Your Morning Energy News
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MORNING ENERGY NEWS | 03/02/2020
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** Yes, carbon taxes are politically toxic, but we'll stay vigilant because you can never underestimate the inability of politicians to pay attention to the voters.
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E&E News ([link removed]) (2/27/20) reports: "It failed in 2010. Supporters abandoned it in 2016. And now it's being passed over for shiny newcomers endorsed by celebrity lawmakers. That's the state of carbon pricing. The political landscape around climate policy is being shaken by aggressive activism, a record number of coal plant closures and a retreat from what's seen by many as the retro carbon plans of the last decade...Robert Stavins, who directs the environmental economics program at the Harvard Kennedy School, said it isn't surprising that carbon taxes aren't a staple of candidate stump speeches now, because enactment is politically infeasible. 'Politicians love to pass out benefits,' Stavins said. 'They hate passing out costs. So if you talk about innovation and you talk about clean energy standards and you talk about CAFE standards, even if they impose costs, which they do, that's a lot safer than talking about a carbon-pricing scheme that is so
explicitly involving a cost.' Polls routinely show voters support the federal government clamping down on 'pollution' linked to climate change — but voters are also reluctant to pay personally to avoid the problem."
** "The whole issue about EVs, electric vehicles, we're not going to command that consumers have to address them...We really think that the free market works, the private sector works, and we need to let the consumer decide"
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– Elaine Chao, Transportation Secretary ([link removed])
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A lean, mean, mission-focused, machine.
** B ([link removed])
** loomberg ([link removed])
(3/2/20) reports: "EPA leaders are embracing a management system aimed at making the agency faster and more efficient—but rank-and-file workers are resisting the initiative, Stephen Lee writes. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler trumpeted the EPA Lean Management System (ELMS) before Congress last week, saying over half the agency was using it daily. 'We are already seeing real progress,' he said in written testimony to a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee. But several EPA employees said it’s not a good fit for a regulatory bureaucracy. It’s 'designed to take EPA employees’ time away from the EPA’s mission of protecting human health and the environment,' said Nicole Cantello, an EPA attorney in Region 5 and president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 704 in Chicago."
Drama alert from everyone's favorite band.
** Reuters ([link removed])
(3/1/20) reports: "OPEC could agree on deeper oil supply cuts this week, with or without Russia’s support, to halt the slide in crude prices triggered by the global spread of the coronavirus, said two sources familiar with the talks. Moscow is resisting further output curbs, arguing that reduced production by the Saudi Arabia-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, will not necessarily revive oil demand, the sources said. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday said that current prices are acceptable for his country’s budget and that Russia - a key member of OPEC+ - has sufficient resources to contend with any deterioration in the global economy...OPEC and allies are scheduled to meet in Vienna over March 5-6 to seek agreement on production policy. But cutting output without Russia could effectively mean an end to the cooperation between OPEC and Moscow, an outcome that Saudi Arabia and other key OPEC members would not want."
Energy Markets
WTI Crude Oil: ↑ $45.40
Natural Gas: ↑ $1.72
Gasoline: ↓ $2.43
Diesel: ↓ $2.84
Heating Oil: ↑ $147.89
Brent Crude Oil: ↑ $50.25
** US Rig Count ([link removed])
: ↓ 817
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