Category: energy

Noted conservative economist Aurthur Laffer, writing in Dec 18, 2008 WSJ op-ed Obama Should Forget About Energy Independence says he “strongly supports” the idea of an carbon tax offsetted against payroll taxes, calling it a “win-win”…

“The only real solution is Al Gore’s proposal to offset a carbon tax dollar-for-dollar with either an income or payroll tax reduction. If a carbon tax increase were offset dollar-for-dollar with an income tax rate cut, I for one would strongly support the policy. The economy would benefit because the progressive income tax does far more damage than a carbon tax would, and we’d use less oil. It’s a win-win situation. Yet this perspective appears to be totally outside the Obama team’s ken.”

Holman Jenkins column today (How to Save Detroit And $50 Billion) reiterates his postion that CAFE (government mandated fuel-mileage standards) has at best not helped to reduce fuel consumption. This is absolutely correct — he does however stretch his arguement beyond the breaking point by ignoring (selective amnesia?) other, conflicting, regulation Continue reading “Of Chicken Taxes, CAFE, and gas guzzlers”

…for now, anyway. Backers are vowing to revive it. Continue reading “Ding Dong TIME is dead”

I  think any additional drilling for oil should be done only on the precondition that the additional supply would be offset by a decrease in demand (i.e conservation).  That way, it won’t just get pissed away on increasing domestic demand, like what happened in the mid-1980’s when a huge amount of new supply pushed prices way down and ushered in the SUV era. Continue reading “More Drilling?”

Joel Kotkin is a noted scholar whose general line of thinking is counter to what loosely might be called the New Urbanism. As such he is an ideological soulmate of the WSJ editorial board. Continue reading “The assault on the assault on the suburbs”

Jenkin’s column today July 2, 2008 What is GM Thinking (currently available here) bemoans various aspects of GM’s forthcoming plug-in hybrid, the Volt. GM claims it will be available in 2010. Continue reading “Now he doesn’t like the Volt”

Finally, my new book. Continue reading “Living Like Ed”

Decades ago, harkening back to the oil shocks of the 1970’s, the US Congress instituted what would seem to be a reasonable idea of discouraging gas guzzlers. Vehicles below 22mpg are slapped with a special tax, usually referred to as the gas guzzler tax ( the legislation was called: The Energy Tax Act of 1978). The tax is collected by the manufacturer or importer, and is paid by the first buyer.

An economist would refer to such a tax as a disincentive to guzzling gas (actually a disincentive to producing/buying gas guzzling vehicles).

As is usual, what would seem to be a good idea is destroyed by spineless politicians and weaselly lobbyists.

Therefore, SUVs (light truck), of course, are exempt 🙂

In 2005, about 170M was collected. There are untold hundreds of millions of dollars of foregone revenue due to the SUV loophole.

Source: TRANSPORTATION ENERGY DATA BOOK: EDITION 26–2007, Tables 4.20 and 4.21
(a treasure trove of energy data. Also interesting is the studies on speed vs. mpg — generally vehicles peak around 50mph).

Jenkin’s column, The Coming Oil Investment Boom, June 4, 2008 was really just a restating of the old maxim “the best solution for high oil prices is high oil prices”. But near the end he seems to agree with Al Gore’s idea (a revenue neutral gas tax,  offsetting payroll taxes): Continue reading “Wither gas tax?”

Here is some pretty stark statements coming directly from the Bush Administration. Why now, in the seventh year of his administration? Why spoil the streak? Wouldn’t a continuation of current policy — delay and denial — have worked for just these last few months of his lame duck administration? Where is Dick Cheney on this? Continue reading “Better late than never?”

Continue reading “Book: Oil on the Brain”

The WSJ editorializes (The Fed’s Bender, Wall Street Journal: Apr 28, 2008) the fall in the value of the dollar as nothing more than poor monetary policy on the part of the Federal Reserve. They point out an interesting comparison between the price of oil in dollars versus euros since 2003. Continue reading “Euros and euros”

The full paper that was excerpted to become a WSJ op-ed piece can be downloaded from the Pacific Research website. (a good deal, as the cover price is $24.95!).

I should point out that the paper is not a scientific endeavor, and the author is not a scientist by training: “Hayward holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and an M.A. in Government from Claremont Graduate University”. It is more of an outlook and commentary. He tends to think the mass-media (MSM?) has a tendency to sensationalize environmental stories and make everything seem both excessively gloomy and unfairly blame anthropogenic causes — this is probably true. He lists some citations that refute that trend: Continue reading “The Real Cost of Tackling Climate Change”