Synopsis (104KB) Complete Analysis (60KB) The following comparison of Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s energy and environmental plans comes from the statements of their plans on their official web sites. The text first indicates what the respective plans say on each topic, and then provides IER’s analysis of each topic within the program. Table of [...]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 16, 2008 CONTACT: Thomas Pyle – 202.621.2952 CARB’s AB 32 Scoping Plan Will Cripple California’s Economy While not Helping the Environment Washington, DC – The California Air Resources Board (CARB) released its Scoping Plan for AB 32, the “California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006,” calling for a reduction in greenhouse [...]

Rep. John Dingell and Rep. Rick Boucher have announced a new cap-and-trade bill they intend to take up next year. The bill amends the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases would force the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80% below 2005 levels by 2050. Click here for a copy of the bill. Click [...]

On Friday, October 3, the California Air Resources Board is scheduled to formally release its Scoping Plan pursuant to AB 32, the “California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.” AB 32 calls for the state of California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. One of the primary means to achieve [...]

PDF version (192KB) “An unprecedented expansion of EPA authority.” – EPA Administrator Johnson Explaining the ANPR The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that is it well on its way to regulating at least 85 percent of the energy used in America in the name of global warming (nevermind the fact that global temperatures have inexplicably [...]

Dan Simmons Director of State Affairs When the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner global warming bill was debated on the floor of the Senate June 2nd to June 6th, one thing became clear—the costs of cap and trade style greenhouse gas regulation were enormous. Almost all serious economic analyses agree on this central point. Despite their defeat in the [...]

Last week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its Energy Technologies Report . In the report, IEA estimated that cutting carbon dioxide levels in half by 2050 would cost $45 trillion. While reports like this are always based on a number of assumptions, one very important assumption in this case is the amount of “spontaneous [...]

U.S. Senate Punts Boxer-Lieberman-Warner Bill No further debate on the ‘most important issue facing the country’   WASHINGTON, D.C. – Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), issued the following statement today in response to the U.S. Senate’s cloture vote on the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner climate change legislation.  Forty-eight Senators voted to halt debate [...]

IER’s economist, Robert Murphy, takes on Nordhaus’ dubious case for a carbon tax with Rolling the Dice.  The Murphy study is currently under submission at a peer-reviewed economics journal.      

By Robert P. Murphy, Economist As the U.S. Senate debates climate change legislation this week, many have proclaimed the virtue of its “cap and trade” system as a “market solution” to reducing carbon emissions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unlike a direct tax, cap and trade is a European-style scheme that masks its [...]