Energy

Mac Owens has a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Blame Congress for High Oil Prices.” A sample: To understand the depth of congressional complicity in the high price of gasoline, one must understand that crude oil prices explain 97% of the variation in the pretax price of gasoline. That price, which has risen to…

Under Justin’s post, Mark Steyn observes … if the House of Representatives has now declared it “illegal” for the government of Saudi Arabia to restrict oil production, why is it still legal for the Government of the United States to restrict oil production? In fact, the government of the United States restricts pretty much every…

Although the Democrats deserve some credit for taking a decidedly non-blame America first position here, I still don’t get how you could realistically enforce any penalty associated with this proposed law (short of say, declaring war) passed by the U.S House of Representatives yesterday…The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice…

Michael Zey’s op-ed, yesterday, enunciates the factors indicating that the United States of America is just not that interested in developing energy independence — much less developing energy as an export industry. As the Platts report plainly states, without a growing energy supply, countries face “declining growth rates, diminished standards of living, and growing transfer…

On the blog of Set America Free(*), a coalition of individuals and non-profit organizations dedicated to promoting progress toward American energy security, Robert Zubrin, author of Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror and Breaking Free of Foreign Oil, challenges the idea that ethanol production is to blame for any recent increases in food prices…

From a New York Times editorial almost two months ago: The world’s food situation is bleak, and shortsighted policies in the United States and other wealthy countries — which are diverting crops to environmentally dubious biofuels — bear much of the blame. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the price of wheat…

The topic is energy production, but the implications are much broader for the cast of characters who call Rhode Island, and New England, home. Exhibit A: The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has given final state approval to a Somerset power plant to use a new technology called coal plasma gasification. State environmental officials say…

Not too long ago, I addressed the security aspects of the pending energy legislation in the Christian Science Monitor. Today, I examine some of the economic consequences of the legislation in the ProJo. Despite the attempt to appeal to environmentalists and advocates of “fairy dust” energy sources, aka “renewable energy,” this bill, like most energy…

Congress is considering energy legislation that will create some very bad outcomes. One of the worst will be to make the United States less secure when it comes to access to energy. I addressed this issue Friday in the Christian Science Monitor. A longer and more detailed version of my argument is over on the…

Megan McArdle of the Asymmetrical Information blog identifies the major limitation of what’s supposed to be Rhode Island’s high-speed rail link to the rest of the Eastern seaboard…Why is America’s high-speed rail so dreadful? The Acela delivers you, at enormous added expense, to Boston one hour ahead of the regional. On the DC-to-NY run, the…