Center for Energy and Environment | Competitive Enterprise Institute

Give a Man a Fish

Iain Murray — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:25:41 +0000

Some policy makers and environmental advocacy groups are beginning to realize that the solution lies not in further government regulation, but in investing fishermen with property rights. However, government bureaucrats are also attempting to utilize this insight to gain even more power over fisheries, threatening to derail the momentum toward a more rational allocation of ocean resources. That would be bad news for both fish populations and the people who depend on them for their livelihood.

The oceans are an important source of food and income for people around the world. In 2007, proteins from fish accounted for 15.7 percent of the total global animal protein supply. In 2008, an estimated 44.9 million people were directly engaged in the fishing industry (both marine capture and aquaculture). However, the world’s fish stocks are not limitless, and are being depleted rapidly.

Two principal factors are at work. First, the billions of dollars in subsidies bestowed on the fishing industry by many governments makes overfishing profitable, even as per capita fishing yields decline. Second, the absence of property rights over fish in most countries means that there is no incentive for any party to husband this resource. In fact, the absence of property rights, combined with subsidies, creates a perverse incentive to deplete this scarce resource.

Attempts to prevent overfishing by promulgating regulations (which are often at odds with subsidies) have proved both ineffective and impossible to enforce. As long as the incentives are skewed by bad government policy, many fishermen will continue to work around regulations or simply neglect to report some of their catches—a practice known as “black” fishing that is all too prevalent. Ending subsidies and extending genuine property rights to fisheries will help solve these problems.

Iain Murray

Roger Abbott

Fri, 2012-05-18

Sub Title:

The Case For a Property Rights Approach to Fisheries Management

Wind Turbines Endanger Eagles

Nicole Ciandella — Fri, 18 May 2012 20:28:14 +0000

From Deroy Murdock's op-ed in Newsday:

"Lethal take" is Washington-speak for federally approved eagle slaughter. Precise eagle-kill numbers are tough to determine, in part because "other animals gobble the carcasses almost immediately," the Competitive Enterprise Institute's R.J. Smith explains. About 67 golden eagles are estimated to be killed annually just at Northern California's Altamont Pass wind farm.

Robert J. Smith

Thu, 2012-05-17

Citation Source:

Newsday

http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/murdock-wind-turbines-endanger-eagles-1.3724773

Obama Is Losing the Keystone Pipeline Battle

Marlo Lewis, Jr. — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:46:55 +0000

From Ronald Bailey's article in Reason:

As analyst Marlo Lewis from the free-market think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute points out such a ban on exports would violate World Trade Organization rules requiring that imported and locally-produced goods to be treated the same once foreign goods have entered the market. In this case, one way to get around this rule would be to also ban the export of refined products made using domestically produced crude oil. Let’s hope that Rep. Markey doesn’t decide that this is a good idea. In addition, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Analysis at the Department of Energy (DOE) Carmine Difiglio noted [PDF] in a June 2011 memorandum that since crude oil imports from Venezuela and Mexico are declining Canadian crude would help make Gulf Coast refiners less dependent on imports from countries with less savory regimes.

Marlo Lewis, Jr.

Tue, 2012-05-08

Citation Source:

Reason Magazine

http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/08/obama-boxed-in-on-keystone-pipeline-cons

Global Warming Crusaders Lose Steam, Tempers

Matt Patterson — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:04:02 +0000

Eco-warriors are losing the public relations battle on global warming -- and it's driving them batty.

Take environmental writer Steve Zwick. Writing for Forbes.com, Zwick has called on so-called "climate deniers" to be treated like virtual war criminals: "We know who the active denialists are--not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies," he writes. "Let's start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let's make them pay. Let's let their houses burn until the innocent are rescued. Let's swap their safe land for submerged islands. Let's force them to bear the cost of rising food prices. They broke the climate. Why should the rest of us have to pay for it?"

Those who disagree with him are not merely mistaken, they are malevolent, unworthy even of persuasion through honest debate. Instead, "denialists" deserve only to have their homes razed.

This is becoming a more and more common feature of environmentalist rhetoric. The violent imagery has even seeped into the pronouncements of the eco-priests at the Environmental Protection Agency. Recently, a video surfaced of EPA Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz admitting that his agency's philosophy is to "crucify" oil and gas companies: "It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean. They'd go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw and they'd crucify them. Then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years."

How can anyone, Left or Right, not be chilled to the bone to hear a government official talk in such a manner about federal treatment of private companies and individuals? Incredibly, this man was in charge of enforcing environmental regulations in five states before the uproar over his repulsive comments forced him to resign.

Then there is the sad case of Peter Gleick, a once-respected environmental scientist who heads the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in California. Gleick disgraced himself and his cause when he confessed to stealing confidential documents from the Heartland Institute back in February in an effort to discredit the conservative think tank. What had Heartland done to deserve such treatment? It had given a platform to ideas considered anathema to Gleick and the global warming community.

Gleick, who was forced to step down from the "scientific ethics and integrity" task force of the American Geophysical Union because of his fraud, failed -- the stolen memos revealed nothing untoward or even unexpected about Heartland's operations. But his actions show just how desperate climate scaremongers have become.

The environmentalists' real problem is that the Earth is not melting. The disastrous consequences of carbon emissions we have long been warned about have not come to pass, and the public is noticing. Even those who believe the Earth is warming don't necessarily blame the coal industry -- a recent Rasmussen survey found only 40 percent of respondents believe global warming is "primarily caused by human activity," down from 47 percent four years ago.

The environmental movement has become a cesspool of hate, where hack journalists and bureaucrats can openly fantasize about violently punishing their political adversaries, and where scientists compromised by a poisonous ideology lie and steal to discredit their intellectual opponents.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, global warming was the Left's last, best chance to redistribute wealth for a supposedly greater cause. When global warming, too, collapses, will they go gently into that good night?

Matt Patterson

Sun, 2012-05-06

Citation Source:

The Washington Examiner

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2012/05/global-warming-crusaders-lose-steam-tempers/573771

The Pipe Crisis Beneath NYC

Nicole Ciandella — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:29:48 +0000

The recent nasty water-main break on West Broadway was a grim reminder that the city’s infrastructure woes aren’t restricted to pockmarked streets, creaky bridges and crumbling sidewalks.

There’s a crisis beneath the streets: New York’s underground network of iron pipes has been decaying for decades. Leaky pipes and water-main breaks mean that untold thousands of gallons of water every year never reach New Yorkers’ homes, schools or businesses. This ghastly waste is reflected in soaring water bills.

The city must modernize its procurement policies. It now excludes polyvinyl-chloride pipe manufacturers from bidding on city contracts, virtually guaranteeing that corroded iron pipes will be replaced by newer, corrosion-prone pipes.

Unlike traditional iron pipes, PVC pipes don’t corrode, last longer and cost about 70 percent less. Rather than soaking ratepayers, New York should open its bidding process and let the best technology at the best price determine the outcome.

Bonner R. Cohen

Wed, 2012-05-02

Citation Source:

The New York Post

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_pipe_crisis_beneath_nyc_h1UIT2nS5kGBzgm5WkgmjN

The Heartland Institute Under Attack

Matt Patterson — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:29:54 +0000

Full Document Available in PDF

Summary:

It was Valentine’s Day, but it was no love letter. On February 14, 2012, renowned environmental scientist Peter Gleick transmitted to a group of liberal bloggers and journalists documents that he obtained from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think-tank specializing in environmental policy. Gleick’s goal: destroy Heartland, a group that has mobilized scientists who are skeptical about global warming. Gleick faked his identity and pretended to be a Heartland board member to obtain some of the documents. One of the documents that Gleick sent was a fake, created by Gleick or parties unknown to prove what wasn’t true. Gleick’s reckless, unethical and, most likely, criminal action shows just how desperate green activists are to prop up their overblown claims about global warming.

Matt Patterson

Tue, 2012-05-01

Citation Source:

Green Watch

https://www.capitalresearch.org/2012/04/the-heartland-institute-under-attack/

New Cars Affordable to Fewer People

Marlo Lewis, Jr. — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:32:42 +0000

From Chris Woodward's column on OneNewsNow:

Marlo Lewis, senior fellow for the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), says the theory underpinning NADA's conclusions is straightforward.

"Before an auto dealer will write you a loan for a new car, he wants to make sure that you have a certain debt service-to-income ratio. In most cases, the maximum payment that they will consider is a monthly interest payment that's up to 40 percent of your monthly income," Lewis explains.

So if the car is more expensive, and the interest payment goes up beyond 40 percent, then fewer people will be eligible for the loans, explains Lewis.

"Then, they argue that the government's estimate of how much additional cost will result from these regulations is unrealistically low," the CEI senior fellow notes. "They say it's more like $4,800 rather than $3,000."

If that is true, Lewis estimates that anywhere from 10-11 million drivers would be priced out of the new car market by 2025.

Marlo Lewis, Jr.

Tue, 2012-04-24

Citation Source:

OneNewsNow

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Business/Default.aspx?id=1583718

Believers, Skeptics Stand Ground on Climate Change

Myron Ebell — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:31:39 +0000

From Dan Hopey's article in The Toledo Blade:

Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Center for Energy and Environment, which has opposed any attempt to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, said even if there is global warming, Americans and the world will still need coal, gas, and other fossil fuels to run the technology, including air conditioning, to deal with it.

And he said proposals to reduce use of coal and fossil fuels will make it impossible to survive any warming that occurs.

Myron Ebell

Mon, 2012-04-23

Citation Source:

The Toledo Blade

http://www.toledoblade.com/Nation/2012/04/22/Believers-skeptics-stand-ground-on-climate-change.print

Keystone and the Troubling Growth of NIMBYism

Brian McGraw — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:45:54 +0000

A constant theme of the 2012 election season has been the national bewilderment over President Obama’s initial decision to veto the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and his later decision to praise the construction of the southern portion of the pipeline — over which the president had no veto power. Though this is hardly the first time a major industrial project has been stymied for political reasons, the pipeline project has caught the nation’s eye in part due to rising gasoline prices.

Many Americans are anxious over the extent to which the United States relies on oil imports, some from countries hostile to our interests. While the pipeline has a small relationship to the price of gasoline, voters want politicians to do something to reduce gas prices. In addition, many voters are concerned primarily with job creation, and they understand that building and operating the pipeline would create many jobs, funded by industry rather than the government. The pipeline has stayed in the news because it has come to symbolize a bigger issue: the divide between those on the left who oppose new fossil fuel development, and those on the right who prefer “drill, baby, drill.”

Keystone is also symbolic of the troubling growth of “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) activism in America. Projects such as the Keystone pipeline, mining activities, hydraulic fracturing and other natural resource production often run into opposition from local communities that seem to support these projects in theory but always have an excuse when a project shows up near where they live, work or play. While each individual project has a relatively minor effect on the national economy, the cumulative effect of a series of cancelled projects is significant: reduced economic activity and wealth creation, higher raw material costs and increased resource development in developing countries where environmental safeguards are less common.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has a website dedicated to energy projects that have run into local opposition titled “Project No Project.” While many of the featured projects have been stymied by NIMBY activists, many others have been stopped through the work of professional environmental organizations, whose primary mission these days seems to be shutting down natural resource and fossil fuel energy projects.

These organizations are well funded and have been very successful through a combination of lawsuits and advocacy campaigns. To give two examples, they’ve gone after coal mining in West Virginia under the guise of saving a short-lived insect, and they’ve petitioned the EPA to preemptively deny permitting to the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska. The Pebble Mine contains enormous deposits of gold and copper, and would create at least 1,000 jobs lasting decades into the future. Yet environmentalists are demanding that the EPA deny the mine permits without even investigating its potential environmental risks.

This activism is not limited to fossil fuels or mining. Environmentalists are even unwilling to accept the construction of energy projects they proclaim to favor. The Los Angeles Times recently documented the stiff opposition by local environmental groups to the construction of solar panels in California’s Mojave Desert. Green groups have also organized opposition to a proposed offshore wind energy project on the East Coast — Cape Wind — which has been tied up in lawsuits. The list goes on and on.

The NIMBY problem won’t easily be solved, as individuals tend to oppose projects that they consider risky when those projects are sited near their communities. It is difficult to communicate the benefits of a specific project, as they are often spread wide throughout the U.S. economy, but each project matters.

The result of widespread NIMBY activism is BANANA — build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody. In the end, this amounts to a death by a thousand cuts to the U.S. economy.

Though it would be helpful if the federal government were to take an approach that favored resource development, states can also compete against one another to encourage resource development in their states by passing laws that restrict the extent to which projects can be delayed for years while bogus lawsuits are settled in court.

Brian McGraw

Thu, 2012-04-19

Citation Source:

The Daily Caller

http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/19/keystone-and-the-troubling-growth-of-nimbyism

The Answer Really Isn't Blowing in the Wind

Hans Bader — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:54:41 +0000

From William Sullivan's column in The American Thinker:

In the natural world, 90 billion goes a long way. But as we've discovered, a $90-billion investment to subsidize renewable energy sources in the natural world does surprisingly little. This amount, allocated in 2009's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to subsidize green energy initiatives, has thus far yielded today's bustling "renewable-energy sector" that employs roughly 140,000 Americans. And even that dismal figure is wildly inflated. Consider that according to Hans Bader of the Examiner, "most of America's existing green jobs predate the Obama administration, which did not create them."

Hans Bader

Wed, 2012-04-18

Citation Source:

The American Thinker

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/the_answer_really_isnt_blowing_in_the_wind.html