“Using the ploy of a ‘few cents more here, a few cents more there,’ appeals are made before state energy regulatory commissions to increase utility rates for millions of customers. Such commissions drive the enactment of renewable energy usage and subsidies. Ignored are the economic hardships imposed on the less fortunate members of society. Everyone pays more; the elite few benefit from these subsidies.”

“For all of us working to promote the sensible generation and use of fossil-fueled energy, this courageous and needed initiative by Koch Industries is a welcome event.”

In a pragmatic rebuke to its critics for promoting the use of fossil fuels, Koch Industries has shown true leadership by engaging in a constructive educational program demonstrating that minority lives do matter, and that fossil fuels are key to their well-being. …

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

Green Energy is a Charter for Crooks and Liars

NC Legislative Leaders Ask Homeland Security to Review Wind Project

Excellent short video: The “F” Word

Short video: How the energy transition is destroying our environment

Wind Energy – A Runaway Failure for Nearly 4 Decades (Part 1 of 3)

Industrial Wind Turbines “Incredibly Intrusive”

A nuclear America can be a great America

NuScale files first US SMR license application

In 2040: 85%± of our energy will come from fossil fuels and nuclear

Georgia Tech Climatologist Dr.…

“With a new political outlook in Washington, DC with climate and energy policy, Exxon Mobil should formally reject both cap-and-trade and a carbon tax.”

Rex Tillerson, whose confirmation hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, presided over a major public policy change while CEO of Exxon Mobil, reversing the prior policy of the principled realist Lee Raymond. Political forces, as well as a doomed attempt at appeasing its enemies (ending up in the state State Attorney General investigative war), led Exxon Mobil to reluctantly embrace a tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

My interpretation of Rex Tillerson et al.’s (failed) policy shift finds support for “it was just PR” rather than a fundamental belief in climate peril. As such, this shift is easily reversible by Exxon Mobil’s new CEO, Darren Woods.…

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), are in the news.

As reported last month in the Los Angeles Times, and more recently in Bloomberg Politics, IER/AEA are involved in the free-market directions that the president-elect and his team have followed to date.

One account described the founding of IER as follows:

The Institute for Energy Research was founded to be a clearinghouse for energy information in 1989 in Houston by Robert L. Bradley Jr., a speechwriter for Enron chief executive Kenneth Lay, who was later convicted of securities fraud.

Given that this association is part of the political conversation (Joe Romm started it in 2009: see below), and the continuing attention that is ahead for IER/AEA, I wish to revisit the historical record about my time at Enron that overlapped with IER.…