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An Eight-Year Anniversary

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 28, 2016

“Big Government Democrats are not the cure to Big Government Republicanism. Oil, natural gas, and coal are middle class, working class energies. Wind and solar are for the rich…. Maybe, just maybe, these parasitic, inefficient energies will get the scrutiny they deserve from all sides of the political spectrum.”

The beginning of the Obama presidency was less than one month away. Things looked bad for energy. Climate exaggeration and alarmism as US policy was coming up. And there were very few of us in the free market camp to fight against climate/energy statism.

Eight years ago this month, I got in touch with these few–Marlo Lewis (Competitive Enterprise Institute), Ken Green (American Enterprise Institute), and Jerry Taylor (Cato Institute), and a few others–to launch a new website. Two-thousand one-hundred and twenty-seven posts later, we are into year nine of “a free market energy blog.”…

Yes, ‘Inside Climate News,’ the Fossil Fuels are Thankful (as are consumers and taxpayers!)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 27, 2016

“This year, the fossil fuel industry may top the list of Americans feeling most thankful. The election of Donald Trump not only promises to grant many of their fondest deregulation wishes, but it could also offer a potential Black Friday-like atmosphere on things like drilling leases and access to public lands.”

So began a fundraising pitch from Inside Climate News, a investigative journalism outfit starting from false premises to reach false conclusions.

The headlines from the same outfit in the same week were happy ones from a pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, anti-coercion viewpoint.

Reset at Resources for the Future? (latest fundraising pitch hints at intellectual diversity)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 21, 2016

“The Obama Administration brought out the worst in RFF in the last eight years. Will the Trump era of new energy/climate thinking be intellectually respected and debated under RFF’s new president, Richard Newell? One can only hope that RFF does not become Fortress RFF.”

“RFF’s blockade against critics of climate alarmism/forced energy transformation is a sad case of intellectual back-of-the-bus, separate-water-fountain discrimination.”

“RFF has trenchantly avoided a real debate over the ‘social cost of carbon’ (SCC). Yet the assumptions behind the Obama Administration’s SCC are highly disputable, and reasonable assumptions can flip the sign from positive to negative (as in CO2 has net benefits) to eviscerate any case for pricing CO2.”

Maybe it is only because they have to.

Resources for the Future (RFF), founded in 1952, describes itself as “an independent, nonpartisan organization that conducts rigorous economic research and analysis to help leaders make better decisions and craft smarter policies about natural resources and the environment” that is “committed to intellectual excellence and practical solutions.”…

DOE-designate Perry’s Windy Past (Texas, per-Enron, a wind welfare queen)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 14, 2016

“Risk Assessment ‘Malarky,’ Says Economist” (Cordato rocking back in ’95)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 6, 2016

James Hansen: We Have a Little More Time After All (Whew!)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 2, 2016

Enron’s Bankruptcy at 15: A Revisionist Political Economy Conclusion

By Robert Bradley Jr. --

“At The Crossroads III” Energy & Climate Policy Summit (Heritage Foundation: December 8, 2016)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 1, 2016

Battig in the Houston Chronicle: Truth to Published Power

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 30, 2016

Climategate: Never Forget (President-elect Trump hasn’t)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 29, 2016