“… new mileage standards will raise vehicle prices and may force the adoption of electric cars. But there is no evidence that the regulations will have a measurable effect on global temperatures.”

“[US EPA] Administrator Scott Pruitt launched a review of the strict mileage regulations from the Obama Administration. It’s long past time for a roll-back of obsolete US vehicle mileage regulations.”

Regulations to reduce fuel consumption and to increase vehicle mileage were born during the oil shock of the 1970s. But within the last decade, the fracking revolution reestablished the United States as the world’s energy superpower.

Are vehicle mileage standards now obsolete?

In October 1973, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) declared an oil embargo, targeting the United States and other nations. Within six months, the world price of petroleum quadrupled, from $3 to $12 per barrel.…

“Some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the [twentieth] century.”

– John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich (1971) [1]

Doom and gloom—repeatedly falsified—hallmark the long career of John P. Holdren, neo-Malthusian and President Obama’s start-to-finish science advisor. Back at Harvard University, the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy has been been quiet. He avoided making specific, apocalyptic predictions during his Obama years (January 2009– January 2017) and has rarely made the news since. But his many written and spoken statements beginning in the 1970s, never disowned, remain for the record.

Today is a good time to refresh memories of the man who just might be the scariest man in Boston/Cape Cod on this day.

Read—but don’t be frightened.…

“What is RFF hiding–and why? Yes, a carbon tax produces revenue and would reduce CO₂ emissions. But what about the tax effect on consumer energy prices–on gasoline, diesel, home heating oil, natural gas, and electricity for starters? And what are the climate effects from the levy (the ostensible reason for the tax)?”

Resources for the Future (RFF), full of PhD economists–and claiming to be scholarly and nonpartisan–has lost its intellectual way on the all important global warming issue.

Previous posts at MasterResource have documented how the once scholarly organization got corrupted by Malthusian thought in the 1970s–and then climate alarmism in the 1990s forward. Former head Paul Portney (a great guy, to be sure) went for the big funding bucks (from private foundations and government) and decided to assume the climate problem, not debate it, and not seriously assess public policies toward climate from a critical perspective.…

“Forced use of higher-cost U.S.-flag vessels has benefitted domestic water carrier firms, shipbuilding companies, and associated labor at the expense of consumers. This advantage, however, has been diluted because inflated shipping costs has reduced the attractiveness of barge and tanker transport compared to other alternatives.”

The Puerto Rico recovery effort has brought attention to an arcane special-interest cabotage regulation that delayed shipments to the imperiled island–and required a waiver from President Trump: Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, [(Public Law 261, 41 Stat. 988 (1920)], commonly known as the Jones Act.

Previous posts at MasterResource (here and here) examined the history of oil-export regulation by the federal government; this post surveys the history of water-vessel restrictions from Washington, D.C. directly or indirectly impacting oceanic commerce.…