Tier 3 Standards

  Available for download: Wind PTC IRS Fact Sheet. For a more in-depth discussion of this important issue, read The Ever-Expanding Wind PTC at the website of the Institute for Energy Research.
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On these pages, we have been chronicling the sad saga of alternative-fuel company KiOR, which is facing class action lawsuits and an SEC investigation because it allegedly misled investors about the plausibility of its biofuel production targets. In the present post we’ll summarize the latest developments, which show that KiOR is teetering on the edge of collapse but has gotten a last-minute stay of execution. Last month, KiOR stock fell 39 percent (the biggest drop on record since the...
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For decades, principled defenders of free energy markets have pointed out the absurdities of government support for biofuels. The decentralized market system provides the proper feedback—in the form of the profit/loss test—to investors to determine the correct mix of various sources in the country’s overall energy output. If it really made economic sense produce over 14 billion gallons of ethanol in 2014, then it wouldn’t take government interference to force that outcome. The fact...
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This year marks the complete phase-out of the traditional incandescent light bulb. Starting on January 1, it effectively became illegal to manufacture or import the good old-fashioned light bulb in the United States, though stores are still allowed to sell down their pre-existing inventories. Specifically, provisions in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act phased in energy-efficiency standards for light bulbs of various wattages that incandescent bulbs can’t achieve. The...
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On March 21, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the American Trucking Associations (ATA), and the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The LCFS came about in 2006, after the California Legislature passed and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 32 , the Global Warming Solutions Act. AB 32 set a goal of reducing...
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U.S. oil production averaged 7.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2013, reaching the highest levels since 1989, according to new data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Domestic oil production hit 7.9 million bpd in December 2013, an 11 percent increase compared to December 2012. The following chart shows U.S. oil production between 1989 and 2013. Meanwhile, on the federal OCS, production again went down. Domestic oil output rose by 966,000 bpd—15 percent—between...
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The Institute for Energy Research (IER) has formally submitted its Comment  to the Office of Management and Budget on the Obama Administration’s use of the “social cost of carbon” as an input for federal regulatory action. This is a crucial topic that may significantly influence energy policy. Those who want the full details should click the link and read our full Comment, but in a series of posts I will walk IER readers through the most important points we raised. In our Comment, we...
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President Obama just released his fiscal 2015 budget[i]  that spends lavishly on his pet projects including his epically-misnamed “all of the above” energy program. But, instead of keeping miners in their coal jobs that historically supplied the nation with most of its electricity, he is putting his dollars on ‘clean coal and natural gas’; instead of opening more federal lands to oil and gas drilling, he is taking away standard tax deductions as applied to the oil industry and...
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On Monday, March 3, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its Tier 3 regulations requiring U.S. refineries to further reduce their sulfur emissions from 30 parts per million to 10 parts per million beginning in 2017. EPA claims that to further reduce sulfur emissions would only increase gasoline prices by a fraction of a cent, but gasoline prices in the real world and the refinery industry refutes that claim. EPA says this plan follows California—and California has the...
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A recent article in the LA Times by Jon Healey discusses the proposal by California State Senate President Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) to exempt fossil fuel producers from California’s cap-and-trade system, and instead impose a carbon tax on fuels. Even though this move (in theory) might make energy prices less volatile, it would still raise them, and thereby hurt California residents. Moreover, any carbon scheme (whether cap-and-trade or a straight tax) would do little to curb...
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