News

  WASHINGTON D.C. — IER President Thomas Pyle sent a letter today to four congressional chairmen calling for an “immediate, exhaustive and unyielding” investigation of the Defense Department’s decision to fuel naval exercises in the Pacific ocean using biofuels that cost $27 per gallon. The letter was sent to Chairman Buck McKeon of the House Armed Services Committee, Chairman Carl Levin of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Chairman Darrell Issa of the House Oversight Committee,...
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  The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Renewable Identification Numbers, RINs, are causing the refining industry a lot of grief and the American public a lot of money.  If nothing changes, the grief and the money wasted could grow rapidly, damaging the economy and family budgets. RINs are a byproduct of the Renewable Fuels Standard that mandates a certain amount of biofuels (e.g. ethanol) to be produced and used by refiners each year. The purpose of RINs is to track biofuel...
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  The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) was ecstatic over the recent appellate court ruling, upholding the EPA’s power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act. Yet the NRDC’s description misleads the innocent reader on several crucial points. Contrary to their claims, federal regulations in the energy and transportation sectors won’t help the economy, and the EPA’s own projections of climate benefits are quite humorous. Here’s the gist of the NRDC...
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  The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations recently released a scathing memo on Section 1603 of the Obama stimulus plan. The grant program, administered by the Department of Energy, was frequently touted as a way to create “green jobs” while simultaneously benefiting the environment. Yet the new memo documents that the program was a complete flop on the jobs front, which should come as no surprise. The Scope and Alleged Benefits of the Program Section 1603 offered cash...
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  The BlueGreen Alliance has released a new study arguing that tighter fuel economy standards on cars and light trucks will not only mitigate climate change, but will also create jobs. As with most studies in the “green jobs” literature, this one too rests on faulty economic analysis. The federal government doesn’t do consumers any favors by restricting their options in the marketplace. The BlueGreen Alliance study at least has the honesty to admit—albeit in a very low-key...
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  WASHINGTON D.C. -- On breaking news that a congressional conference report for the transportation bill will not include a provision forcing the approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement: "House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Leader Harry Reid seem ready to push a major, multi-billion dollar transportation and infrastructure bill through both chambers just in time to meet a deadline this weekend. But nowhere in the...
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  A new study put out by the Western States Petroleum Association concludes that California’s statewide cap-and-trade plan, known as AB32, would raise gasoline prices and shut down refineries. The study, performed by the Boston Consulting Group, affirms basic economics by realizing that government regulations will raise the cost of business and necessarily impact retail prices and jobs. This is a welcome dose of common sense in a sea of rhetoric arguing that climate change regulations...
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  Click here to Take Action and write your Congressman. America is blessed with abundant and affordable energy resources, and we need to increase energy production to grow our economy and create more jobs. Unnecessary red tape, inefficient permitting processes and lack of access to federal lands have made American energy production more expensive for consumers and businesses, especially on federal lands and waters.  In fact, the Congressional Research Service reported that 96% of the...
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  WASHINGTON DC -- The Institute for Energy Research, in a joint venture with The Heritage Foundation, released today a video telling the story of economic freedom, energy abundance, and job creation that are happening in North Dakota's oil-rich Bakken shale formation. "A Fracking Miracle" provides first-person narratives of lives transformed, record employment, and economies bolstered by sensible state regulation, private land ownership, and safe drilling technologies. "North Dakota is...
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  WASHINGTON D.C. — The American Energy Alliance released a video today exposing the failure of renewable energy mandates that raise the cost of producing and consuming transportation fuels in the United States. The "Phantom Fuels"video tells the story of cellulosic biofuel, a plant-based fuel source that is not commercially available despite federal law requiring refiners to blend 8.65 million gallons of it this year. Failure to blend the non-existent biofuel cost refiners $6.8 million...
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