Energy & Climate Change Policy News

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  • opinion

    Obama’s Dangerous Thinking About Climate Change and National Security
    The White House has released a new report entitled “The National Security Implications of a Changing Climate,” essentially a summary of the administration’s view that climate change is a primary threat to the nation’s security. President Obama made the issue a central feature of his commencement speech at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. “Climate change…
    Dakota Wood
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  • news

    How Jeb Bush Would Address Climate Change
    DUBUQUE, Iowa—In his first sit-down interview with The Daily Signal, Jeb Bush blames the “hard-core left” for trying to force its way on the issue of climate change. “The problem is climate change has been co-opted by the hard-core left and if you don’t march to their beat perfectly then you’re a denier,” Bush said…
    David Brody
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  • news

    House GOP Leader: Gas Tax Hike Not ‘Viable’ to Fund Highways
    House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy tells The Daily Signal that a short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund is the likely solution before the measure expires by the end of the month. “We’re trying to find a bipartisan ‘pay for,’” McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a sit-down interview. “We might have to do a short-term one…
    David Brody
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  • opinion

    Washington Is Mismanaging Your Gas Tax Dollars. Here’s Why States Should Have Control.
    Transportation funding could hit a dead-end at the end of the month. On May 31, the Highway Trust Fund’s authorization to pay for the nation’s highway and mass transit projects will expire. Even worse, the fund is running a $13 billion cash flow deficit this year and is expected to exhaust all its money sometime…
    Michael Sargent
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  • opinion

    The Death of the Green Energy Movement
    The green energy movement in America is dead. May it rest in peace. No, a majority of American energy over the next 20 years is not going to come from windmills and solar panels. One important lesson to be learned from the green energy fad's rapid and expensive demise is that central planning doesn’t work….
    Stephen Moore
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  • opinion

    Oil Production Is Up 53% Since 2010, But It’s Declining on Federal Lands. Here’s Why.
    Thanks to hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling methods perfected at the end of last decade, production of crude oil in the United States has skyrocketed. This chart shows the swift takeoff in crude oil production. U.S. oil production is up 53 percent since 2010, but the increase has occurred almost entirely on non-federal lands. Production…
    Patrick Tyrrell
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  • opinion

    New Report: Energy Department’s Loans, Loans Guarantees Costing Taxpayers $2.21 Billion
    Despite many politicians hailing green energy programs as a success, taxpayers are likely to take a $2.21 billion hit for the Department of Energy’s loan and loan guarantee programs, according to a new government study. If that weren’t bad enough, though, these taxpayer-backed programs have far-reaching, unseen costs to the American economy. A recently published…
    Nicolas Loris
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  • opinion

    Media, Environmentalists Were Wrong: How the Gulf Coast Roared Back After Oil Spill
    Five years ago this week a blowout of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig 40 miles from the Gulf Coast tragically claimed 11 lives and spilled 3 million barrels of oil from the damaged wellhead into the Gulf. It’s hard to forget the video images of thick oil day after day gushing into the region’s waters….
    Stephen Moore | Joel Griffith
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  • opinion

    Quadrennial Energy Review: A Plan to Buy Off the States
    The Obama Administration has revealed “the nation’s first ever Quadrennial Energy Review” (QER)—a first ever merely because the energy plans of past Administrations were titled “National Energy Plans” or “National Energy Strategies.” Although the QER promises jobs and economic growth, the review is largely a series of recommendations to buy off states to go along…
    Katie Tubb
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  • opinion

    Out-of-State Billionaire Wages War on Affordable Energy in Nebraska
    I had the privilege of serving as mayor in the small, Shenandoah Valley town where my wife and I raised our children. So, I am keenly aware of concerns about powerful out-of-state or out-of-area interests trying to take advantage of a rural population. The Nebraskan battles over the Keystone XL pipeline and the Terex injection…
    David Kreutzer
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  • opinion

    Group That Inspired Charlie Hebdo, Fort Hood Attacks Stands to Benefit From Yemen Turmoil
    Yemen has been engulfed in an intensifying civil war that has weakened U.S. counterterrorism efforts, created a vacuum of power in which al-Qaeda’s regional franchise can flourish and boosted Iranian influence in a strategic corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, an American ally, has fled the country. The Houthi rebel…
    James Phillips
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  • news

    Why This Economist Wants Government to Stop Wasting Money on Alternative Energy
    On Tuesday, a House Science subcommittee held an oversight hearing on the Department of Energy. The Heritage Foundation’s Nick Loris was on hand to testify that  the agency continues to waste taxpayer dollars funding alternative forms of energy. Loris, the Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow, argues the government’s focus should be to fund basic research…
    Jamie Jackson
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  • opinion

    No, Being a Climate Change Skeptic Isn’t Like Fearing Vaccines
    National Geographic’s latest cover story generated lots of attention for comparing climate change skeptics to those who fear vaccinations, disbelieve NASA’s moon landing, and oppose water fluoridation. The author bemoans the fact that only 40 percent of Americans (according to Pew Research Center) “accept that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming,” asking how so…
    Stephen Moore
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  • opinion

    How Removing Crude Oil Export Ban Would Promote Economic Freedom
    Thursday’s Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on America’s crude oil export policies will focus largely on the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports enacted in response to the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries embargoes levied on the United States and other countries in the 1970s. But at the heart of the matter is…
    Nicolas Loris | Anthony B. Kim
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  • opinion

    Lifting This Ban Could Reduce Gas Prices
    Yet again, the push is on to lift the 40-year-old ban on exporting crude oil. Yet again, opponents claim this would be a disaster … that prices would climb, availability would be threatened and the strategic advantages of holding onto our oil would be discarded. But what Americans need to understand is that lifting the…
    Marshal Wilson
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  • news

    Why Republicans Are Calling for Higher Gas Taxes in This State
    Georgia residents could soon see prices surge at the pump, as lawmakers consider a bill that would significantly raise taxes on gas so the state can afford $1 billion in transportation needs. Georgia’s Republican-led legislature generally agrees on two things: the need to raise a billion dollars to improve roads and bridges (which amounts to…
    Kelsey Bolar
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  • opinion

    Republicans, Democrats Should Stop Asking for Energy Favoritism
    An exchange Thursday in a House hearing illustrated what’s wrong with America’s energy policy. During the Department of Energy budget hearing Thursday, House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., had a few choice words for Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, saying that the Energy Department had not invested enough in carbon capture and sequestration technology (which has been…
    Katie Tubb
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  • news

    Study: Government’s Control of Land Is Hurting Oil Production, Job Growth
    Current government regulations imposed by the Bureau of Land Management are harming energy production and holding back the U.S. economy, a new study reveals. “While federally owned lands are also full of energy potential, a bureaucratic regulatory regime has mismanaged land use for decades,” write The Heritage Foundation’s Katie Tubb and Nicolas Loris. The report…
    Ben Smith
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  • opinion

    Why It’s Better That Markets, Not the Government, Guide Energy Policy
    Almost every activity that improves our quality of life requires energy. We don’t question how the lights stay on, or how groceries get to the stores where we need them. But it happens. Without a doubt, the adage, “You don’t know what ya got ’til it’s gone” applies to energy. We get upset when our…
    Nicolas Loris
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  • opinion

    Don’t Waste Energy on Fossil Fuel Divestment
    Global Divestment Day(s) take place Feb. 13-14, and a movement is afoot to encourage entities to sell their portfolios of conventional fuel stocks. According to a new study, the strategy, known as fossil fuel divestment, would be a loser for those who participate. But more importantly, encouraging divestment ignores the massive benefits conventional fuels bring…
    Marshal Wilson | Nicolas Loris
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