A Free-Market Energy Blog

California Energy Policy: Elitist, Import-dependent, and a Tax on the Rest of Us

By -- May 1, 2014

“Can we really afford to adopt California’s policies, laws and regulations in the rest of America, and then throughout the world? For that matter, how much longer can the once Golden State afford to inflict those policies on its own citizens?”

When George Washington was stricken with malaria and a throat infection in 1799, his physicians used leaches to bleed a quart of blood and remove “morbid matter” from his weakened body. Next they administered laxatives and emetics. A few hours later, Washington died.

This cure worse than the disease finds close parallels in California’s energy and environmental policy. This is the state that leaches energy from its neighbors, and that President Obama and his Environmental Protection Agency often view as their public policy standard bearer. But these energy “physicians” are threatening our nation’s lifeblood.

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Rolling Blackouts from EPA’s Utility MACT? FERC Commissioner Says a “Possibility”

By William Yeatman -- April 30, 2014

“The actual justification for the Utility MACT, one of the most expensive and consequential regulations of all time, is to protect a supposed population of pregnant subsistence fisherwomen, who consume hundreds of pounds of self-caught fish from exclusively the most polluted inland bodies of fresh water.

I’ve documented this outrageous rationale here. [But] EPA has never actually identified a real-life member of this putative population of pregnant super-anglers with voracious appetites; rather, they are modeled to exist…. This regulation is nothing more than quid pro quo, business as usual, special-interest politics.”

On Sunday morning’s Platts Energy Week with Bill Loveless, FERC Commissioner Philip Moeller gave a bombshell interview regarding the clear and present danger to electric reliability posed by the EPA.

An excerpted transcript is posted below:

FERC Commissioner Philip Moeller: “We’re closing an enormous amount of coal generation, through a variety of rules, and a good number of those plants are set to retire next April.…

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“Advanced Energy for Life”: Peabody Energy Puts Coal on High Moral Ground (energy poverty must end, CEO Boyce argues)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 29, 2014

We need to recognize the enormous health and environmental benefits in ending energy poverty, eliminating household air pollution, and increasing access to low-cost electricity. Everyone in the world deserves to live as well as those in developed nations. Let’s use more energy, more cleanly, every day.”

– Gregory Boyce, chairman and chief executive officer, Peabody Energy (February 26, 2014)

Bravo!This is by far the best coal-industry campaign since the Greening Earth Society made a powerful case for the positive externalities of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions back in the 1990s. The new effort, two months old, was announced with this headline:

Advanced Energy for Life Campaign Launched to Build Awareness and Support to End “World’s Number One Human and Environmental Crisis” of Global Energy Poverty

“Calling global energy poverty the world’s number one human and environmental crisis,” the press release read: “Peabody Energy today launched a comprehensive global campaign aimed at building awareness and support to eliminate energy poverty, increase access to low-cost electricity and improve emissions through advanced clean coal technologies.”

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Al Gore Soldiers On (false alarmism, hypocrisy make for a rejected public message)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 28, 2014
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Carter-Obama Energy Policy: From Gasoline Lines to Pipeline Obstructionism

By -- April 25, 2014
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Stressing the Grid: From Interventionism to Blackouts

By Steve Goreham -- April 24, 2014
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California Wineries Don’t Need Pricey ‘Green’ Power (1.6 or 7.1 cent/kWh?)

By -- April 23, 2014
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“Happy Earth Day” (Julian Simon 25th anniversary essay speaks to us today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 22, 2014
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Common Core’s Climate Indoctrination

By James Rust -- April 21, 2014
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California Energy Update: Part V

By -- April 17, 2014
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