On June 26, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2454, the Waxman-Markey bill. Generally, Waxman-Markey bill is thought of as a cap-and-trade bill, but it is far more than that. Of the bill’s 1,428 pages, merely half are dedicated to cap-and-trade. Dr. Robert Michaels, a Senior Fellow with IER, examined the non-cap-and-trade provisions [...]

Senators Boxer and Kerry unveiled their cap-and-trade bill energy tax bill today. [Boxer-Kerry bill available here.] The bill is very similar to the drafts they released yesterday. It’s too early to fully analyze the bill, but a few things are clear from the outset.

It appears the Senators do not trust cap-and-trade to produce the [...]

In advance of Senator Boxer and Kerry’s release of their energy regulation bill tomorrow, two advance drafts were released today. [Boxer-Kerry Draft 1 is available here. Boxer-Kerry Draft 2 is available here.] From these drafts it appears that the Boxer-Kerry bill will dramatically increase regulation, provide new entitlements to politically-connected groups, and give corporate rent-seekers [...]

The CBO has issued a new report [.pdf] that summarizes the economic effects of greenhouse-gas legislation, relying on previously published analyses. The report shows just how weak the case for the proposed cap-and-trade plan really is. In fact, the CBO demonstrates that the theoretical benefits of Waxman-Markey to the United States fall far short of [...]

Energy is critical for our economy and our future and the real issues deserve to be debated. That is why we appreciated the initial response on the American Wind Energy Association’s website to the recent study, Wind Energy: The Case of Denmark. It appears that AWEA actually read the study and raised some questions related [...]

It’s been nearly a year since the federal government responded to the will of the American people and retired its decades-old bans on responsible offshore energy exploration.  Unfortunately, one year later, it seems as though that long overdue response was merely a gesture.  In fact, not only are we no closer to tapping those “newly [...]

The Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) has released a new study [.pdf] touting the economic rationale of the Waxman-Markey climate bill. Titled “The Other Side of the Coin,” the study decries the tendency of recent analyses to focus just on the economic damages of Waxman-Markey, while ignoring all of the alleged benefits that would accrue [...]

In the debate over “green jobs,” one of the most damning pieces of evidence was a blockbuster March 2009 study [.pdf] by researchers at King Juan Carlos University in Madrid. The study—whose lead author, Gabriel Calzada Álvarez, has a Ph.D. in economics and teaches Environmental Economics—agreed with President Obama and others who single out Spain [...]

There are two futures for energy, depending on which socioeconomic system we adopt. The free-market promises a bright energy future, while the opposite path of political energy is dark. In that sense energy differs little from other goods and services (such as health care): its supply will depend on whether economic laws are allowed to [...]

On August 12 the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) and National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) released their study of the economic impacts of the pending Waxman-Markey bill. Proponents of Waxman-Markey hailed the study as showing the economic benefits of the bill. However, in actuality the ACCF/NAM study shows the opposite: Waxman-Markey will destroy American [...]