“I view my 40+ year career as progressions on a common theme; understanding (and promoting) the role of free markets and technology innovation one to the other, both to improve humankind’s’ lot.”
MasterResource from time to time conducts interviews with leading free-market scholars (see Ken Green here). This two-part interview with Tom Tanton continues tomorrow.
Q. Let’s start with your current position and responsibilities.
TT: I’m currently Director of Science and Technology Assessment at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI). I’m also President of my consulting firm T2 and Associates, which stands for “Trust in Technology” not my initials.
EELI is focused on strategic litigation, such as testing the constitutionality of the renewable portfolio standard in Colorado, and on increasing government transparency through Freedom of Information Act requests and litigation.…
All good things to all people. That is how the Obama/EPA Power Plant Rule is being sold this week in the U.S. and around the world.
Lower prices, more jobs, greater security, accelerated innovation. New for old, cleaner for dirtier. Better air and less ailment. Take the disadvantages of rationing carbon dioxide in U.S. power plants and assert just the opposite. Get others to echo for a ‘shared narrative.’ Think energy postmodernism of wish, want competitive intermittent renewable energy.
Say it is a free lunch. Better yet, say it is a lunch that we are paid to eat.
And all this for a better future. “This is something that is important for all of us,” Obama stated in regard to the proposal. “As parents, as grandparents, as citizens, as folks who care about the health of our families and also want to make sure that future generations are able to enjoy this beautiful blue ball in the middle of space that we’re a part of.”…
Today, President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency will unveil a proposed rule to require states to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants with an overall reduction goal of 30 percent by 2030. The states can pick their poison, with cap-and-trade emission reductions or increased renewable-energy mandates. Energy efficiency mandates are in the mix too.
This is the latest and most aggressive battle of Obama’s War on Coal, which is really a starter-program in a war against fossil fuels in electrical generation.
Such is all pain, no gain; fire-ready-aim; a solution looking for a problem. It is ratepayers last, politics and cronyism first. It is a wealth transfer from Joe and Jane to climate-connected lawyers, consultants; the Department of Energy; alarmist scientists; and crony capitalists in the renewable-energy and energy-efficiency business.…