CEI Today: new EPA e-document dump, cost of carbon tax, and Virginia's pension reforms

EPA EMAIL SCANDAL, CEI FOIA REQUEST - CHRISTOPHER HORNER

At about 4:55 p.m. on Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency finally complied with a court order to deliver the first of four sets of emails in response to a lawsuit filed by Christopher Horner, a senior fellow in the Center for Energy and the Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

EPA owed CEI a cache of identified emails to or from EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson (by pure coincidence, that’s now "outgoing Administrator Jackson”...), using one or more of four keywords: coal, climate, endanger/endangerment and/or MACT ("war on coal" emails).

Horner shared his initial analysis of the data dump here.

> Interview Christopher Horner

> View A Timeline of the EPA's "Richard Windsor" Email Scandal

> See also: EPA releases more than 2,100 emails from agency chief Lisa Jackson’s ‘alias’ account

 

CARBON TAX - MARLO LEWIS Globalwarming.org: One Million Fewer Jobs Created by 2016 under ‘Modest’ Carbon Tax   Heritage Foundation economists David Kreutzer and Nicolas Loris have posted an assessment of the economic impacts of a carbon tax that starts out at $25 per ton and increases by 5% annually (after adjusting for inflation). Here’s what they found. A ‘modest’ carbon tax, as described above, would: Cut the income of a family of four by $1,900 per year in 2016 and lead to average losses of $1,400 per year through 2035; Raise the family-of-four energy bill by more than $500 per year (not counting the cost of gasoline); Cause gasoline prices to increase by up to $0.50 gallon, or by 10 percent on an average gallon price; and Lead to an aggregate loss of more than 1 million jobs by 2016 alone. [click to continue…] > Interview Marlo Lewis

PENSION REFORM - IVAN OSORIO Openmarket.org: Worthwhile Pension Reform Proposal in the Old Dominion The Speaker of the House of Delegates has proposed shifting state employees from defined benefit to defined contribution retirement plans, such as 401(k) accounts. Government employee unions are their legislative allies are certain to fight such a change, and their opposition is bound to be fierce. But lawmakers who are serious about securing the Old Dominion’s fiscal future should not be deterred from pursuing far-reaching pension reform, which is a fight worth having.  > View the full commentary at Openmarket.org > Inteview Ivan Osorio

More in the news... How Crony Capitalist Shamelessly Dupe Progressive Planners Obama Blinks: No Emperor's New Coin Repeating Carter Obamacare Imposes New Fees, Cost Increases On The Public CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation Alarmists Inconsistent On Importance of U.S. Temperature Record

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI Today: ExxonMobil, another bank bailout, and Rachel Carson's legacy

CARBON TAX & CRONY CAPITALISM - MARLO LEWIS

Globalwarming.org: Where Does ExxonMobil Stand on Carbon Taxes?

Yesterday on NPR’s radio program To the Point, I said it was dishonorable for ExxonMobil to support a carbon tax. I compared ExxonMobil’s reported embrace of carbon taxes to Enron’s lobbying for the Kyoto Protocol.

Enron was a a major natural gas distributor and saw in Kyoto a means to suppress demand for coal, natural gas’s chief competitor in the electricity fuel market. ExxonMobil is a major natural gas producer. So I took this to be another case of political capitalism – corporate lobbying to replace a competitive market with a rigged market to enrich a particular firm or industry at the expense of competitors and consumers.

> Read the full commentary on Globalwarming.org

>Listen to the interview on  kcrw.com

> Interview Marlo Lewis

 

SENATE VOTE ON BANK GUARANTEES - JOHN BERLAU CEI.org: Coalition Tags TAG Bailout as Regressive and Economically Disastrous The U.S. Senate voted on Tuesday to support consideration of an extension on unlimited, taxpayer-backed guarantees on non-interest bearing bank accounts. Fourteen leaders and scholars of conservative and free-market groups, including CEI, had opposed this Transaction Account Guarantee (TAG). Enacted at the height of the financial crisis, TAG provides unlimited government-guaranteed deposit insurance for non-interest bank and credit union accounts, over and above the $250,000 limit for all accounts. Yet the Senate today is voting on whether to extend this "temporary program," which benefits only the wealthiest depositors, for another two years. > View the coalition letter  > View John Berlau's commentary for Nationalreview.com > Interview John Berlau

RACHEL CARSON'S SILENT SPRING - ANGELA LOGOMASINI Townhall.com: Year Ends 50th Anniversary of Silent Spring An Unhappy Legacy Continues This year marked the 50th anniversary of biologist Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring. Although the anniversary is soon to become history as well, Carson’s impact promises to continue well into the future—and it’s not something to celebrate. Carson was right to advocate for careful use of pesticides, but her harsh rhetoric needlessly raised excessive alarm. She postulated man-made chemicals affect processes of the human body in “sinister and often deadly ways,” birthing a powerful environmental movement that is fiercely anti-pesticide.  > View the full commentary on Townhall.com > Interview Angela Logomasini

More in the news... The Wind Production Tax Credit: Corporate Welfare at its Worst Tobacco rules substitute one problem for another Avoid a Beer Monopoly By Setting the Market Free Obama’s Dangerous Italian Labor Rhetoric Sierra Club Transportation Report Unsurprisingly Trashes (Some Bad) Road Projects, Praises Transit And Bike Waste

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

I, PENCIL

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is proud to announce a new ambitious film project: an animated adaptation of I, Pencil by Leonard Read.

> View the I, Pencil short film

> Tweet about I, Pencil

CEI Today: Senate vote on bank guarantees, copyright reform, transatlantic free trade, and more

SENATE VOTE ON BANK GUARANTEES - JOHN BERLAU

CEI.org: Coalition Tags TAG Bailout as Regressive and Economically Disastrous

As the Senate prepares today to vote on extending unlimited deposit insurance for non-interest bank accounts, 14 leaders and scholars of conservative and free-market groups signed a letter stating strong opposition to the Transaction Account Guarantee (TAG).

Enacted at the height of the financial crisis, TAG provides unlimited government-guaranteed deposit insurance for non-interest bank and

credit union accounts, over and above the $250,000 limit for all accounts. Yet the Senate today is voting on whether to extend this "temporary program," which benefits only the wealthiest depositors, for another two years.

> View the coalition letter

 > View John Berlau's commentary for Nationalreview.com

> Interview John Berlau

TRANSATLANTIC FREE TRADE - IAIN MURRAY Huffington Post - Transatlantic Free Trade Must Be Done Right A Transatlantic Free Trade area would be a very good idea. And it would be a welcome admission of the fundamental economic truth that free trade benefits all involved. But achieving it is easier said than done. Therefore, policy makers should seek to make a Transatlantic Free Trade Area truly free. A highly regulated trade area would not deliver the benefits promised. Thankfully, there is a way to avoid that lackluster result. > View the full commentary on Huffingtonpost.com > Interview Iain Murray

CARBON TAX - MARLO LEWIS Warren Olney's To the Point: Is the Carbon Tax an Idea Whose Time Has Come? CEI's Marlo Lewis versus Bob Inglis, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Dan Lashof.  "Environmentalists have long championed a carbon tax, imposed not just on gasoline, but on all fossil fuels, from coal used to generate electricity to diesel fuel used to power heavy equipment, as a way to address climate change. Now it’s winning the support of conservative think-tanks and even some oil companies, as a way to address the budget deficit. Is the tax a smart way to avert both global warming and the fiscal cliff? If so, then why isn't the Obama White House proposing it, and why is Congress so reluctant to consider it? Has hurricane Sandy changed any minds?" > Listen to the interview on  kcrw.com > Interview Marlo Lewis

DEMOGRAPHIC CLIFF - BILL FREZZA Real Clear Markets & CNBC: Going Off the Demographic 'Cliff?' If demography is destiny, democracy is toast-at least those democracies where citizens can vote themselves a living at someone else's expense. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to see that governments' addiction to intergenerational income redistribution is not sustainable unless someone keeps supplying babies at an accelerating pace. > View the CNBC interview > View the Real Clear Markets commentary > Interview Bill Frezza

More in the news... Big Labor’s Choice: Improve And Evolve, or Perish Don’t Let CLECs Throw Consumers Under the Internet Bus

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI Today: Internet sales tax, Exxon-Mobil's carbon tax, and the anti-immigration sentiment

INTERNET SALES TAX - JESSICA MELUGIN

The Washington Times: Internet sales taxes attack states’ rights

Proponents of Internet sales taxes are asking the lame-duck Congress to bless their state tax cartel as part of a larger tax reform package by passing the Marketplace Equity Act (H.R. 3179) and its companion in the Senate, the Marketplace Fairness Act (S. 1832). These aren’t your average tax increases, but grim blueprints for government’s future relationship with the online world. Long after we’ve either swerved at the last minute or gone off the “fiscal cliff” a la “Thelma and Louise,” we’ll have to live with the harmful consequences of expanding government to every corner of the Internet.  > View the full commentary at Washingtontimes.com

 

> Interview Jessica Melugin

CARBON TAX - MYRON EBELL Globalwarming.org: Say It Isn’t So! Exxon Supports a Carbon Tax Big Oil is coming out of the closet.  Exxon Mobil confirmed earlier this month in a Bloomberg Businessweek article that they support a carbon tax. Shell and BP have signed a Climate Price Communiqué that was distributed on 29th November at the eighteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is meeting in Doha, Qatar, this week and next. The most obvious reason why big oil and gas companies would support a huge new tax on their own products is that it would kill coal first.  > View the commentary on Globalwarming.org > Interview Myron Ebell

IMMIGRATION - DAVID BIER Openmarket.org: Anti-Immigrant? Or Just Anti-People? This Friday, Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) demonstrated exactly this contempt for the most basic fact of the market when he responded to a CEI press release that opposed a bill to reduce immigration. Mehlman scoffs at the notion that “without massive infusions of foreign STEM workers our most vital industries would wither and die.” We never argued such a thing — rather, we argued new foreign workers would expand (almost by definition) America’s industries, increasing Americans’ wealth. > Read the full commentary on Openmarket.org > Interview David Bier

More in the news... Where’s Michael Mann? Lung Association Poll: Another Attempt to Influence Public Opinion in the Guise of Reporting It

I, PENCIL The Competitive Enterprise Institute is proud to announce a new ambitious film project: an animated adaptation of I, Pencil by Leonard Read. > View the I, Pencil short film > Tweet about I, Pencil

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI Today: Carbon taxes, global warming science, and the STEM Jobs Act

CARBON TAXES - MYRON EBELL

Standpoint: Global Fawning

On the face of it, a carbon tax seems to have no chance of being enacted. However, its proponents have a clever strategy. They are trying to convince fiscally conservative Republicans to support a carbon tax as part of a much larger tax and budget deal that will reduce the federal deficit. The appeal of a carbon tax is not its minimal contribution to saving the planet from global warming, which has no appeal to Republicans in Congress and little appeal to the American public. Rather, the case for a carbon tax is that it would raise a huge amount of revenue. > View the full commentary at Standpoint.co.uk

 

> Interview Myron Ebell

GLOBAL WARMING SCIENCE - MARLO LEWIS Globalwarming.org: Scientists Find No Trend in 370 Years of Tropical Cyclone Data With Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) citing Hurricane Sandy as a reason to have another go at climate legislation, to say nothing of the media spin depicting Sandy as punishment for our fuelish ways, it’s useful to look at some actual science. In a study published in the journal Climatic Change, scientists Michael Chenoweth and Dmitry Divine analyze the history of tropical cyclone activity in the Lesser Antilles from 1638 to 2009. An obvious implication of the study, although not spelled out by the authors, is that natural variability dominates tropical storm activity in the Atlantic to the point that any global warming influence, if it exists, is still undetectable. > View the commentary on Globalwarming.org > Interview Marlo Lewis

IMMIGRATION - DAVID BIER CEI.org: STEM Jobs Act a Step Backward on Immigration Reform, Warns Free Market Group This Friday, the House of Representatives will vote on the STEM Jobs Act (H.R. 6429). The bill would allocate 55,000 green cards for foreign-born graduates of U.S. universities with Doctorate and Master’s degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, but it also eliminates all 55,000 visas under the Diversity Visa Program. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) warned that the bill will actually hurt legal immigration. > Read the full commentary on CEI.org > Interview David Bier

More in the news... Decades-Old ECPA Needs Update, CEI Urges Recession in the USA

I, PENCIL The Competitive Enterprise Institute is proud to announce a new ambitious film project: an animated adaptation of I, Pencil by Leonard Read. > View the I, Pencil short film > Tweet about I, Pencil

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.