The first rule of Fair-Share Club is you do not talk about Fair-Share club. The second rule of Fair-Share Club is you do NOT talk about Fair-Share Club… NYTimes (5/25/13) reports: “Last week, in a Congressional hearing, Apple got grilled for its low-tax strategy. But not every business can copy that approach. Here is a look at what S.&P. 500 companies paid in corporate income taxes — federal, state, local and foreign — from 2007 to 2012, according to S&P Capital IQ.” Guys...
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Tesla Motors repayed a $465 million dollar loan from the federal government yesterday, nine years ahead of schedule. While being touted as a major success for the future of renewable energy and Zero Emissions Vehicles in particular, the truth behind Tesla’s façade of success is worrisome. The company’s first profitable quarter demonstrates the difficulty of finding real success in an unproven market. Critics have raved about Tesla and its offerings. By any standard, their cars would...
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Here’s the thing. Even if Congress passed us a law that gave us cash to become tall and good-looking, we would still remain balding, overfed, leaping gnomes. So it is with physics. The federal government can’t just incentivize things into existence. The Atlantic  (5/26/13) reports: “Electric car infrastructure company Better Place's move to file bankruptcy today marks the end of the road for a billion-dollar bet that Silicon Valley-style technological disruption could wean the world...
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Did Tesla pay back their loan, or did other people. Wanna guess? WSJ (5/23/13) reports: “Tesla's biggest windfall has been the cash payments it extracts from rival car makers (and their customers), via its sale of zero-emission credits. A number of states including California require that traditional car makers reach certain production quotas of zero-emission vehicles—or to purchase credits if they cannot. Tesla is a main supplier… A Morgan Stanley MS -1.82%report in April said Tesla...
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  The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert recently published a comment entitled “Lines in the Sand ,” arguing that President Obama should not approve the Keystone XL pipeline because of the climate impacts of using oil. Kolbert’s argument is flawed for multiple reasons including the fact that she fails to consider the actual climate impact and the reality that even if the oil is not shipped to the U.S., it will be used anyway—obviating any climate impact of not building the pipeline....
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Ethanol advocates delight in touting the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) as an “American Success Story.” Yet several years after its passage, some in Congress are finally realizing that the RFS stands not as a central-planning success story but as a symbol of misguided government mandates. The RFS requires refiners to blend ever-growing amounts of ethanol into gasoline every year with the goal of blending 36 billion gallons by 2022. To comply with the law, refiners must either blend the...
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We suspect foul play. The birds are fighting back. E&ENews (5/21/13) reports: “Wind turbine manufacturer Siemens AG confirmed that a 170-foot blade fell off a wind turbine at a power plant east of San Diego, causing the company to cease operations of the same type of turbine globally… Residents near the Ocotillo Wind power plant discovered the fallen blade Thursday morning.” The birds are taking out the turbines. We’re taking down the ivory towers (metaphorically speaking, of...
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Guns don’t kill birds; turbines kill birds. IER  (5/20/13) reports: “Besides receiving federal subsidies and other financial incentives, the wind industry is getting special treatment from the Obama Administration: wind farms are allowed to kill protected bird species. The Associated Press has found that the Obama Administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind farm for killing eagles and other protected birds, thus shielding the wind industry from liability. Further, the Obama...
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We’re not surprised, but that doesn’t make this any less unsettling. Washington Examiner  (5/17/13) reports: “Two powerful congressional Republicans want to know more - a lot more - about why and how Environmental Protection Agency officials have for several years erected multiple obstacles to conservative think tanks, media outlets and non-profit activists filing Freedom of Information Act requests with the agency… ‘According to documents obtained by the Committees, EPA readily...
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The George C. Marshall Institute has released a new study from James DeLong outlining what it refers to as “the five circles of Carbon Tax Hell.” The study is very readable and concise (only 34 pages of main text), yet at the same time offers a comprehensive survey of the main problems with a carbon tax. Although DeLong uses colorful metaphors (such as “Carbon Tax Hell”), even so he wades into technical subtleties in the policy debate, and does a good job breaking them down for the...

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