“[A] complex regulatory nexus surrounds all hydropower projects, no matter how small. As far as regulatory requirements are concerned, it didn’t matter that the project would have little to no environmental impacts…. When it comes to renewable energy, federal policies are working at odds with one another.”
In 2008 Logan City, Utah decided to install a micro-hydro project in its culinary water system. The city’s assistant engineer recognized the opportunity to generate clean, low-cost electricity for the city by installing a turbine in the city’s culinary water pipeline.
Logan City’s project would power 185 homes, and would not require any new construction. At the same time, it would also help reduce excess water pressure in the system. Because the project was so small, and would not affect anything outside of an existing pipeline, city officials thought the permitting process would be a breeze.…
Continue Reading“The EPA acknowledges that the Timing Rule produces ‘absurd results’ that contravene congressional intent…. The Timing Rule clearly exceeds any discernible congressional intent and should be overturned.”
An amicus brief filed this week to the Supreme Court on behalf of five U.S. Senators argues that “Congress never intended for EPA to have authority to impose” Clean Air Act permitting requirements on stationary sources of greenhouse gases.
The brief, written pro bono by Theodore L. Garrett and Thomas R. Brugato of Covington & Burling LLP, bases its conclusion on my review of nearly 700 proposed bills on greenhouse gases that were introduced between 1989 and 2010.
Background on the Case
The Court in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA is reviewing one question: “Whether EPA permissibly determined that greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles triggered permitting requirements under the Clean Air Act for stationary sources that emit greenhouse gases.”…
Continue Reading“It is precisely the fact that the market does not respect vested interests that makes the people concerned ask for government interference.”
– Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (1940), p. 334 [4th Edition, 1966, p. 337].
Government goes to those who show up. The wind industry got there first (concentrated benefits, diffused costs). But the pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, pro-freedom movement has staged an impressive counter attack against government-dependent cronyism. Energy politics dates from the mid-nineteenth century in the United States–but never has more than one hundred pro-liberty groups spoken with one voice before.
Will the wind Production Tax Credit expire as scheduled at the end of this year? The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) hopes not. Why? Because continued expansion depends on the timing of this huge subsidy (see this graph by the editors of Real Clear Energy).…
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