Solar Energy International (SEI) and Red Cloud Renewable Launch Tribal Train the Trainer Program

SEI is proud to once again join hands with Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center (RCR), bringing advanced solar PV expertise, with an accessible technical curriculum that puts power into the hands of learners.  Our ‘Train the Trainer’ model creates a new web of skillful solar trainers, equipped to initiate solar teaching and related projects in their own communities.

Collaboratively, with generous support from All Points North Foundation, the project will provide in-depth training, equipment, curriculum, and mentored co-teaching to a cohort of Native Americans selected from across the Great Plains tribes.  Learning will take place both at SEI’s Colorado campus, as well as Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center.  Participants will also have the opportunity to sit for NABCEP certification, and expand their skills and opportunity networks.  In the words of Henry Red Cloud, RCR Manager, “additional hands-on training is needed for these solar warriors to understand and implement the technical aspects of solar electric within their communities as they increase adoption and scale of solar PV.”

RCR is one of the first 100% Native American owned-and-operated renewable companies in the nation. It is located on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  Their campus includes the Sacred Earth Lodge, which welcomes visitors, and provides ongoing learning related to green building, food sovereignty, and much needed solar furnaces.

There are 567 federally recognized Native American and Alaskan Native Tribes in the United States. In these communities, native people suffer from extremely high rates of poverty and unemployment. On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, home to Henry, Red Cloud Renewable and the Oglala Lakota, over 40 percent of residents live without access to electricity.

We thank All Points North Foundation for believing in systems-change through solar potentials.  Supporting skill development through Train the Trainer creates a powerful opportunity to improve quality of life, create jobs, and expand renewable energy.  Read more: http://bit.ly/2IzzZWh

#AllPointsNorthFoundation

 

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Electric Vehicle Subsidies are Costly, Unnecessary, and Unfair

IER Comment on proposed Modification to Fuel Regulations: Provide Flexibility for E15

The following comment was submitted by Kenneth Stein, Director of Policy, on behalf of the Institute for Energy Research regarding Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-0775-0002

The Institute for Energy Research strongly opposes this proposed rulemaking. The EPA assertion of authority for taking this proposed action fails for the below reasons. Should EPA seek to move forward with this rulemaking, the reviewing court should find EPA actions unlawful as in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority or limitations with regard to the attempted amendments to 42 U.S.C. 7545 (h)(4) and as an abuse of discretion with regard to newly broadened waiver authority claimed from 42 U.S.C. 7545 (f)(4).

Whatever the political desires of the current administration, the plain language of existing statute conflicts with the interpretations and authorities asserted in this proposed rule. The proper venue for the statutory amendments sought in this rulemaking is the constitutional legislative process.

EPA seeks to unilaterally amend statute.

Simply put, the proposed rule effectively purports to read the specific term “10 percent” out of statute. 42 U.S.C. 7545(h)(4) (hereafter (h)(4)) provides for an ethanol waiver of 1 psi above the otherwise generally applicable Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) limits. This waiver is available for “For fuel blends containing gasoline and 10 percent denatured anhydrous ethanol,” language passed by Congress into law in 1990 with the Clean Air Act (CAA) amendments. Since then, this 10 percent language has been uniformly interpreted as a maximum threshold for ethanol blends which qualify for this RVP waiver.

However in this proposed rule, EPA now arbitrarily announces that this 10 percent, which has always been understood as a maximum, shall now be considered a minimum. EPA now asserts that “10 percent” is ambiguous, even though for nearly 30 years that term has not been so understood. EPA offers no rational or textual basis for this reinterpretation, because there is none. This is an arbitrary political decision, not one based on a genuine belief that the 30-year long interpretation was mistaken.

EPA gives away its intent quite clearly in that it does not even attempt to resolve a glaring logical flaw in its claimed new interpretation. If the term “10 percent” is now to be a minimum for ethanol blends, as this proposed rule asserts, then surely blends below 10 percent must now no longer be able to receive the benefit of the RVP waiver. But instead, EPA asserts both blends below 10 percent that previously qualified AND blends above 10 percent will qualify for the RVP waiver. So this proposed rule asserts that the 10 percent referred to in statute is now both a minimum AND a maximum. This proposed granting of a waiver for ethanol blends from 9-15 percent ethanol cannot be reconciled with the plain language of the statute. In this rulemaking EPA is asserting a line item veto, the power to simple cross out “10 percent” from statute.

Asserting ambiguity does not grant EPA the power to amend plain language.

While EPA claims ambiguity in the text, even if such ambiguity exists, it does not hand EPA the power to disregard the plain text of statute. EPA asserts that it is redefining the statute to mean that 10 percent is a minimum threshold. However, it also asserts that 9 percent ethanol blends will continue to qualify for the waiver. EPA cannot have it both ways. If there is ambiguity as to whether 10 percent is meant to be a maximum or a minimum, then EPA must pick one. Instead, EPA’s interpretation treats 10 percent as neither a maximum nor a minimum. As stated above, the practical effect is that EPA simply deletes 10 percent from the statute. This is impermissible; a dubious assertion of ambiguity does not grant EPA extraordinary power to amend statute.

The EPA’s claim of amending its own regulations is irrelevant.

If as EPA contends, the 1990 CAA amendments codified existing EPA regulations, then the “10 percent” referred to in (h)(4) must refer to a ceiling of 10 percent, given that is what regulations were at the time. In its own proposed rulemaking, EPA therefore confirms that the intent of Congress when the 1990 amendments were passed was to set 10 percent as a ceiling. That EPA now wishes to change its regulations in this area does not retroactively change what Congress believed it passed in 1990. The statute does not read, “Whatever blend of ethanol EPA determines appropriate.” It reads 10 percent. Congress must have meant something by that 10 percent. EPA’s longstanding understanding of this provision is that it meant a codification of the 10 percent limit, an understanding that EPA admits in this proposed rule.

If EPA admits that the 1990 CAA amendments codified the existing 10 percent waiver threshold, then that is the end of the discussion. By codifying those regulations, Congress superseded the agency’s regulatory discretion. EPA’s proposal to alter those preexisting regulations is irrelevant to the discussion of what the text of the statute clearly states.

EPA asserts an entirely new, unilateral authority to waive RVP regulations.

In this proposed rule, EPA effectively reads the waiver provision from 42 U.S.C.7545 (f)(4) (hereafter (f)(4)) essentially as a blanket waiver from RVP regulations. Under this proposed interpretation, EPA can by its own determination approve any blend of ethanol in gasoline through (f)(4), because EPA asserts in this proposed rulemaking that an (f)(4) waiver automatically creates a waiver from RVP limitations. In order for this interpretation to be correct, EPA must be claiming that Congress intended for (f)(4) to effectively mean that RVP limitations do not apply to ethanol blends. To so state this is to show that EPA’s interpretation is obviously incorrect, if Congress meant to exempt ethanol blends from RVP limitations, it could have and would have plainly said so. Instead, Congress only included granted a waiver to a certain kind of ethanol blend. This reference must mean something, however the current proposed interpretation by EPA asserts that Congress did not mean what it plainly said.

Indeed it is not clear why EPA stops at E15. Under this proposed interpretation, all ethanol blends could receive the RVP waiver, subject only to an (f)(4) waiver approval.

EPA’s assertion of changed circumstances is not a magic trump card that allows statute to be disregarded.

The ethanol industry asserts, and EPA accepts uncritically, that the language of the statute is outdated because in 1990 E15 was not a possible product. However, this argument only serves to confirm that Congress could not have meant for 10 percent to be a minimum if the only product they could have been offering a waiver to was blends of up to 10 percent ethanol. EPA’s current proposed interpretation suggests that Congress meant to not make a waiver available to the only existing product of the time (i.e. up to E10).

Further, if a statute is outdated, it is up to Congress to update it. There are many who would argue old laws such as the Jones Act or the Antiquities Act are similarly outdated. However until Congress acts to amend those statutes, they remain effective no matter the perverse outcomes. The Constitution does not give the president or his officers the power to unilaterally amend laws that he determines to be outdated. 

Congressional action confirms that 10 percent is a maximum threshold.

While EPA strains to find language in legislative deliberations indicating otherwise, the understanding of Congress is made quite clear by subsequent action. In the last ­­­­ several Congresses, legislation has been repeatedly introduced to extend the existing ethanol waiver to E15. Indeed, this legislation has been supported and promoted by the ethanol industry and introduced and co-sponsored by legislators supportive of the industry. This makes clear that Congress understood and understands that the language of the statute does not allow blends greater than 10 percent ethanol to benefit from the RVP waiver.

Conclusion: lawlessness

The EPA’s proposed reinterpretation of 42 U.S.C. 7545 is nothing short of lawless. This proposal asserts that language Congress specifically passed into statute, and which EPA admits was passed with a specific understanding, was not, in fact, meant so and should be disregarded. This proposed rulemaking is a usurpation of Congress’s legislative power guaranteed by the Constitution. EPA is bound to enforce the law as written; it cannot unilaterally amend statute based on the political preferences of the current executive. EPA can and should abandon this illegal regulatory adventurism.

The post IER Comment on proposed Modification to Fuel Regulations: Provide Flexibility for E15 appeared first on IER.

Using the SERP to build your keyword list

Hooray! The Green New Deal Will Make Us Happier—By Shrinking the Economy

Sometimes you have to congratulate the progressive left on their ability to turn that frown upside down. When the laws of economics hand them socialist lemons, they turn right around and make leisure lemonade. Specifically, Kate Aronoff at the Intercept has written an article that says the Green New Deal will make us all happier—in part because who needs all that work and economic output anyway?

To show I’m not putting words in her mouth, here are some excerpts from the Aronoff piece:

But could a plan to curb emissions also make us happier? Could the things we cut back also be the things that make us miserable?

…A growing body of research, though, points to some more unexpected reasons why a Green New Deal could make us more cheerful.

…Fremsted and Paul find that people who work less also emit less carbon dioxide.

The punchline here isn’t novel; economist Juliet Schor has been drawing connections between work hours and climate change for well over a decade, stemming from her work in the 1993 best-seller “The Overworked American,” delineating how Americans have come to work more and what effect that has on how people spend their dwindling leisure time. Namely, by doing more shopping, a habit spurred on by copious corporate advertising. “Many potentially satisfying leisure skills are off limits because they take too much time: participating in community theater, seriously taking up a sport or a musical instrument, getting involved with a church or community organization,” she wrote then. “We have gotten ourselves entrenched in a cycle of work and spend — a cycle of long hours and consumer mentality as a way of life.”

The piece goes on to point out that “the average German worker toils 23 percent fewer hours than their American counterpart” and other factoids that ostensibly show how much better the European model is.

But hold on a second. When right-wingers complain about the overblown European welfare state, and how it cripples economic growth and incentives to hire, progressives typically dismiss this talk as so much fear-mongering. They can’t then in the next breath point out with glee how much more vacation time Europeans enjoy. Yes, even though they are on the metric system over there, there’s still the same number of hours per week: If the critics of the European model are right, and the overbearing regulations and taxes stifle labor markets and penalize work, then it only vindicates them to point out that Europeans tend to work fewer hours than Americans.

We saw a similar rhetorical pivot a few years ago with the debates over the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare). In the midst of the Great Recession, with Keynesian economists decrying the tightwad fiscal hawks who refused to run up even bigger budget deficits to stimulate the economy and create jobs, along came University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan. He pointed out that because the ObamaCare subsidies for insurance premiums were means-tested, for certain households the ACA implicitly imposed a much higher marginal tax rate. (In other words, low-income households had less of an incentive to earn more income, because not only would they pay explicit income taxes but they would lose their ObamaCare subsidies.)

The estimated effect was quite large. Indeed, the CBO incorporated Mulligan’s analysis and, in one of its periodic updates on the effects of the Affordable Care Act, explained: “The reduction in CBO’s projections of hours worked represents a decline in the number of full-time-equivalent workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024.”

Now since defenders of the ACA had, up until that moment, been touting it as a measure to (among other things) help stimulate the economy, one might think the above news was bad. But nope: Progressive wonks spun it as a great thing, that now people had the freedom to leave their dead-end jobs and take care of a sick relative or write the great American novel.

Casey Mulligan replied at the time in a WSJ story quoting him on the flip-flop, noting the huge about-face on whether government policy should be encouraging or discouraging the incentive to boost employment. You can see the pro-ACA economists like Jonathan Gruber and Paul Krugman in full-defense mode here, acting like they’d been telling Americans all along that ObamaCare would cause significant reductions in employment, especially among low-income households.

Coming back to the so-called Green New Deal, there is now little doubt that it would impose massive disincentives on work effort and economic output. I can at least applaud those interventionists who admit openly that it will be painful, but still claim that the bitter medicine is necessary to save humanity. Obviously I disagree with their prognosis, but at least they’re being consistent.

In contrast, people who are trying to spin the GND as something that is beneficial on its own terms, even putting aside the ostensible existential threat to humanity, are deceiving the public. If Americans are caught up in a rat race where they work too much in order to afford to buy fancy toys and take exotic vacations, then they should be convinced through persuasion to break out of this “keeping up with the Joneses.” You don’t make people better off by artificially making energy more expensive.

For example, suppose your friend Bill is about to waste (in your mind) $35,000 on a new car, when the more modest $15,000 car is much more responsible, since he has a lot of credit card debt and young kids to support. Fine, then maybe—if you’re close enough friends—you should delicately urge Bill to buy the cheaper vehicle and use that $20,000 to pay off his credit cards. But what wouldn’t make any sense at all would be to tax away $20,000 from Bill, so that he no longer even had the option of buying the expensive car. Sure, that would make him “do the right thing” narrowly conceived, but it wouldn’t actually help him because of the means by which you made him change his plan.

The Green New Deal works in a similar fashion. By making electricity and gasoline artificially more expensive, and (through its “job guarantee”) by wrecking the incentive to work, any version of the GND would make private-sector labor effort far less productive per hour. This would have the effect of reducing US GDP for sure, but it wouldn’t be nearly as beneficial in terms of “less consumerism” as would be the case, if Americans merely changed their shopping habits without having the government artificially wreck the economy.

The post Hooray! The Green New Deal Will Make Us Happier—By Shrinking the Economy appeared first on IER.

SEI supporting EWB solar project to improve water system in orphanage and boarding school Wema Centre in Kenya

Karo Fernandez, SEI Curriculum Developer for the Spanish Program, had travel to the Wema Centre in  Kenya with Engineers Without Borders Chicagoland Professional Chapter to design improvements for the water system including evaluating data for moving the water pump to a solar grid.

Karo’s assignment was to asses the site for solar water pumping system, evaluate existing electrical system and assess site for potential solar energy back-up systems.

Solar Energy International (SEI) in support to their mission, donated:

• A charge controller lab: PV module, Sun-Saver10 charge controller, AGM battery, 12 V DC lightbulbs. Objective: teach young people how an off-grid PV system operates; test and understand how current flows in an off-grid PV system; measure consumption of different lighting technologies (LED, CFL and incandescent) to decide which one is most efficient.
• A pump-in-bucket lab: 12 V DC pump, 12 V PV module, 3/4″ hose. Objective: teach young people about the simplicity and advantages of PV-direct systems. The school has a well and pump system that isn´t functional because the grid is down most of the time. PV direct could solve this, and teaching these young adults what they can do is what SEI set out to do with this lab.

Karo commented about the experience:

“The SEI labs we taught were eye-opening to these young adults. Showing them that pumping water with the sun is not only possible, but also simple and reliable brought along many aha! moments. We left the SEI labs set up and ready to use, with the commitment from the young adults at Highway Academy to teach the younger kids about solar energy with them. I hope these little bits of information we share multiply. Kids at Highway Academy are highly educated, many understanding basics of electricity and power. Most are locals, and I wish I am able to return and provide more training so they can bring light and water to their homes and communities.”

The location

Wema Children’s Centre and Highway Academy are an orphanage and boarding school in Bukembe Village, Western Kenya run by Teresa Wati and Stephen Juma. They invested much of their wealth to establish Wema Children’s Centre and to this day, they are responsible for the education and well-being of over 500 school children. EWB Chicagoland Professional Chapter became involved in 2016,  since then the team has designed and overseen the construction of a water treatment system for their borehole.

Team Wema Work

The Wema Team traveled in April 2019 to assess and advance all active projects at the site  and meet with local contractors to discuss how to proceed with the solar, water, and bathroom projects. The team also constructed a pilot rainwater catchment system with the community, which will be used to evaluate the amount of water captured, the quality of the water, and the overall community use of the water and satisfaction of the catchment. This data will help drive future implementations of the rainwater collection systems throughout the campus and determine the water usage purpose from allocation toward toilet flush water in the new bathrooms, to laundry or irrigation purposes.

“I lived at Wema Children´s Center for 10 days, and not once did we have running water because the grid was down. The infrastructure is there, but the utility is negligent to solve a few issues that could provide running water to Wema and many members of this beautiful community. Knowing we can power their pump with solar made me want to get it done right away!”, Karo said.

What’s coming

After the April 2019 assessment, EWB Chicagoland is set for Summer and Fall of 2019 to be primarily tasked with the study and design of water system expansion and solar power final designs for phase 1 implementation in 2020. Prior to the completion of this work, the team is looking to produce a final design for the urgent new bathroom project which will be followed by a remote implementation in Summer/Fall 2019. Fundraising is essential and ongoing efforts must be stepped up to ensure the timely delivery of these projects.

“Grateful to the moon for the opportunity to volunteer for Engineers Without Borders in Kenya, and promote S.E.I.´s mission of a world powered by renewables”, Karo conclude.

¡The Wema Team is looking for volunteers! Are you interested? Contact:

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Authoritarian Roots of the Green New Deal

The Green New Deal (GND) has brought the specter of full-blown government central planning into full view. But far from hedging, the Progressive Left has doubled down by declaring war on market capitalism, not just oil, coal and natural gas.

“Capitalism is destroying the Earth,” an article in The Guardian last month by columnist George Monbiot read. Private ownership of land, and “natural wealth” more generally, must be rethought. Moving to “a circular economy from which materials are never lost” and “the end of fossil fuel combustion” requires “challenging our deepest and least examined beliefs.”

“Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism,” read the title of another Guardian article by economics writer Phil McDuff. His message? “Policy tweaks won’t do it, we need to throw the kitchen sink at this with a total rethink of our relationship to ownership, work and capital.”

McDuff expressed surprise that the GND received backlash as radical and a Trojan Horse for socialism or Marxism. His is a good point. Well before the GND opened the curtain, authoritarianism, even totalitarianism, was the means to fanciful climate stability.

UN-Commissioned Study

Consider a study commissioned for the forthcoming UN Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), publicized upon its release with headlines as “This is How UN Scientists are Preparing for the End of Capitalism” and “Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism’s Imminent Demise.”

The August 2018 report, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s GND, did not frontally declare the end of capitalism. But the huge transformation is clearly beyond the ability of capitalism, even democracy, to effectuate.

Why? Because the workhorse energies of industrialization are no longer usable. “The era of cheap energy is coming to an end,” the study explains.

Because economies are for the first time in human history shifting to energy sources that are less energy efficient, production of usable energy (exergy) will require more, not less, effort on the part of societies to power both basic and non-basic human activities.

Currently, approximately 80% of the global net primary energy supply comes from fossil fuels–oil, natural gas, and coal. Good quality, easily available fossil fuels have powered the industrialization of nations world-wide. Now, the entire energy infrastructure needs to be transformed. The energy return on investment (EROI) decreases across the spectrum…

Because renewables have a lower EROI and different technical requirements, such as the need to build energy storage facilities, meeting current or growing levels of energy need in the next few decades with low-carbon solutions will be extremely difficult, if not impossible. Thus, there is considerable pressure to lower total energy use.

“Extremely difficult, if not impossible”? That trashes two generations of argument that both conservation for its own sake (conservationism) and renewable energies are cheaper and profitable, recently restated by Amory Lovins and Rushad Nanavatty in the New York Times.

Omnipotent Government

The free market is about self-interest and profits where the cheapest, highest quality alternatives win. This embedded fact must be reversed where the economic becomes wrong and the uneconomic right, the energy realists/climate alarmists admit.

This reversal is beyond capitalism, as argued by climate alarmists as Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren in the 1970s and Naomi Klein today.

That institution with a monopoly on the initiation of force is required. The UN-commissioned study states:

It is clear from these examples [energy, transport, food, housing] that strong political governance is required to accomplish the key transitions. Market-based action will not suffice –even with a high carbon price. There must be a comprehensive vision and closely coordinated plans. Otherwise, a rapid system-level transformation toward global sustainability goals is inconceivable.

A carbon tax by itself is woefully inadequate:

A key problem with carbon pricing has been that states, federations, or unions have not implemented it on a sufficiently high level, fearing industrial leakage to less environmentally-regulated countries. For this reason, many economists and politicians hope for global carbon pricing.

[I]t would be highly unlikely that even global carbon pricing would guide economic activity in the right direction –at least with sufficient speed and breadth. As a policy tool, carbon pricing lacks the crucial element of coordinating a diverse set of economic actors toward a common goal. Individual actors would have an incentive to decrease carbon emissions, but they would still compete through their own business logics; there would be nothing to ensure that any one business logic would support the transition to sustainability on a systemic level. Moreover, it has been extremely difficult in recent years to settle almost anything with such a wide impact on an international level.

The policy imperative?

In view of the challenges encountered today in implementing meaningful international agreements, the most likely option for initiating transitions to sustainability would be for a group of progressive states to take the lead. This would require economic thinking that enables large public investment programs on the one hand and strong regulation and environmental caps on the other. In the modern global economy, states are the only actors that have the legitimacy and capacity to fund and organize large-scale transitions.

Free Speech at Risk Too

Free speech, not only economic freedom, is at the crossroads to those who insist on climate peril and forced energy transformation.

Several years ago, economist Walter Williams received hate mail and criticized sentiment for President Obama to use RICO statutes to prosecute individuals and organizations opposed to climate activism. Intrigued, he found ugly precedent:

The effort to suppress global warming dissidents is not new. Grist Magazine writer David Roberts said, “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.”

Professor Richard Parncutt has called for the execution of prominent “GW deniers.” Climate Progress Editor Joe Romm called for deniers to be strangled in their beds. James Hansen, who has headed NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has likewise called for trials of global warming deniers.

The energy/climate revolution must dispense with wrong thinking, this mindset believes. Expect the skeptic books to be lit on fire on the climate road to serfdom.

Conclusion

Upon the release of the Green New Deal, US Senator Tom Cotton was ridiculed for his tweet that “The Democrats’ ‘Green New Deal’ brings to mind an insight from Churchill: Socialism may begin with the best of intentions, but it always ends with the Gestapo.”

But Cotton’s first impression was salient. Both before and after the unveiling of the Green New Deal, the climate warriors have frontally attacked the very economic system and electorates that reject energy self-immolation.

Desperate, the climate alarmists qua forced energy transformationists are authoritarians advocating totalitarianism. This should not only alarm conservatives, libertarians, and the non-political middle. It should also frighten open-minded progressives who care about free speech and social tolerance.

The post Authoritarian Roots of the Green New Deal appeared first on IER.

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Jones Act Waiver Would Set U.S. LNG Free

Bloomberg recently reported that President Trump is considering waiving the Jones Act requirement that demands only U.S.-flagged vessels can move natural gas from American ports to Puerto Rico and the Northeast. This potential partial reform of the nearly century-old law is a welcomed sight as it is a necessary step for the development of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry in the United States.

The Jones Act is a law that requires vessels moving cargo between two U.S. ports to be U.S.-built, -owned, and –crewed. The stated purpose of the law was originally to ensure that ships would be built in the U.S. in order to protect national security. But over time, the law has proven to be self-defeating, as it has shielded the U.S. maritime industry from international competition. For a more detailed discussion of the history and economic effects of the Jones Act, please consult this summary.

Although proponents of the Jones Act continue to brandish the national security argument around Washington, D.C., there’s little evidence that suggests the Jones Act does in fact promote a strong U.S. maritime industry. Since the Jones Act was enacted in 1920, the U.S.-flagged fleet has seen an unremitting decline in size. In 1960, there were 2,926 large ships in the U.S.-flagged fleet; this accounted for about 17 percent of the world fleet back then. By 2016, there were only 169 ships in the U.S.-flagged fleet; that was less than 1 percent of the total world fleet.

This decline highlights one of the major shortcomings of the Jones Act in that it demonstrates the fact that the law has undermined its original purpose. By shielding U.S. maritime industry from international competition, the Jones Act has created an uncompetitive, politicized market, defined by its high costs and entrenched firms that are unresponsive to consumer demand.

Given the bad incentives that are at play under the Jones Act, it should come as no surprise then that there isn’t a single Jones Act compliant LNG vessel in the U.S. shipping fleet. Moreover, not a single U.S. shipbuilding company has plans to construct a large LNG vessel. This is obviously a problem as the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects U.S. natural gas production to grow 7 percent per year from 2018 to 2020, which is more than the 4 percent per year average growth rate from 2005 to 2015.

When you combine this expected growth with other aspects of our politicized economy, like the problem caused by limited natural gas pipeline access to the Northeast, it becomes evident that LNG could play a major role in the future of our energy supply chain. Unfortunately, by preventing ships that aren’t U.S.-built, -owned, and -crewed from being able to transport natural gas between U.S. ports, the Jones Act is currently standing in the way of meeting domestic needs.

Although the Jones Act does help support some American jobs in the maritime industry, the law does so at an enormous cost to everyone else in the U.S. Colin Grabow, Inu Manak, and Daniel J. Ikenson of the Cato Institute released a paper last year that does a good job of providing a qualitative assessment of the costs of the Jones Act. Additionally, in the 1990s, the U.S. International Trade Commission released several estimates of the economy-wide costs of the Jones Act; they arrived at an estimate between $656 million to $9.8 billion.

The impact of the Jones Act on LNG transportation also has foreign policy implications. In 2014, the Treasury Department issued sanctions designed to weaken Russia’s energy sector in response to the annexation of Crimea. The sanctions prevent Americans from providing financing for Russia’s largest independent producer of natural gas, but they do not prohibit the purchase of natural gas that originates from Russia. Due to the combination of a lack of pipeline access in the Northeast as well as the restrictions of the Jones Act, during a cold snap in January of 2018, a tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from a sanctioned project in Russia arrived at Boston Harbor. Regardless of whether or not those sanctions represent the ideal approach to U.S.-Russian relations, it is worth pointing out that by limiting the ability of vessels to transport natural gas between U.S. ports, the Jones Act directly contradicts the broader foreign policy goals outlined in the 2014 sanctions.

Ideally, the Trump administration would be considering eliminating the law entirely as it has far-reaching costs across our entire economy, but providing a Jones Act waiver to allow all ships to transport natural gas between ports within the United States is a great first step to reform. No doubt, the powerful Jones Act lobby will push back against this decision, but that shouldn’t prevent the Administration from pursuing reform. A Jones Act waiver for natural gas is perfectly in line with President Trump’s “energy dominance” approach and would provide a solution to the pipeline access issue that has been responsible for high electricity prices in the Northeast in recent years.

The post Jones Act Waiver Would Set U.S. LNG Free appeared first on IER.

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How Do I Improve My Domain Authority (DA)?

Posted by Dr-Pete

The Short Version: Don't obsess over Domain Authority (DA) for its own sake. Domain Authority shines at comparing your overall authority (your aggregate link equity, for the most part) to other sites and determining where you can compete. Attract real links that drive traffic, and you'll improve both your Domain Authority and your rankings.

Unless you've been living under a rock, over a rock, or really anywhere rock-adjacent, you may know that Moz has recently invested a lot of time, research, and money in a new-and-improved Domain Authority. People who use Domain Authority (DA) naturally want to improve their score, and this is a question that I admit we've avoided at times, because like any metric, DA can be abused if taken out of context or viewed in isolation.

I set out to write a how-to post, but what follows can only be described as a belligerent FAQ ...

Why do you want to increase DA?

This may sound like a strange question coming from an employee of the company that created Domain Authority, but it's the most important question I can ask you. What's your end-goal? Domain Authority is designed to be an indicator of success (more on that in a moment), but it doesn't drive success. DA is not used by Google and will have no direct impact on your rankings. Increasing your DA solely to increase your DA is pointless vanity.

So, I don't want a high DA?

I understand your confusion. If I had to over-simplify Domain Authority, I would say that DA is an indicator of your aggregate link equity. Yes, all else being equal, a high DA is better than a low DA, and it's ok to strive for a higher DA, but high DA itself should not be your end-goal.

So, DA is useless, then?

No, but like any metric, you can't use it recklessly or out of context. Our Domain Authority resource page dives into more detail, but the short answer is that DA is very good at helping you understand your relative competitiveness. Smart SEO isn't about throwing resources at vanity keywords, but about understanding where you realistically have a chance at competing. Knowing that your DA is 48 is useless in a vacuum. Knowing that your DA is 48 and the sites competing on a query you're targeting have DAs from 30-45 can be extremely useful. Likewise, knowing that your would-be competitors have DAs of 80+ could save you a lot of wasted time and money.

But Google says DA isn't real!

This topic is a blog post (or eleven) in and of itself, but I'm going to reduce it to a couple points. First, Google's official statements tend to define terms very narrowly. What Google has said is that they don't use a domain-level authority metric for rankings. Ok, let's take that at face value. Do you believe that a new page on a low-authority domain (let's say DA = 25) has an equal chance of ranking as a high-authority domain (DA = 75)? Of course not, because every domain benefits from its aggregate internal link equity, which is driven by the links to individual pages. Whether you measure that aggregate effect in a single metric or not, it still exists.

Let me ask another question. How do you measure the competitiveness of a new page, that has no Page Authority (or PageRank or whatever metrics Google uses)? This question is a big part of why Domain Authority exists — to help you understand your ability to compete on terms you haven't targeted and for content you haven't even written yet.

---

Seriously, give me some tips!

I'll assume you've read all of my warnings and taken them seriously. You want to improve your Domain Authority because it's the best authority metric you have, and authority is generally a good thing. There are no magical secrets to improving the factors that drive DA, but here are the main points:

1. Get more high-authority links

Shocking, I know, but that's the long and short of it. Links from high-authority sites and pages still carry significant ranking power, and they drive both Domain Authority and Page Authority. Even if you choose to ignore DA, you know high-authority links are a good thing to have. Getting them is the topic of thousands of posts and more than a couple of full-length novels (well, ok, books — but there's probably a novel and feature film in the works).

2. Get fewer spammy links

Our new DA score does a much better job of discounting bad links, as Google clearly tries to do. Note that "bad" doesn't mean low-authority links. It's perfectly natural to have some links from low-authority domains and pages, and in many cases it's both relevant and useful to searchers. Moz's Spam Score is pretty complex, but as humans we intuitively know when we're chasing low-quality, low-relevance links. Stop doing that.

3. Get more traffic-driving links

Our new DA score also factors in whether links come from legitimate sites with real traffic, because that's a strong signal of usefulness. Whether or not you use DA regularly, you know that attracting links that drive traffic is a good thing that indicates relevance to searches and drives bottom-line results. It's also a good reason to stop chasing every link you can at all costs. What's the point of a link that no one will see, that drives no traffic, and that is likely discounted by both our authority metrics and Google.

---

You can't fake real authority

Like any metric based on signals outside of our control, it's theoretically possible to manipulate Domain Authority. The question is: why? If you're using DA to sell DA 10 links for $1, DA 20 links for $2, and DA 30 links for $3, please, for the love of all that is holy, stop (and yes, I've seen that almost verbatim in multiple email pitches). If you're buying those links, please spend that money on something more useful, like sandwiches.

Do the work and build the kind of real authority that moves the needle both for Moz metrics and Google. It's harder in the short-term, but the dividends will pay off for years. Use Domain Authority to understand where you can compete today, cost-effectively, and maximize your investments. Don't let it become just another vanity metric.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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Big Green, Inc., Updated

WASHINGTON — Today the Institute for Energy Research is announcing the release of two updates to its Big Green, Inc. database, which seeks to shine a long overdue spotlight on the massive amounts of money fueling the national environmental lobby.

We have added four new left-leaning, grant-making organizations into the Big Green, Inc. database. This data update includes details on 1,899 grants originating with the Wyss Foundation, Tides Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation that funded 663 green groups across the country between 2008-2016.

Additionally, IER is releasing a new report focussing on the motivations, tactics, and end goals of the modern environmental movement and detailing how the size and scope of the movement’s funding contributes to their influence on energy policy in the U.S. The report was put together in light of the data and insights revealed in the database. The report is titled, “Big Green, Inc.: The Money Fueling the Environmental Left. (https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/BigGreenInc.pdf) ”

The Executive Summary of the report can be read below:

Today’s environmental movement is fueled by a group of interconnected, left-leaning foundations seeking to disrupt the development of America’s energy resources. In order to understand how these groups work together and where the environmental movement’s funding originates, IER developed Big Green, Inc., a database that tracks environmental grants stemming from 14 foundations and directed to over 1,900 grassroots activists groups and totaling more than $4.2 billion. Our key findings include:

• The “David vs. Goliath” narrative surrounding environmental activism is false. Environmental organizations outpace conservative and free-market groups in terms of funding and organizational capacity.
• As evidenced by the emergence of the “Keep it in the Ground” Movement, this money plays a major role in shaping public opinion, which translates to economically destructive policy initiatives that emanate from all levels of government.
• A key strategy of the environmental movement is to target key gatekeeping institutions that drive the ideas that animate our society including the media, universities, and government entities.
• Environmental funding has been tied to foreign actors, which raises concerns over the role geopolitics plays in environmental advocacy.

Read the full report: Big Green, Inc.: The Money Fueling the Environmental Left

View the Big Green, Inc. database including the new grant data

IER President Tom Pyle made the following statement:
————————————————————

“Since the fall launch, Big Green, Inc. has taken on the vast environmental network and provided key insights into these organizations’ political operations. Big Green, Inc. demonstrates the fact that the green left is mobilized by billionaire-funded foundations seeking to stop the development of America’s traditional energy sources without offering a viable alternative to sustaining the progress that can be attributed to the widespread use of our vast natural resources. Free market advocates must work to ensure that America’s energy future is not stolen by green pressure groups working to disrupt our energy producers and send us back to the dark ages.”

————————————————————

###

For media inquiries, please contact Erin Amsberry                eamsberry@ierdc.org
202.621.2955

The post Big Green, Inc., Updated appeared first on IER.

Big Green, Inc. : The Money Fueling the Environmental Left

Read the full report here.

Executive Summary

Today’s environmental movement is fueled by a group of interconnected, left-leaning foundations that are seeking to disrupt the development of America’s energy resources. In order to understand how these groups work together and where the environmental movement’s funding originates, IER developed Big Green, Inc., a database that tracks environmental grants stemming from 14 foundations and directed to over 1,900 grassroots activists groups and totaling more than $4.2 billion. Our key findings include:

• The “David vs. Goliath” narrative surrounding environmental activism is false. Environmental organizations outpace conservative and free-market groups in terms of funding and organizational capacity.

• As evidenced by the emergence of the “Keep it in the Ground” Movement, this money plays a major role in shaping public opinion, which translates to economically destructive policy initiatives that emanate from all levels of government.

• A key strategy of the environmental movement is to target key institutions that drive the ideas that animate our society.

• Environmental funding has been tied to foreign actors, which raises concerns over the role geopolitics plays in environmental advocacy.

Introduction

In American energy politics today there is a constant clash between two groups: one that seeks to unlock America’s vast natural resources and put them to use in providing an affordable, abundant energy supply for the American people and those in energy poverty around the world, and another group that seeks to halt, delay and litigate the use of traditional energy sources in the name of addressing climate change. The battle is one that plays out with every energy debate, not only on the national stage, but also at the state level and in local communities across the country.

While the pro-energy group stands on decades of proven success in improving America’s economic wellbeing and way of life, the other group, driven by the national environmental lobby, assaults America’s use of coal, oil, and natural gas without offering a viable alternative to sustaining the progress that can be attributed to the widespread use of these resources. The ultimate outcome of this fight will determine whether America will have abundant and reliable energy in the years to come.

With these high stakes, it is imperative that Americans understand the motivations, tactics, and end goals of the modern environmental movement and how the size and scope of the movement’s funding contributes to their influence on energy policy in the U.S.

To that end, the Institute for Energy Research has created Big Green, Inc., a database that tracks environmental grants originating from 14 left-leaning foundations and flowing to over 1,900environmental activist groups spanning all 50 states. The database highlights a group of foundations that have spent billions of dollars building the politically engaged environmental movement. This funding supports aggressive climate litigation, the promotion of uneconomic renewable energy sources, as well as a litany of burdensome regulations. The Big Green, Inc. database illuminates the priority issues and the state-level battles where the environmental movement dedicates vast funds.

There are three important takeaways from the information presented in Big Green, Inc. First, environmental groups have crafted a narrative that depicts their efforts as a “David vs. Goliath” battle against those who would like to see U.S. energy policy move in a free market direction. This narrative is false. Environmental groups outpace conservative and free market groups both in terms of funding and organizational capacity. Second, Big Green, Inc. demonstrates the sweeping influence of environmental activism and provides insight into how groups target the gatekeeping institutions of our society. As the database illuminates, environmental funding has been directed toward policymakers, journalists, academic institutions, the offices of elected officials, government organizations like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as international institutions such as the World Bank. Finally, Big Green, Inc. demonstrates how this complicated system of financial transfers muddles efforts to reveal the sources of this funding, which has been linked to individuals who stand to benefit financially from the adoption of various environmental policies as well as foreign actors trying to influence energy policy within the U.S.

Read the full report here.

The post Big Green, Inc. : The Money Fueling the Environmental Left appeared first on IER.

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Happy Earth Week: Here’s Your Chance to Win a FREE SEI Class!

HAPPY EARTH WEEK! Monday, April 22 is officially Earth Day, but at Solar Energy International (SEI) every day is Earth Day. We’re taking this week to celebrate the successes and journeys of our SEI students and alumni. On Earth Day we’re making a BIG announcement: One person in our network is going to receive an SEI online PVOL course of their choosing FOR FREE! Here’s how to enter: How do you celebrate Earth Day every day, and how has SEI helped? Post a photo on social media with the hashtag #SEIcelebratesEarthDay with your story on how SEI training helps you celebrate Earth Day every day and make sure to tag Solar Energy International in your post! We will share your stories across our platforms ALL WEEK and Monday, April 22 we will announce our BIG winner! Participants will also be featured on our blog and in our monthly email newsletter. Submissions can also be emailed to enews@solarenergy.org. Happy EARTH WEEK!

The post Happy Earth Week: Here’s Your Chance to Win a FREE SEI Class! appeared first on Solar Training - Solar Installer Training - Solar PV Installation Training - Solar Energy Courses - Renewable Energy Education - NABCEP - Solar Energy International (SEI).

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Revolution or Incrementalism?

The Dilemma of Climate Activism

The Green New Deal (GND) has opened up a civil war among climate activists. The revolutionists, taking alarmist forecasts at face value, are pressuring the incremental approach of politics. The result has been a baffling display of support and nonsupport for a landmark Progressive resolution.

The GND represents a multi-decade, mainstream movement harking back to Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren in the 1970s. Far from being out of step, the GND is the political corollary of the newly released Fourth National Climate Assessment of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. The GND is also consonant with the most recent analysis from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

If the National Climate Assessment predicts “mass deaths” from business-as-usual CO₂ emissions, and the IPCC concludes we have 10–14 years to rescue the climate, then a political elite (guided by an intellectual elite) must intervene holistically to reshape our priorities and lifestyles. It is, after all, a tip-to-toe problem of production and consumption, an unprecedented domestic/global market failure.

This is why a host of prominent voices—from climatologist Andrew Dessler to economist Paul Krugman to activist Al Gore; hundreds of environmental organizations; and newspapers from the Houston Chronicle to the New York Times—supported the GND right out of the gate.

And given the required radical transformation, why not throw in social justice? Didn’t the Clinton/Gore President’s Council on Sustainable Development define sustainability in terms of social justice, not only environmental and economic goals? And from the IPCC’s aforementioned Special Report (Summary for Policymakers: D6.1):

Social justice and equity are core aspects of climate-resilient development pathways that aim to limit global warming to 1.5°C as they address challenges and inevitable trade-offs, widen opportunities, and ensure that options, visions, and values are deliberated, between and within countries and communities, without making the poor and disadvantaged worse off ….

Malthusianism…deep ecology…small-is-beautiful…conservationism…environmental justice. From Al Gore’s “central organizing principle” (1992) to Naomi Klein’s “everything changes” (2014). There was a climate-driven, anti-capitalist, multi-dimensional agenda well before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, whose different elements she champions as mutually reinforcing.

Climate policy is everything policy. Consider but one tool in the climate/government box: a carbon tax. What might seem to be a simple domestic levy would require border adjustments (international tariffs) to address foreign noncompliance that would otherwise shift U.S. emissions offshore. The levy would also require equity adjustments to neuter the regressive nature of energy expenditure on lower-income individuals.

This is just the beginning. Other emission-control programs, and regulatory amendment, all politicized, at war with underlying self-interest and energy physics, make climate control a highway to serfdom.

The Long War?

The above analysis came to mind when reading a critical open letter to the Green New Dealers from Jerry Taylor, founder and head of the Niskanen Center.

Taylor accepts the case for climate-policy activism, beginning with a U.S.-side carbon tax. But his censure admits to the very high cost of a forced energy transformation. Moreover, the author seems to hedge on the dire nature of the climate problem, part of his case for a go-slow, take-what-you-can get approach (what he calls “the long war”).

Revolution Fail. While professing admiration for the GND’s means and ends, Taylor questions its strategy. “Your cause is just and, due to decades worth of political inaction,” he states, “the hour is late.” Still, the GND is dismissed as “exhortation for the impossible,” “political malpractice,” a “whiff of political madness,” and “democratic socialism in a box.”

He particularly faults the GND’s “extremely ambitious progressive initiatives that have little or nothing to do with climate change.” Two subtitles of his piece are “Wishing for Ponies” and “Climate Change is Not ‘Everything Policy’.” He wants to reign in expectations and shift Green New Dealers to a politically viable, however slow, “Plan B.”

High Cost vs. Potential Benefit. The practical problem of the Green New Deal is the size, scope, and obvious causality of its cost. Taylor explains:

The biggest difficulty associated with tackling climate change is that reducing greenhouse gas emissions imposes very real, very transparent, and very immediate costs with the prospect of benefits that will only become apparent someday down the road. Whatever we might think about the long-term benefits of climate action, in the short-term, it appears to be all cost…

Wow! Certain present pain versus the “prospect” of gain? So much for Amory Lovins’s “free lunch you are paid to eat” conservationism and Joe Romm’s “‘spectacular’ price drops for clean energy obliterates the cost argument against Green New Deal.”

Does Taylor think that alarmist science could be wrong? Note his hedging: “wide distribution of possible outcomes from climate change” … “overstatement regarding the certainty that apocalypse is now (or soon to be) upon us” … “the prospect of benefits that will only become apparent someday down the road.”

Conclusion

Jerry Taylor says “the hour is late.” But does he really believe the climate alarm sounded by James Hansen, Michael Mann, et al.—or the latest reports from establishment science? Or does he harbor the knowledge that CO₂ has here-and-now benefits, and the middle ground of global lukewarming portends optimism about future climate?

The Green New Deal is just more “political theater,” to employ a term Cato’s director of natural resource studies used in 1998 to describe the climate crusade. In Taylor’s own words:

The national debate over what to do, if anything, about the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has become less a debate about scientific or economic issues than an exercise in political theater. The reason is that the issue of global climate change is pregnant with far-reaching implications for human society and the kind of world our children will live in decades from now.

Timeless insight indeed.

The post Revolution or Incrementalism? appeared first on IER.

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The Green New Deal and the “World’s Dumbest Energy Policy”

The Democrats’ latest promise to fuel America’s economy from “100 percent clean, renewable, zero-emission” sources within a decade, while eliminating “systemic injustice,” sounds very much like the perennial Soviet promises that communism was just around the corner. And the communist tenor of these promises is unmistakable. For apart from ridding the world of carbon dioxide emissions, the Green New Deal’s promoters also promise government healthcare, government job guarantees, “green” upgrades to all buildings, and high-speed trains to replace air travel. The only doubts these wild-eyed socialists seem to have is that they are “not sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast,” as their, in the meantime deleted, FAQ said.

As much as we would like to dismiss these ravings, there are at least two reasons to take them seriously. First, virtually all the announced Democratic candidates running for president in 2020 have endorsed them. Secondly, some of it has already been tried in an advanced Western economy and the results are here for everyone to see. It is these results that prompted the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal recently to declare Germany’s energy policy under Chancellor Angela Merkel “the world’s dumbest.”

Despite the dismal outcome of these policies, most Americans are not aware of the pending green disaster. Indeed, we have been told that we should emulate them and at least some states, such as California, seem to be embarked on exactly the same road to disaster. Thus, it is worth recapitulating what has actually happened in Germany with its own Green New Deal, of sorts.

It all started in 1980 with the founding of the German Green Party, which fervently believed that man was not the solution but the cause of nature’s problems, as detailed in a 1911 proto-Nazi screed by green patron saint Ludwig Klages called “Man and Earth.” The opportunity to act on their beliefs came in the late 1990s when the Greens joined as a coalition partner the government of Social-Democrat Gerhard Schroeder. (Schroeder distinguished himself as a lackey of Vladimir Putin immediately upon leaving the chancellorship.)

In any event, with Green initiative, the German government passed in April 2000 the first renewable energy law (EEG) and feed-in tariff mandating radical subsidies and preferential treatment for renewable energy to be financed by the electricity user. This was the first act of a fundamental energy transition—Energiewende—that was to dramatically lower green gas emissions and increase renewable energy to 80 percent of the total by 2050.

It didn’t work out that way, as could be easily forecast, because renewable energy is intermittent (i.e., unreliable) and there are as yet no economically feasible storage solutions. Nor is increasing the capacity of renewable energy a solution. When the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, whether you have a renewable capacity of 100 GWh or 1000 makes no difference at all. Your production is zero regardless. In January 2019, with a German announced renewable capacity of 40 percent of needed power, the production was 15.34 percent.

The only thing that has gone up inexorably and dramatically is the cost of electricity paid by the ratepayer and those industries that are not subject to subsidies yet (those that use more than 1 GWh and spend more than 16 percent of income on electricity). With a renewable surcharge of 6.4 Euro cents per kilowatt, the Germans now pay the highest electricity rates of 33 cents per kilowatt in Europe despite countless billions by private households subsidizing wind and solar and an estimated $222 billion of taxpayer money spent by the state to support renewable energy. To add insult to injury, carbon dioxide emissions have not gone down since 2009.

And it is going to get worse. According to the consumer advocacy NAEB, German electricity prices are projected to reach 40 cents per kilowatt, by 2020, which will make them four times those in the US and two times those of France. How German industry could remain competitive at those rates is an unanswered question.

The German experience with Energiewende should serve as a warning to the United States, not a guide.

The post The Green New Deal and the “World’s Dumbest Energy Policy” appeared first on IER.

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The Case Against a Carbon Tax

Read the full report here.

In early 2019 the Congressional Progressive Caucus has sought to shift the Overton window for energy and environmental policy. February’s resolution “recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal” communicates a consistent, if nebulous, view: government must dictate our energy choices to us, lest we careen toward environmental disaster. Short on specific mechanisms, the Green New Deal is not so much a concrete policy proposal, but rather a repudiation of capitalism as such. In response, various conservatives, libertarians, Republicans, and others who tend to support a free-market economic system have groped for an answer of their own to the climate change question. While some are proposing subsidizing their pet technologies, others—the more intellectually ambitious—are coalescing around the carbon tax.

Unlike support for the Green New Deal, support for a carbon tax does not necessarily arise from categorical opposition to capitalism, but often arises from a concern that the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas—despite the benefits—in some way jeopardizes our future. With its mimicking of a price system, the carbon tax offers a less flagrant, more sophisticated means of economic intervention than the Green New Deal’s command-and-control approach. Some carbon tax proponents go so far as to claim that a carbon tax is a means of “unleash(ing) the power of our free enterprise system.” This optimism is unfounded. Carbon taxes are nonobjective, they are coercive, and they are impediments to prosperity. As this paper will make clear, the carbon tax lacks merit as a public policy.

This paper comprises six core points against the carbon tax:

• Carbon taxes are set arbitrarily.

Carbon taxes are set using non-objective standards. The much-debated “social cost of carbon” is a subjective construct that relies not only upon multi-century climate models, but also upon analyst preferences, most notably the highly contentious choice of a discount rate for public policy.

• The climate change mitigation goals of the world’s leading political bodies are at odds with the climate economics literature.

The 2018 IPCC recommendation for governments to implement policies compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels ignores the economic harm such policies would impose in the near term. The recommended course would be likely to cause more economic damage than global warming itself, according to mainstream work in climate economics.

• A U.S. tax-and-rebate plan would slow economic growth.

Americans in the lowest income quintile use a greater percentage of their income to meet their energy needs than the remainder of Americans, rendering carbon taxes regressive. So-called rebates can attempt to offset this effect, but only at the expense of the economy as a whole. According to most studies—including those coming from carbon tax proponents—carbon taxes slow economic growth unless a large portion of the tax revenue is allocated to corporate tax reductions. Recycling revenue through rebates is particularly harmful to overall economic performance.

• Carbon taxes have unexpected, adverse tax effects.

Carbon taxes initiate vertical tax competition between federal, state, and local governments. Furthermore, as excise taxes, carbon taxes can have a greater distortionary effect on economic activity than do taxes on income, undermining the claims of carbon tax advocates that a tax swap would increase efficiency.

• A U.S. carbon tax would be irrelevant.

The U.S. is only responsible for around 15 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. While populous countries like China, India, and Bangladesh continue to grow their industrial capacities—and, as a result, increase their emissions—U.S. emissions have decreased by more than 10 percent since 2005. The only carbon tax with teeth would be one with global reach, which is a nonstarter.

• A U.S. carbon tax that would replace existing regulations and/or taxes is not politically viable.

A carbon tax that would replace regulations and/or corporate income taxes would fail to satisfy the environmental activist class’s appetite for control. The only carbon tax that stands a chance politically would come on top of onerous regulation and taxation.

Read the full report here.

The post The Case Against a Carbon Tax appeared first on IER.

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Guardian Article Admits Socialism Necessary to Stop Climate Change

A recent article by Phil McDuff in The Guardian carries the headline, “Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism. Have we got the stomach for it?” Although I obviously disagree strongly with the author’s claims, McDuff’s piece is refreshingly honest in its demands. Those of us warning that the radical environmentalist movement—particularly in the context of battling climate change—was tied to a broader rejection of capitalism, period, have yet another advocate admitting it openly in the popular press.

Policy Tweaks Won’t Meet UN Goals

McDuff and I actually agree when it comes to the likelihood of piecemeal reforms meeting the UN’s climate goals. Here’s McDuff:

Right now we can, with a massive investment of effort by 2030, just about keep the warming level below 1.5C. This is “bad, but manageable” territory. Failing to put that effort in sees the world crossing more severe temperature barriers that would lead to outcomes like ecosystem collapse, ocean acidification, mass desertification, and coastal cities being flooded into inhabitability.

We will simply have to throw the kitchen sink at this. Policy tweaks such as a carbon tax won’t do it. We need to fundamentally re-evaluate our relationship to ownership, work and capital. The impact of a dramatic reconfiguration of the industrial economy require similarly large changes to the welfare state. Basic incomes, large-scale public works programmes, everything has to be on the table to ensure that the oncoming system shocks do not leave vast swathes of the global population starving and destitute. Perhaps even more fundamentally, we cannot continue to treat the welfare system as a tool for disciplining the supposedly idle underclasses. Our system must be reformed with a more humane view of worklessness, poverty and migration than we have now. [Bold added.]

McDuff’s reading of the literature comports with my own. Ever since last fall when the UN released guidelines on how the world could limit warming to 1.5°C, here at IER I have pointed out just how ludicrous the objective was, and that (for example) the work of recent Nobel laureate William Nordhaus recommended a much weaker temperature ceiling.

Also notice that McDuff (like the staff of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) utterly rejects the idea that a mere carbon tax would appease them. Libertarians and conservatives should realize that a “carbon tax deal” with progressive climate activists would turn out like Lando’s deal with Darth Vader.

A Funny Way to Demonstrate Paranoia

Speaking of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Green New Deal, look at how McDuff tries to take lemons and make lemonade:

This emergent radicalism is already taking people by surprise. The Green New Deal (GND), a term presently most associated with 29-year-old US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has provoked a wildly unhinged backlash from the “pro free market” wing, who argue that it’s a Trojan horse, nothing more than an attempt to piggyback Marxism onto the back of climate legislation.

The criticism feels ridiculous. Partly because the GND is far from truly radical and already represents a compromise solution, but mainly because the radical economics isn’t a hidden clause, but a headline feature. Climate change is the result of our current economic and industrial system. GND-style proposals marry sweeping environmental policy changes with broader socialist reforms because the level of disruption required to keep us at a temperature anywhere below “absolutely catastrophic” is fundamentally, on a deep structural level, incompatible with the status quo. [Bold added.]

Everyone catch that? Stop calling the Green New Deal a Trojan Horse to bring about a Marxist revolution: The Marxists aren’t in a horse at all! (For one thing, why involve more methane than needed to overturn capitalism?)

Conclusion

Admitted socialists such as Ocasio-Cortez are at least consistent: They think capitalism per se is responsible for putting the planet at risk, and therefore only a radical overhaul of our society can possibly avert catastrophe. I think these socialists are wrong, but at least they’re consistent.

In contrast, those holding up the UN’s policy goals as a justification for a carbon tax “reform”—perhaps even in a revenue-neutral way that promotes GDP growth!—are utterly misleading the public. Any piecemeal measures would merely get the anti-capitalist foot in the door, and would not be sufficient to avert the (alleged) climate disaster, given the very goals the so-called moderates endorsed at the start. The whole enterprise would fulfill the “Trojan Horse” warnings many of us have been issuing, and indeed as this recent Guardian article confirms.

The post Guardian Article Admits Socialism Necessary to Stop Climate Change appeared first on IER.

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