Regulation
Drive a Stake Through Ethanol’s Heart!
Okay, that’s even worse than a mixed metaphor: that’s a Friedmanism. But it still applies today. Reuters reports: Two U.S. governors asked the United States government on Tuesday to waive this year’s mandate for making ethanol from corn, adding pressure on it to relieve meat producers from high corn prices spurred by the worst drought …
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CONTINUE READINGCan We Evaluate the Likely Effects of Safety Regulation Before the Regulation is Implemented?
California’s DTSC is proposing important new consumer product safety regulation. The details about this regulation are posted here. My prospective economic analysis of the regulation is posted here. An earlier draft of this analysis was co-written with Professor J.R DeShazo of UCLA.
CONTINUE READINGBREAKING NEWS: Another West Coast Win for PACE Energy Financing
Almost a year later, California wins again in the effort to reverse a federal agency’s 2010 decision that decimated PACE, a promising financing program for residential energy efficiency and renewable investments. Federal District Court Judge Claudia Wilken ruled today that the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) violated the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) notice-and-comment requirement when …
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CONTINUE READINGElectricity Prices and “Green Economy” Regulation
What is the relationship between pursuing an aggressive renewable portfolio standard and residential electricity prices? Here is what the San Francisco Chronicle (not a Romney newspaper) has to say: Going green: San Francisco’s plan to “go green” will likely cost the typical city consumer about $9 more a month – with most of the money going …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornians and the Environment: PPIC’s New Survey Results
The Public Policy Institute of California this week released the results of its 12th annual “Californians and the Environment” survey. PPIC, a non-partisan think tank, always seems to be generating thought-provoking and cutting-edge scholarship focusing on the nation-state of California. Its latest environmental survey, based on recent polling of 2500 Californians, continues that tradition. The …
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CONTINUE READINGLaw School News: Sunstein Returns to Harvard
The White House announced that Cass Sunstein will be leaving OMB at the end of the month to return to Harvard Law School. Sunstein was not popular with environmentalists– I have heard people say that he was worse than some of the OMB heads who served under Republican presidents. He also doesn’t seem to have …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat Did Romney Believe and When Did He Believe It?
Two days ago, I posted documentation about Romney’s views about climate change. Today, I want to discuss where he’s been consistent and when he has changed course. What’s causing climate change? Romney has been consistent in saying that the climate is changing. In terms of the reasons, however, he’s been cautious, hedging to varying degrees …
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CONTINUE READINGOverdrafting California’s Groundwater Resources–A Chronic Condition
A recently issued study by a University of Texas-led group of research scientists confirm a discomforting fact: groundwater resources in California’s Central Valley are being depleted at an alarming rate. As reported in the Sacramento Bee, the study warns that current groundwater extraction rates from the Central Valley aquifer–which is primarily mined to serve agricultural …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Politics of State Energy Deregulation: A Hypothesis
If you are interested in environmental policy, state public utility commissions might be the important agencies you’ve never heard of. PUCs determine how much power capacity there will be and even more importantly, what the mix of energy sources will generate it. Sometimes pundits will speak of “national energy policy”, but that is essentially a null set: …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Economist on Natural Gas: Slouching Toward Mediocrity
I was quite interested in finding last week that The Economist’s most recent major survey is about natural gas. Given the explosion of natural gas resources (uh…so to speak) and the world’s growing reliance on it, I needed to get up to speed. Besides, from a climate perspective, getting the fracking issue right is crucial. …
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