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On Wednesday, the White House announced a long-awaited plan to reduce methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector, with the goal of slashing methane from new and modified oil and gas processing and production facilities by up to 45 percent from 2012 levels by 2025. The administration directed EPA and other agencies to develop rules to meet its goal. President Obama’s methane scheme is an attempt to fix a problem that does not exist. Energy producers have an economic incentive...
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Misinformation abounds at Yale University’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The university’s Project on Climate Change Communication released a new survey that is grabbing headlines but is riddled with flaws. The survey claims that “Republican voters are actually split in their views about climate change,” with a majority of “moderate” Republicans supporting EPA’s proposed rule to “set strict CO2 emission limits on existing coal-fired power plants.” Overall,...
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Channeling their inner Howard Beale, The Oregonian’s editors are mad as Hell with the governor and they aren’t going to take his tax schemes any more. Last week, the editorial board slammed Gov. John Kitzhaber’s plan to raise gasoline costs on Oregon families, which the editors panned as a “global-warming gas tax.” The editorial begins by admonishing gas-tax advocates for deceiving Oregonians:

Gov. John Kitzhaber and other proponents of a low-carbon fuel standard, we wrote last...

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Here’s a story about a billionaire investor and a bankrupt biofuel company with nothing better to do than bilk Mississippi taxpayers. From the Associated Press (via Fuel Fix):

It’s the latest turn in what’s becoming a nasty legal fight between Mississippi and KiOR, which state leaders once hailed as an economic boon for the state. [Mississippi Development Authority] at first cooperated with KiOR’s attempts to reorganize in hopes of maximizing how much money the state could collect...

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The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is out with new data on oil and gas leasing on federal lands—and it isn’t pretty. BLM issued fewer new leases in fiscal year 2014 than in any year since 1988 (though they leased slightly more acres than in 2013). The following chart shows how new BLM oil and gas leases dropped to 1,157 in FY 2014, a 26-year low that continues a long-term trend of depressed energy development on federal lands. As we have pointed out for years, BLM keeps...
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WASHINGTON DC – Today, the American Energy Alliance (AEA) announced the launch of a major education and accountability initiative, the American Energy Scorecard. With energy at the top of the agenda for the 114th Congress, AEA is unveiling the nation’s first and only free-market congressional energy accountability scorecard. The American Energy Scorecard educates lawmakers about the most important energy votes of the year and empowers the American people to hold their elected...
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Institute for Energy Research senior economist Dr. Robert Murphy published a piece today on National Review Online that debunks the conservative case for a carbon tax. The op-ed is a response to a piece written by Dr. Irwin Stelzer in which he calls on conservatives to support a carbon tax. Here's an excerpt from Dr. Murphy's piece:

In his December 29 piece for National Review Online , Irwin Stelzer tries to convince conservatives that they should support a carbon tax because — coupled...

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When you’re an environmentalist and you’ve lost The Washington Post editorial board, it might be time for soul searching. Last week, the same editors who support EPA’s carbon dioxide rules and routinely call for a carbon tax came out against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision to ban hydraulic fracturing in the Empire State, dubbing it “ignoble” and “the wrong approach.” As the editors explain:

State regulators admit they have no proof that fracking has been...

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Governor Jay Inslee has proposed a cap-and-trade program for Washington State that would function much like a carbon tax—except with less accountability. Even on its own terms, suppressing emissions at the state level makes no cost/benefit sense. As the Governor’s own analysis indicates, this is a move to plug a budget deficit. Finally, Washington State residents shouldn’t fall for his rhetoric when downplaying the significant impact they will see in energy prices. Inslee’s Plan...
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