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Congress Should Nullify Obama’s Unlawful and Wasteful Methane Rule
This week, the U.S. House will consider a Congressional Review Act joint resolution of disapproval to overturn the Bureau of Land Management’s methane capture rule.
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Senate Should Disregard Spurious Public Health Charges against EPA Nominee Pruitt
The Senate should disregard accusations that EPA Administrator-designate Scott Pruitt is somehow responsible for asthma rates in his home state of Oklahoma.
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Update on Pruitt Recusal Kerfuffle
During the January 18 Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee hearing on Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s nomination to be Environmental Protection Agency…
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Climate Scientist Judith Curry Files Legal Brief Supporting CEI’s Free Speech Rights
Climate scientist Judith Curry today filed an amicus brief with the D.C. Court of Appeals supporting the petitions for full-court review of a three-judge panel’s…
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Trump Reverses Obama Rejection of Keystone XL Pipeline
President Trump today signed executive orders aimed at reviving the Keystone XL Pipeline and rescuing the Dakota Access Pipeline from death by regulatory delay.
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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…