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Posts Tagged ‘energy’
January 31st, 2023 at 10:41 am
Climate Activists Can’t Be Allowed to Politicize FERC
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In an op-ed published today by the Washington Times, CFIF Senior Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs writes:

In our relentlessly expanding regulatory state, where administrative agencies regularly succumb to pressure from hyperpartisan activists, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has historically remained a rare exception above the fray. Unlike such flashpoint agencies as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, the FERC rarely receives popular focus. More recently, however, climate extremists have targeted the FERC and sought to poison the traditionally uncontroversial but vital federal commission. (emphasis added)

Read the entire op-ed here.

October 3rd, 2022 at 1:08 pm
Image of the Day: Biden’s “Make America an Energy Importer Again” Presidency
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What was once a decades-long dream became reality during the Trump Administration, as the U.S. finally became an energy exporter again.  As Laffer Associates highlights, Joe Biden has inexplicably put that into reverse gear, and now gas prices are on their way back up.  This is progress?

Biden's Reverse-Midas Touch on Energy

Joe Biden’s Reverse-Midas Touch on Energy

 

September 8th, 2022 at 1:04 pm
Image of the Day: Biden’s War On Drilling
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Joe Biden has leased fewer acres for oil and gas drilling than any other president.  Don’t dare suggest that he bears any responsibility for skyrocketing energy prices during his presidency, though.

Biden Administration's War on Drilling

Biden Administration’s War on Drilling

May 10th, 2022 at 9:46 am
Image of the Day: Taxpayers Really Fuel EV Programs
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We recently sounded the alarm on how the Biden Administration, political left and crony capitalist big business interests are coalescing on an idea almost too bizarre to be real:  heaping new carbon taxes on traditional energy sources in order to “reduce energy costs.”  We subsequently illustrated one of the main reasons for that novel ploy:  so-called “green” energy sources are non-competitive without government intervention to artificially make more efficient fossil fuel sources more costly.  Courtesy of economist Stephen Moore, we have another biting illustration of that dynamic:

Taxpayers Power

Taxpayers Power “Green” EV Initiatives

 

There’s nothing wrong with electric vehicles, and in fact they offer a promising future technology.  But that should occur via market forces and consumer choice, not artificial government costs and subsidies paid by strapped taxpayers.

April 29th, 2022 at 9:30 am
Image of the Day: High Cost of “Green” Energy Explains Leftist Calls for Carbon Tax
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In our Liberty Update this week, CFIF highlights a bizarre new crony capitalist idea to introduce a carbon tax that some entrenched interests in Washington, D.C., have begun to advocate.  Even more bizarrely, they sell their proposal to begin taxing energy as a way to reduce energy costs.  You can’t make this up.

Courtesy of economist Stephen Moore, we have an illustration that helps explain their motivation.  Namely, “green” energy is far more expensive than more efficient fuel sources.  Accordingly, they need to tax those more efficient fuel sources in order to make their “green” energy boondoggles more acceptable by comparison:

Why Climate Activists Want a New Carbon Tax

Why Climate Extremists Want a New Carbon Tax

January 28th, 2022 at 2:08 pm
Here We Go Again: Some In Congress Seek to Further Demonize Oil and Gas Industry
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Here we go again.  House Oversight and Government Reform Committee members want to once again summon oil and gas companies to Capitol Hill. After making a show with energy CEO’s last October, they now want to fill the stage with company Board members, including activist Exxon Mobil Board Member Andy Karsner. Committee leaders are adding to the partisanship by preemptively threatening to subpoena Board members if they don’t show up.

This is just the latest round of political theater from Committee Democrats. The last “Big Oil” hearing featured the same four energy producers for a 6-hour marathon that was more political grandstanding than it was oversight. Their playbook is clear: demonize American energy producers, silence industry input and play to their political base.

We’ve seen this movie before, here’s the trailer:

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November 1st, 2021 at 9:20 am
WSJ’s Holman Jenkins on Congressional Climate Extremist Emperors’ Lack of Intellectual Clothing
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Late last week we highlighted how some far-left climate radicals in Congress mindlessly, obsessively and ostentatiously continue to demonize domestic energy producers – who achieved what was once considered fantasy by securing U.S. energy independence and lowering energy costs for American consumers – even while they and the Biden Administration beg OPEC and Russia to increase petroleum production.  The Wall Street Journal’s always-insightful Holman Jenkins brilliantly notes the proverbial emperor’s lack of clothing on that same Congressional obsession:

 

As it cyclically does, the hypocrisy show returned this week to ‘Big Oil.’  To cover up the political class’s, and particularly Joe Biden’s, inability to do anything meaningful about climate change, a House hearing on Thursday accused industry CEOs of blocking action as if somehow the pennies they spent on advocacy could haven countered the 30-year torrent of climate-change propaganda coming from governments, universities, green lobbyists and scientific organizations.  ‘They are obviously lying like the tobacco executives were,’ intoned Rep. Carolyn Maloney, in windup-toy fashion.  This line she was guaranteed to utter no matter what was said at the hearing (in fact, executives repeated what their companies had long said about the risks of climate change and the lack of alternatives to fossil fuels).

Most of us would be repulsed to behave the way politicians routinely do, which brings us to an unexpected counterpoint.  For want of something shiny to wave at next week’s global climate summit, and not too discerning about what it was, President Biden caused the U.S. intelligence services to gin up a new climate assessment.  Lo, the result is notable mainly for its skepticism about the kind of summits Mr. Biden will be attending…

At least one establishment institution has stopped paying lip service to the pipe dream that the world will give up fossil fuels on a timespan relevant to our climate risks.”

 

 

March 1st, 2021 at 10:26 am
Image of the Day: “Green” Energy Hogs Taxpayer Subsidies
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In our latest Liberty Update we explain how Texas highlights the peril of the stubborn “green” energy agenda.  Economist Stephen Moore continues his fantastic work by illustrating how “green” energy, not fossil fuels, irrationally hogs taxpayer subsidies:

[N]ow the left is recirculating its myth that fossil fuels require massive taxpayer subsidies. In psychology, this is called “projecting” – when you accuse someone else of deviant behavior that applies to yourself. In reality for every kilowatt of power generated, wind gets about 10 times more taxpayer subsidies and solar gets 50 to 100 times more handouts than fossil fuels”:

 

“Green” Taxpayer Subsidy Hogs

February 18th, 2021 at 10:52 pm
Notable Quote: Green Energy Fables About Texas Power Outages
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As usual, The Wall Street Journal editorial board provides a North Star on how “the wind industry and its advocates are spinning a fable that gas, coal and nuclear plants – not their frozen turbines – are to blame” for Texas power outages:

Between 12:00 a.m. on Feb. 8 and Feb. 16, wind power plunged 93% while coal increased 47% and gas 450%, according to the EIA.  Yet the renewable energy industry and its media mouthpieces are tarring gas, coal and nuclear because they didn’t operate at 100% of their expected potential during the Arctic blast, even though wind turbines failed nearly 100%…  Politicians and regulators don’t want to admit this because they have been taking nuclear and coal plants offline to please the lords of climate change.  But the public pays the price when blackouts occur because climate obeisance has made the grid too fragile.  We’ve warned about this for years, and here we are.”  [emphasis added]

There’s a place for wind, solar and other “green” energy sources, but not on the basis of taxpayer subsidy or regulatory mandate, and the Texas experience reconfirms that the old reliables – coal, gas and nuclear – remain central to meeting America’s power needs.

September 24th, 2019 at 9:53 am
Image of the Day: Give It Some Thought, Climate Fanatics
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In our latest Liberty Update, we celebrate the environmental, economic, geostrategic and employment benefits of the American fracking revolution.  Today’s “Pepper… and Salt” comic from The Wall Street Journal offers another poignant perspective for climate fanatics to ponder:

Food for Thought, Climate Fanatics

Food for Thought, Climate Fanatics

 

 

February 26th, 2019 at 3:13 pm
Want “Green Energy?” Go Nuclear
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Amid public ridicule of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal” monstrosity, The Wall Street Journal includes a brilliant commentary in today’s edition addressing a truly beneficial way to advance safe, reliable, carbon-free energy – nuclear.   Importantly, authors John Rie and Alan Emery detail nuclear energy’s remarkable safety record through the decades:

Is nuclear power generation dangerous?  The only major nuclear accident in the U.S. — Three Mile Island, in 1979—caused neither death nor increase in cancer areawide.  The 2011 ‘disaster’ at the Fukushima plant in Japan also directly caused neither deaths nor disease from exposure to radiation.

World-wide, there have been fewer than 150 deaths from nuclear plants, mostly from the 1986 Chernobyl accident, in which bad design and a series of operator errors led to a significant release of radiation into the environment.  Thanks to the Soviet government’s attempt to keep it secret, lifesaving efforts such as the provision of iodine pills to local residents never happened.  For comparison, according to a 2012 World Health Organization report, urban outdoor air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels and biomass is estimated to cause three million deaths world-wide each year.”

It’s an excellent piece worth reading in full, not least for its corrective of the all-too-common myth that nuclear power somehow maintains a comparatively weak safety record.

September 5th, 2017 at 3:42 pm
Image of the Day: Drill, Baby, Drill
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Remember when leftists lectured Americans that we couldn’t drill our way to energy independence?

On May 27, 2010, Barack Obama preened, “You never heard me say, ‘Drill, baby, drill.  Because we can’t drill our way out of the problem.”

Well…

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U.S. Becomes Net Exporter

U.S. Becomes Net Exporter

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July 7th, 2017 at 11:19 am
Image of the Day: U.S. Petroleum Supremacy
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Answering the call for greater American energy independence, and refuting false claims of “peak oil,” America over the past decade has applied its famed ingenuity to lead the world in petroleum production.  Drill, baby, drill!

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Drill, Baby, Drill

Drill, Baby, Drill

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June 2nd, 2017 at 4:46 pm
PSC Confirmation Hearing Offers New York State Senators Opportunity to Demand Answers and Changes to Cuomo’s “Clean Energy Standard” Boondoggle
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Since its inception last August, CFIF has been exposing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s crony-capitalist, costly, climate alarmist “Clean Energy Standard” (CES) boondoggle imposed by the state’s Public Service Commission (PSC) composed entirely of his personal appointees.

Now, there’s a perfect opportunity for state senators to hold Cuomo accountable and expose for state residents the unfairness, expense and tawdry cronyism of the entire crumbling program.

By way of refresher, Cuomo’s CES scheme mandates that fully half of all state energy be generated by carbon-neutral plants in just over a decade.  The cost?  A whopping $1 billion in just its first two years, and $8 billion over its entire term.  And how is it a perfect example of crony capitalism, which can rot our democratic process?  Well, because the CES plan’s subsidies will go to a single company named Exelon, which owns financially unsustainable upstate nuclear plants.  The plan is so objectionable that opposition has been fierce and bipartisan, with environmental groups attacking it as an “$8 billion bailout of three upstate nuclear power plants.”

Strong stuff.

Next week, however, Cuomo’s nominee for new PSC chairman, John Rhodes, will appear before the state senate’s energy committee as part of his confirmation process.  At that hearing, state senators must hold Cuomo accountable for the CES’s runaway costs to taxpayers, get answers regarding the plan’s failures and demand a commitment to reverse or at least confine costs to areas of the state in which the relevant plants are situated.  Additionally, senators can ask on behalf of taxpayers how it’s remotely fair for residents of Long Island to pay for plants like Shoreham located six or more hours away without burden-sharing from the remainder of the state.  It makes no sense in terms of fairness, cost or efficiency.

Less than a year into this boondoggle, the CES plan is already collapsing.  Accordingly, state senators should get to the core of the problem, demand answers and require mitigation of damages.  Because state taxpayers who will pay the price are watching.

January 10th, 2017 at 5:04 pm
CFIF Submits FOIA Requests on Dakota Access Pipeline Decision
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Tribal Chairman’s sister previously worked at the White House and Department of Interior

ALEXANDRIA, VA – Over recent days, the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) has sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to five government agencies seeking information on communications between officials at those agencies and Jodi Gillette, the sister of the Chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Dave Archambault.

“There have been a lot of rumors about the backroom dealings that led to the Administration’s decision to not issue the final easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline,” said Timothy Lee, CFIF’s Senior Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs.  “We would hope that the self-purported ‘most transparent Administration in history’ would provide the American people with the background and information that went into this important decision to halt an infrastructure project that had already been approved and was more than 90 percent complete.”

From the FOIA requests:

There is growing concern about the relationship between Dave Archambault II’s sister, Jodi Gillette, and the Obama Administration.  Mr. Archambault is the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (SRST) and a critic of the project.  Ms. Gillette is a former senior advisor to the President and Secretary of the Interior, and is currently a lobbyist on behalf of the Standing Rock Sioux with Sonosky, Chambers, Chambers, Endreson & Perry, LLP.  We seek to ensure that Mr. Archambault and Ms. Gillette haven’t wielded improper influence over the Administration’s policies that have resulted in delays in the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline project

I request access to and copies of all records since February 1, 2016, related in any way to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and Jodi Gillette. This request includes, but is not limited to, all emails, other correspondence, correspondence logs, records of meetings, records of appointments and visitor logs.

CFIF sent the FOIA requests to the Departments of Interior, Justice and Energy, as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Army Corps of Engineers.

“Due to the scope of the project and the consequences of the Administration’s decision, we are currently reviewing other potential FOIA requests on the matter,” Mr. Lee added.

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September 15th, 2016 at 10:05 pm
New York’s “Clean Energy” Bailout Scheme
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In an interview with CFIF, Ken Girardin, Communications and Marketing Manager at the Empire Center for Public Policy, discusses New York Governor Cuomo’s so-called Clean Energy Standard, how it will force electricity ratepayers to subsidize money-losing nuclear plants and costly windmills, solar panel farms, and why taxpayers outside of New York should be concerned as well.

Listen to the interview here.

June 10th, 2016 at 10:28 am
Video: The Dark Side of Green Energy
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In this installment of the Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses a proposed new “green energy” rule by President Obama’s Fish and Wildlife Service that would permit wind energy companies to kill or injure up to 4,200 bald eagles per year without incurring significant penalties, an increase of nearly four times the current limit.

May 10th, 2016 at 1:13 pm
CFIF Joins Massive Coalition Opposing EPA Ozone Standard
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The Center for Individual Freedom this week joined with a coalition of 60 conservative organizations, led by Americans for Prosperity, on a letter to the chairmen of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, urging them to take action against the Environmental Protection Agency’s Ozone Standard and change the rulemaking process under which it was adopted.

The coalition specifically endorsed the Ozone Standards Implementation Act of 2016 (H.R. 4775, S. 2882), legislation that would force the EPA to consider the costs of tightening ozone standards when it proposes such rules and will soften the burden on states to comply with new standards now and moving forward, among other things.

The coalition letter reads in part:

On behalf of the 60 organizations listed below and the millions of Americans represented, we urge you to take action on the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for Ozone and to reform the rulemaking process for ozone and other pollutants regulated under NAAQS. Without changes to the ozone regulation and reform of the rulemaking process, economic activity could be brought to a standstill in many areas across the country.

Read the entire letter here.

February 13th, 2015 at 12:10 pm
Shedding Light on Solar Handouts
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In an interview with CFIF, Michi Iljazi, Communications and Policy Manager at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, discusses how rooftop solar companies are cashing in on government handouts at the expense of taxpayers, how the subsidies hamper efforts to achieve real energy independence, and why we should oppose gas tax increases.

Listen to the interview here.

January 6th, 2015 at 4:23 pm
Senate GOP Eyes Keystone XL Approval

Now in the majority, GOP Senators are moving quickly to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, a transcontinental project that would link Canadian oil to refineries in American Gulf states.

“The president is going to see the Keystone XL pipeline on his desk and it’s going to be a bellwether decision by the president whether to go with jobs and the economy,” Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), said on Sunday.

President Barack Obama has played games with the approval process over the past few years. Initially, his State Department supported the project and was ready to go forward until environmental activists successfully lobbied for delaying tactics, such as additional feasibility studies.

Without a Democratic Senate running interference, Obama will now have to govern. Though it prefers to partner with the United States, Canada has said it will export its oil to China if the Obama administration remains beholden to the environmental lobby.

The truth of the matter is that the oil is being pumped and its $3.4 billion economic contribution will have to go somewhere. Ultimately, Obama’s decision boils down to whether he wants Canadian oil to boost the American economy or China’s.