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Under a settlement agreement with environmentalists, Federal regulators will review oil and gas leases going back to 2019 to see whether their impact on climate change was properly addressed and to consider the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions in the analysis. The Biden administration agreed to review 56,000 acres  of oil and gas leases in Montana and North Dakota issued by the Trump administration in 2019 and 2020. Federal law requires agencies to consider climate change in their...

Politicians and environmentalists claim an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but in reality, world coal demand for power generation continues to increase and carbon dioxide emissions from the electric sector continue to grow. In 2021, those emissions were 5.9 percent higher than  in 2020. Over half the growth in electricity demand in 2021 was generated by coal, with non-hydro renewable energy providing just 32 percent. So, overall growth in global electricity demand in 2021 was...

Last week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), an unelected regulatory body, announced a plan to try to force the state’s car fleet to change over to electric vehicles. The plan seeks to ban the sale of new purely hydrocarbon-fueled cars in California by the year 2035. The plan will be very expensive, is completely impractical, and is certain to fail, as even CARB seems to acknowledge by reserving the right to amend the targets if the market fails to respond to their diktat. The...

Last week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), an unelected regulatory body, announced a plan to try to force the state’s car fleet to change over to electric vehicles. The plan seeks to ban the sale of new purely hydrocarbon-fueled cars in California by the year 2035. The plan will be very expensive, is completely impractical, and is certain to fail, as even CARB seems to acknowledge by reserving the right to amend the targets if the market fails to respond to their diktat. The...

Last week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), an unelected regulatory body, announced a plan to try to force the state’s car fleet to change over to electric vehicles. The plan seeks to ban the sale of new purely hydrocarbon-fueled cars in California by the year 2035. The plan will be very expensive, is completely impractical, and is certain to fail, as even CARB seems to acknowledge by reserving the right to amend the targets if the market fails to respond to their diktat. The...

Europe’s electricity and natural gas prices are skyrocketing.  European electricity prices are now the equivalent of $1,000 per barrel of oil. It is easy to blame Russia, and Russia’s actions deserve a lot of blame, but Europe has been warned for forty years by American presidents from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, that relying on Russia for energy is dangerous.   

But Europe’s problem is not just Russia. Europe has placed little value on the reliability of the grid (without...

In the 1989 hit film, Field of Dreams, Iowa farmer, Ray Kinsella, hears a voice telling him, “If you build it, he will come.”  In a totally irrational move, Ray plows under a chunk of his corn crop and builds a baseball field.  Magic ensues.  In DC, and around the world, the policymakers seem to be hearing a voice encouraging a twist on this craziness, “If you destroy them, it will come.”

In this energy-policy script, the transition to clean, abundant, affordable, renewable...

Senator Joe Manchin is seeking a bill on permitting reform this fiscal year that could help accelerate wind- and solar-power projects as well as pipelines for oil and gas. Utility energy projects such as power transmission lines and offshore wind farms as well as oil and gas pipeline projects can be delayed for years and costs increased due to opposition from environmentalists and court challenges. Building a power line spanning several states, for example, can now take about a decade , up...

Mexico’s newest oil refinery is not yet operational since it is behind schedule and over budget, but President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced the refinery as a centerpiece to his goal of securing Mexico’s energy independence, which President Trump had secured for Americans in 2019 and which President Biden is destroying through his energy and climate policies. Mexico is ignoring (as are China, Russia and India) President Biden’s goals of ending the use of oil and natural gas ,...

Biden’s climate and tax bill, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, and last year’s infrastructure law will supposedly cut emissions by 40 percent by 2030—close to Mr. Biden’s goal of cutting emissions roughly in half by then, according to Biden’s Department of Energy. To close the gap between DOE’s estimates and Biden’s promises, the White House intends to pursue new regulations  through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The new climate and tax bill provides billions...