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Last month I wrote a post titled, “Climate Change Crowd Moves Goalposts—Again.” I was referring to the rhetorical strategy of de-emphasizing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a metric for gauging the impact of climate change. I speculated that this was because the climate change activists recognized that on the original terms of the debate—as staked out in the IPCC reports, for example—their case was quite weak. Somebody who knew how to actually read the latest IPCC report would see...
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As biofuels lobbyists and the Obama Administration are battling over the final numbers for the 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard, the Administration is attempting to prop up the biofuels industry through military purchasing. The Administration recently announced they would be granting $210 million in military contracts to spur the creation of commercial scale biofuels by constructing three biorefineries to produce “drop-in” biofuels.[1] This is not the first time the federal government has...
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Despite the brutal bipartisan legislative defeat in 2009 of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, there continue to be policymakers who want to impose a carbon tax. This time, the failures of current tax incentives and proposed regulations that attempt to lower our carbon dioxide emissions and encourage renewable energy are the impetus for the imposition of a carbon tax.  But as we have explained many times, carbon taxes are economically harmful, not matter how they are dressed up. ...
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Electricity prices are the result of a number of choices over time. States that choose to build a lot of coal-fired and large hydroelectric power plants generally have low-electricity prices, while states that are imposing restrictions on coal and other sources of electricity generation have higher prices. New York, which has the third highest electricity rates in the country, has proposed a surcharge on electricity which will only increase electricity costs for New Yorkers.

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A recent study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that neither hydraulic fracturing nor horizontal drilling is contaminating drinking water near well sites. This adds to a growing body of research showing that hydraulic fracturing is a safe way to access natural gas and oil. National Academy of Sciences Study Lead researcher and earth science professor Thomas Darrah found, “no unequivocal evidence” that gas in large quantities had migrated from...
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Nine months after the deadline, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finally sent its final 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) volume requirements to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. The RFS requires refiners to blend a certain percentage of renewable fuels into the gasoline supply. The countdown is on for one last big lobbying push by renewable fuel interests push for higher requirements than what was included in EPA’s proposed 2014 RFS rule. EPA...

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