined his program of tax, regulatory, and trade policies to jump-start the economy.
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Does EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
A new University of Minnesota study finds that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) program leads to net increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
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New Climate “Guidance” Could Breed Anti-Energy Obstructionism
The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) today released its final guidance on how federal agencies should consider climate change effects in National Environmental…
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World Nature Conservation Day: a Reason to Celebrate Fossil Fuels
Today is World Nature Conservation Day (WNCD), “observed on 28th July all over the world with the objective of increasing awareness about and protecting the…
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Does Global Warming Policy Increase Summer Swelter?
Supporters of EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) claim the program “mitigates” anthropogenic global warming by substituting biofuels for petroleum products in the nation’s motor fuel…
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“Web of Denial” Basher Sen. Schatz Ignores Science on Carbon Dioxide
The core premise of Senate Democrats’ fulminations this week against the “web of climate denial” is that there is no real debate about how dangerous…
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How to Hoist Sen. Whitehouse and Rep. Lieu on their own Petards
Nineteen Senators led by Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) yesterday launched a series of floor statements denouncing fossil fuel companies and more than 30 conservative and free-market…
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Obama Officials Spin Paris Treaty as Done Deal
Two prominent Obama administration officials tried to spin the Paris climate treaty as a done deal this week. In an interview with ClimateWire ($) on 5th…
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Southern Company Power Plant Investigation Misses Larger Policy Scandal
The New York Times this week released the results of an investigation of Southern Company’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) power plant in Kemper, Mississippi.
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Court Rejects Government Transparency Loophole Manufactured by Obama Administration
Do federal agencies have the right to shield their records from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) just by transmitting work-related documents via private email?…
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EPA Inserts Central Planning into VW Settlement
EPA on Tuesday announced the final details of its settlement agreement with VW, the automaker that had illegally equipped 11 million diesel cars with software—known…
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Study Finds Non-Greenhouse Role for CO2 in Ice Age Cycles
Ellis and Palmer (2016), a study recently published in Geoscience Frontiers, sheds new light on the role of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in the alternation…
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Is Global Warming Killing America’s Oldest Oak Tree?
“The oldest white oak tree in the country is dying—and no one knows why,” proclaims the title of an article in today’s Washington Post. Yet…
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India Stops Short of Committing to “Join” Paris Treaty in 2016
President Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi met on Wednesday to discuss energy-related issues including the Paris Climate Treaty. In contrast to the United…
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House to Vote on Carbon, Oil Taxes
The House is scheduled to vote Friday on two bills opposing efforts to rig U.S. energy markets against fossil fuels.
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GIGO Strikes Again: EPA’s Social Cost of Methane
The Environmental Protection Agency’s final methane emission standards for new, modified, and reconstructed oil and gas sources were published in the Federal Register last Friday.
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Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists: No Illusions about Germany’s “Energy Turnaround”
In a previous post I poked fun at the “Doomsday Clock” of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. For 60 years, the Bulletin has…
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RICO 20 Ringleader’s Implausible Denial of Intent to Silence Skeptics
After a recent victory in a FOIA lawsuit, Horner and CEI v. GMU, a Richmond court allowed the Competitive Enterprise Institute to release records on…
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Power Plant Rule: EPA Defies Stay to Develop Legally Dubious Incentive Program
The EPA yesterday took another step to advance the Obama administration’s flagship domestic climate policy, the so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP). As Politico…
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Oregon Court Declines To Dismiss Children’s Crusade Climate Lawsuit
Late last week, Judge Thomas Coffin, U.S. Magistrate for the District of Oregon, rejected motions by industry groups to dismiss a lawsuit by a group of…
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Our Take: The Climate-Related Subpoena
Since CEI was subpoenaed on April 8 for a decade’s worth of work from 20 years ago, many have asked “Why?” and “How?” Here is…
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Obama Administration Releases New Climate Scare Report
The Obama administration last week released The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment. The 333-page report “significantly…
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Obama’s Climate Diplomacy: Bilateralism in the Service of Multilateralism
President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday issued a joint statement pledging that the United States and China will sign the Paris Agreement on…
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Senators Urge EPA to Burst RFS Blend Wall
A bipartisan group of 19 Senators led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is urging EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to get the Renewable…
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EPA: More Equivocation on SCOTUS Stay of Power Plan
The Supreme Court put a stay on EPA’s so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP) last month partly because five Justices thought there was a reasonable prospect the rule…
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Human Achievement Hour: An Enlightened Choice for Saturday Night
It’s a fun time of year . . . at CEI HQ anyway. Once again we prepare to celebrate Human Achievement Hour—the holiday we started…
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Oregon Legislature Approves Aggressive Renewable Power Law
Oregon lawmakers this week approved a bill (S.B. 1457) to increase the state’s renewable portfolio standard from the current target of 25% by 2025…
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Chairman Smith Turns Spotlight on RICO20 Ringleader
Who says climate politics is a battle between greedy corporations and idealistic scientists? In “The Climate Change 1%,” the Wall Street Journal reports that…
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Ethanol Mandate Is Immortal Unless Congress Repeals It
In last week’s Texas presidential primary debate, one of the candidates opined that he did not need to call for repeal of the Renewable Fuel…
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Why and How Congress Should Fight the President’s Climate Treaty Power Grab
President Obama claims the recently adopted Paris Agreement on climate change is not a treaty but rather an executive agreement—a pact he can approve…
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Spinning the Stay
A few days before the start of the COP-21 meeting in Paris, U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern filed a declaration urging the D.C. Circuit Court of…
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Dr. Christy Rebuts Alarmist Spin on Satellite Data
The divergence between satellite data and climate model warming predictions has long been too large for “consensus” scientists to ignore, and it keeps growing despite…
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Revisiting Gore’s Katrina Innuendo
In An Inconvenient Truth (pp. 94-95), Al Gore blamed global warming for Hurricane Katrina and the devastation of New Orleans. Not in so many words but through…
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Doomsday Clockamamie
“It is still three minutes to midnight,” proclaims The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in their latest “Doomsday Clock” report. The Atomic Scientists welcome the Iran…
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“UN climate change goal? We’re there now” – John Christy
Every month John Christy and Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, report global temperature data from their satellite monitoring program, known as the…
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Obama Claims the Paris Climate Agreement Is Not a Treaty. Huh?
President Obama insists that the international climate agreement adopted at the COP 21 conference in Paris is not a treaty. His reason for doing so…
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Things Get Heated at Senate Hearing on Climate Science
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COP21: CEI’s Myron Ebell and Chris Horner Branded as Climate Criminals for Threatening Bogus Consensus
A group calling itself Avaaz (“Voice”) has plastered “wanted” posters of seven “climate criminals” on Paris streets and billboards during the COP21 climate negotiations. Avaaz worries that…
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Senate EPW White Paper: Essential Background on the Obama Administration’s Climate Treaty Agenda
A new white paper from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is the first comprehensive report by Congress on international climate negotiations, encompassing…
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Fracking: The Gift Keeps Giving
“U.S. proved crude oil reserves hit levels not seen since 1972, surpassing 39 billion barrels in 2014, according to newly released federal data,” Michael Bastasch…
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Who’s Playing Politics on the Keystone XL Pipeline?
“The White House on Tuesday said President Obama had no intention of bowing to a request from the company behind the Keystone XL oil pipeline…
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Has Global Warming Increased U.S. Hurricane Damages?
Estrada et al. (2015), a study published this week in Nature Geoscience, finds “an upward trend in [hurricane-inflicted U.S.] economic losses between 1900 and 2005…
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Are the RICO 20 Guilty of Racketeering?
Controversy continues to swirl around the September 1 letter from 20 climate scientists to President Barack Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and White House science adviser John…
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Are Tropical Storms Becoming More Destructive? Will They?
Lin & Chan, 2015, a study published in Nature Communications, finds that the destructive potential of tropical cyclones (“typhoons”) in the most active and…
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Hillary Clinton Opposes Keystone XL Pipeline
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Free Market Perspective on Pope Francis’s Forthcoming Speech to Congress
On Thursday of next week, Pope Francis will address a joint session of the U.S. Congress. He will be the first Pope in history to…
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Southern Ocean Carbon Sink Stronger than Previously Thought
Two new studies, one published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), the other in Science, find that the Southern Ocean carbon sink has become stronger rather than…
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Cooler Heads Coalition News
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Clean Energy Incentive Program: Why It Makes EPA’s Power Plant Rule Even More Unlawful
EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP), which imposes carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rate targets and tonnage caps on state electric power sectors, is unlawful in at…
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Party Bias in EPA’s Power Plant Rule?
What’s the main difference between EPA’s final rule to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from state electric-power sectors—the so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP), released August 3—and…
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EPA’s Proposed and Final “Clean Power” Plan: Which Is Worse?
“Climate Rule Worse than We Thought,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) warned today in an email alert about EPA’s so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP). He explains:…
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Manufacturing Alarm: Dana Nuccitelli’s Critique of John Christy’s Climate Science Testimony
Environmental scientist Dana Nuccittelli accuses University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) atmospheric scientist John Christy of “manufacturing doubt about the accuracy of climate models” at a May…
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Human Achievement Hour: An Honorable Choice for Saturday Night
Earth Hour vs. Human Achievement Hour—two irreconcilably opposed events scheduled for the same time: 8:30-9:30 pm EST, Saturday, March 28, 2015. Earth Hour protestors will turn…
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U.N.’s Narrative of Fear on Climate Change
In their latest report on climate change, officials at the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) once again fail to address important developments in…
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Why and How I’m Celebrating Human Achievement Hour
"Better to light one incandescant bulb than curse the darkness" Tonight is Human Achievement Hour, a time to celebrate human progress and…
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Answering Michael Lind’s Question: Why Is No Country Libertarian?
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Court’s Obamacare Decision — What Would John Locke Say?
Richard Epstein of the Hoover Institution and the University of Chicago Law School gives the Chief Justice some tough love in “What Was Roberts…
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The ALEC Controversy — Much Ado About Nothing
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Don’t Believe Everything You Think!
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EPA Ozone Standard Would Destroy 7.3 Million Jobs, Study Estimates
A recent study by the Manufacturer’s Alliance/MAPI finds that EPA’s proposed revision of the “primary” (health-based) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for ozone (O3) would have…
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Sen. Baucus, I Salute You! OK, I Will Salute You If…
In a message titled, “EPA WILL REGULATE GLOBAL WARMING IN STATES WITH OR WITHOUT AUTHORITY,” the ever-vigilant Maryam Brown of the Senate Republican Policy Committee reports:…
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Obama’s Rooftop Solar Panel: Back to the Future Carter
Energy Secy. Steven Chu kicked off a three-day federal “sustainability” symposium today by announcing that the Department of Energy will install solar rooftop water-heating panels…
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Prop 23 Will Boost California Employment By Half Million In 2012, 1.3 Million in 2020, Study Estimates
If approved by the California electorate this November, Proposition 23 will suspend the implementation of AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act, until the State’s unemployment rate…
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Motion to Stay Makes Strong Case Court Should Overturn EPA Global Warming Rules
Last Thursday (September 16, 2010), three groups, each led by the Coalition for Responsible Regulation (CRR), filed motions with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to “stay” (put…
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Will Grading Cars Dispell or Enhance “MPG Illusion”?
As discussed in my recent post “Obama’s EPA: School Marms R Us,” EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NTSHA) are…
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Greenhouse Protection Racket — An Update
Last week, the Obama Administration filed a brief on behalf of industry petitioners urging the Supreme Court to vacate an appeals court decision (State of Connecticut et…
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Obama’s EPA: School Marms R Us
The Obama Administration’s EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NTSHA) are proposing new rules “labeling each passenger car with a government letter grade from A…
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National Security Risks of Biofuel Mandates — Corrected*
Those amazing Idsos who run the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change review a paper recently published in AMBIO: A Journal…
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Is GOP Opposition to Cap-and-Trade Self-Contradictory?
Betsy Moler of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership and Phil Sharp of Resources for the Future would like Republicans to think so. After all, if…
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BlueGreen Alliance Forgets their Aristophanes
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) mothballed cap-and-trade legislation when it became apparent that he could not muster the three-fifths super-majority required to end a…
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Primer on Extreme Weather Mortality
The indomitable Indur Goklany — “Goks” to his friends — has just posted a primer on extreme weather-related mortality entitled, Global Death Toll From Extreme…
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Spinning the Defeat of Cap-and-Trade
Barring the trickery of a lame duck conference committee, cap-and-trade is dead in the 111th Congress. Some blame Obama for not taking a…