A California superior court recently issued a tentative decision against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for failing to comply with environmental law pursuant to the implementation of AB 32, California’s global warming law.
The tentative decision directs CARB to rewrite its documentation pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and to cease implementation of the AB 32 Scoping Plan until the violation is corrected. The decision is based on violations of process, not the scientific or economic substance of either the CEQA documentation or the scoping plan as critics of climate alarmism would have liked.
Reactions to the tentative finding have ranged from “no big deal” to “hallelujah.” But it is a big deal; CARB’s implementation of AB 32 hangs in the balance, at least for the time being.…
Continue Reading[This post by Guillermo “Billy” Yeatts (see profile at the end of the post) originally appeared at MasterResource on April 30, 2010. It is reprinted in response to the move of the Middle East toward more open, democratic, and modern societies. Can private ownership of oil and gas assets be far beyond?]
The history of oil and gas production in Latin America has been characterized by a continuing tug of war between the state as owner of the subsurface (Spanish colonial tradition) and private producers in pursuit of profits. Private participation in the industry has been limited to brief periods and restricted to specific phases of oil and gas production.
The typical pattern is that foreign oil and gas companies are allowed into a country to locate and initiate production.…
Continue Reading… Continue Reading“Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933)
“[The 1930s Great Depression and today’s Great Recession] were preceded by extraordinary expansions of bank credit, which fueled run-up’s in stock prices and real estate values…. The two economic crises also elicited similar (and equally counterproductive ) fiscal policy responses, combining substantial increases in federal spending, financed primarily by bollorwing, with higher taxes and more regulatory controls on the private sector.”