View this email in your browser
MORNING ENERGY NEWS  | 8-30-21
Subscribe Now

Net-zero will cost every American $11,000.


Nature (8/23/21) study: "Traditionally, analysis of the costs of cutting greenhouse gas emissions has assumed that governments would implement idealized, optimal policies such as uniform economy-wide carbon taxes. Yet actual policies in the real world, especially in large federal governments, are often highly heterogeneous and vary in political support and administrative capabilities within a country. While the benefits of heterogeneous action have been discussed widely for experimentation and leadership, little is known about its costs. Focusing on the United States, we represent plausible variation (by more than a factor of 3) in the stringency of state-led climate policy in a process-based integrated assessment model (GCAM-USA). For a wide array of national decarbonization targets, we find that the nationwide cost from heterogeneous subnational policies is only one-tenth higher than nationally uniform policies."

" [The new spending bill will] put our country on the path to meet President Biden’s climate change goals of 80 percent clean electricity and 50 percent economy-wide carbon emission reduction by 2030" 

 

– Senate Majority Leader,
Chuck Schumer

Public health officials have done such a great job instilling confidence with their handling of COVID it’s time to expand to include climate change as a public health issue.


Wall Street Journal (8/30/21) column: "The Department of Health and Human Services is preparing to launch an office that will treat climate change as a public health issue, designed to address what the White House says are health risks including those that disproportionately affect poor and minority communities. Many details of the new Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, which will report to a White House climate task force, were outlined in a January executive order on climate, part of President Biden’s efforts to use the power of the federal government to address the environmental effects of changing weather. People familiar with the planning for the new office said resources are being assembled now, without providing further details."

Tryin' Every Lock That Ain't Locked When No One's Around...


Wall Street Journal (8/29/21) editorial: "Political attention on Bernie Sanders’s spending plan is focused on the $3.5 trillion cost, and understandably so. It’s unprecedented. But more important are the enormous policy changes that will be buried in the fine print and that the media will barely notice. One example emerged last week as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Democrats that the bill will include a “Clean Electricity Payment Program.” He said this will “put our country on the path to meet President Biden’s climate change goals of 80 percent clean electricity and 50 percent economy-wide carbon emission reduction by 2030.” This is a national renewable-energy mandate on the sly. Utilities would have to buy or generate a certain amount of renewable energy each year. Those that don’t meet their quotas would be fined while those that exceed targets would receive payments from the feds that they must spend on increasing renewable energy or reducing electricity prices."

Think it can't get worse? It can.


Wall Street Journal (8/27/21) column: "President Biden’s climate plans could soon be advancing through the administrative state, and the place to watch is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC. This obscure outfit oversees America’s natural-gas pipelines and electricity markets, and Democrats are poised take control. Since Mr. Biden’s inauguration, FERC has been operating with a holdover 3-2 Republican majority. That will change Monday, when GOP Commissioner Neil Chatterjee steps down. Although Mr. Chatterjee’s official term expired June 30, the rules let him stay on borrowed time. Mr. Biden hasn’t nominated his replacement, but the stakes are high, given what FERC might do next."

Energy Markets

 
WTI Crude Oil: ↑ $68.84
Natural Gas: ↑ $4.31
Gasoline: ↑ $3.15
Diesel: ~ $3.27
Heating Oil: ↑ $213.52
Brent Crude Oil: ↑ $72.98
US Rig Count: ↑ 607

 

Donate
Subscribe to AEA's Unregulated Podcast Subscribe to AEA's Unregulated Podcast
Subscribe to IER's Plugged In Podcast Subscribe to IER's Plugged In Podcast
Friend on Facebook Friend on Facebook
Follow on Twitter Follow on Twitter
Forward to a Friend Forward to a Friend
Our mailing address is:
1155 15th Street NW
Suite 900
Washington, DC xxxxxx
Want to change how you receive these emails?
update your preferences
unsubscribe from this list