State public service officials are gathered in Washington, D.C., this week for the winter meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. One of shining stars involved in NARUC is a Georgian named Tim Echols, who hopes to transform America’s system of nuclear waste management. Echols won a statewide election in November 2010 to serve on the Georgia Public Service Commission. Today he leads the commission as its chairman. With nuclear energy making a strong resurgence in Georgia — two new plants are under construction — Echols has taken … More
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Details of a large non-profit’s plans to combat the Keystone XL pipeline have surfaced, and offer some insight into the strategies and tactics of groups looking to combat the use of fossil fuels. Canadian news channel Sun News uncovered of a PowerPoint presentation from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund detailing its work with other groups to derail the Keystone XL pipeline and other similar projects it deemed parts of “a globally significant threat.” The presentation, written in 2008, describes the allocation of $7 million to environmental non-profits for tactics that include … More
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By Randal O’Toole
House Republicans and Senate Democrats remain at loggerheads over the future of federal highway and transit funding. Although House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chair John Mica introduced a compromise transportation bill this week, few are pleased with his proposal. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, for example, calls it “the worst transportation bill” he has ever [...]
Transportation Agreement Seems Remote is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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Remember VHS? Imagine this: VHS has been a staple of the American way of watching television and movies. VHS has supported countless manufacturing jobs, and even though there are better products out there, let’s face it: We need a variety of ways to watch our programs. The states and local economies that have VHS production facilities have experienced and benefited from VHS production, but without a little help from the taxpayers, jobs will be lost and the industry will atrophy. VHS production has bipartisan support, will be good for American … More
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Today, Senators Jim DeMint (R–SC) and Mike Lee (R–ID) introduced legislation that would move the United States a giant step forward in making our country’s energy market freer by eliminating targeted tax credits for energy sources and technologies. Their legislation, a companion to Representative Mike Pompeo’s (R–KS) bill, would force any tax policy that picks certain industries as winners and losers in the market to expire at the end of the year and expedite sunsets for tax credits extending multiple years. And it goes after all targeted tax credits: oil, … More
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In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama requested that Congress pass legislation mandating a national clean energy standard (CES). A CES targets the CO2 emissions from the electric power industry by setting minimum percentages of total power (electricity) generation that must come from sources that emit no CO2. (It should be noted that CO2 is colorless, odorless, and non-toxic. Therefore, it is a misnomer to call CO2 dirty.) Though this sounds less threatening than cap-and-trade legislation, it can end up being pretty much the same thing. … More
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More than 15 months after the Obama administration lifted its ban on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, oil and gas supply and service companies report they are suffering significant financial hardships from the government’s actions. The moratorium — as well as the slow pace of permitting that followed — have suffocated businesses, costing jeopardizing millions in business revenue and even forcing some to close their doors, according to a survey conducted by Greater New Orleans Inc. Louisiana, home to 88 percent of the country’s offshore rigs, has absorbed … More
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President Obama has been on a kick to promote natural gas production. He said in his State of the Union address, “And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of 30 years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock—reminding us that government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.” There are two very big problems with this statement. First, it makes it sound as if the government invented the technology, commercialized it, … More
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At this State of the Union address, President Obama proudly stated that “American oil production is the highest it’s been in eight years” and declared that his Administration would “open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.” While President Obama spoke favorably of the role that oil and gas development play in America, the President’s and his Administration’s actions don’t match with his words. There are several areas where the President and his Administration are unreasonably hindering access to more oil and gas for Americans … More
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In his State of the Union address, President Obama emphasized, “We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it.” That may be the case if you make iPods, iPads, and iPhones, but when it is “big oil” (i.e., stockholders, pension funds, and IRAs investing in oil companies) that has a successful quarter, let the public onslaught commence. The most recent attack has been legislatively, when Representative Dennis Kucinich (D–OH) introduced “the Gas Price Spike Act.” The provisions in the bill threaten the entrepreneurial spirit and our system of … More
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