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Natural Resources, Environment, Science Policy Studies

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• Whooping Cranes Come First? How the Endangered Species Act Endangers the State Water Supply

  By Mario Loyola, Texas Public Policy Foundation
  
  Public Policy Perspective, 09/09/2010
  

  In March 2010, the Aransas Project filed a complaint in federal district court against officials of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality alleging a “take” of whooping cranes under the Endangered Species Act. The plaintiff—an environmental advocacy group—is trying to subject the allocation of much of the water in the Guadalupe and San Antonio rivers to the alleged needs of a small population of whooping cranes that winters in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, on the Gulf coast.

  
  
  

• Low-Cost Energy: Critical for the Economy and Our Way of Life

  By Daren Bakst, Geoff Lawrence, John Locke Foundation
  
  Spotlight, 09/07/2010
  

  Increasing energy prices rarely should be an option for policymakers. High energy prices reduce wealth and make addressing environmental problems far more difficult. Less wealth makes it more difficult to address the most important issues such as lowering infant mortality, curing diseases, and providing critical infrastructure. State legislators should take a proactive approach to identify and eliminate policies that increase energy prices. They should ignore global-warming policies that, while achieving no benefit, would have a devastating effect on the health and welfare of North Carolinians.

  
  
  

• Costs of Nuclear v. Solar Power

  By Daren Bakst, Carlo Stagnaro, John Locke Foundation
  
  Spotlight, 09/02/2010
  

  It would be fair to say that there are questions regarding the cost of nuclear power, but they do not diminish the critical importance of nuclear energy and certainly do not change the fact that nuclear power is far less expensive and more reliable than solar power. Policy makers should not try to pick winners and losers among various technologies. Maybe some day solar power will be cost competitive with nuclear power and have real value for electricity customers. Until that day, however, policymakers should not force solar power into the electricity mix at the expense of low-cost and reliable electricity.

  
  
  

• Biotech Beets Banned

  By Ronald Bailey, Reason Foundation
  
  Reason, 08/19/2010
  

  Ultimately, biotech crops should not be subject to any more regulatory scrutiny than any other crop varieties. Making those changes would go a long way toward breaking up the nascent seed monopolies that the over-regulation favored by anti-biotech activists has produced.

  
  
  

• Critical Lessons from the Federal Response to the Gulf Oil Spill

  By Daniel Kaniewski, James Carafano, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 08/10/2010
  

  The federal government should integrate the lessons learned from the Gulf spill response to ensure that it retains the capacity and skill to respond to Spills of National Significance over the long term. Specifically, the federal government should bolster the resources of the U.S. Coast Guard and synchronize federal response efforts under the National Response Framework.

  
  
  

• Need for Moratorium Mitigated by New Oil Spill Response Capacities

  By James Carafano, Jack Spencer, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 08/05/2010
  

  While Deepwater Horizon incident revealed flaws in the federal oversight process, suspending drilling operations is not the best strategy for mitigating risks while Washington gets its own house in order. As a result of this incident, the U.S. capacity to respond to even the most catastrophic failures has been greatly expanded and enhanced. Given that major spills are already rare, resuming drilling would be the more prudent course.

  
  
  

• Energy Efficiency: Is Texas Getting Its Money's Worth?

  By Robert J. Michaels, Bill Peacock, Texas Public Policy Foundation
  
  Report, 08/03/2010
  

  Energy efficiency has traditionally been about making energy less expensive to use. The public benefit of energy efficiency is that we are able to use more, less-expensive energy that in turn produces greater economic growth. However, today’s government-mandated energy efficiency programs are generally designed to decrease energy use. And, as described below, they often do this by increasing the cost of energy.

  
  
  

• Congressional Response to the Gulf Spill: What It Could Mean for Texas

  By Mario Loyola, Texas Public Policy Foundation
  
  Policy Brief, 08/03/2010
  

  America gets a third of its domestic oil production from the Gulf of Mexico—and more than 80 percent of that from deepwater wells. The offshore oil industry represents a vital part of the economy of Texas. A reformed framework for offshore drilling must protect our economy as well as our environment.

  
  
  

• Oil Spill Liability: A Plan for Reform

  By Nicolas Loris, Jack Spencer, James Carafano, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Backgrounder, 08/03/2010
  

  Congress should create a liability system that clearly identifies risks and allocates associated liabilities, ensures that those engaged in the industry can meet their potential liabilities, protects industry from frivolous lawsuits, and assures the public that both environmental and economic damages from an oil spill can be addressed in full. The oil industry should create an independent safety organization that would provide an incentive for oil companies to explore and implement new safety and prevention mechanisms. While such an organization would greatly reduce the likelihood of spills in the future, the industry also needs to demonstrate a clear and full ability to respond competently in the event of a spill. These reforms would keep oil and gas operation safe, the public informed, and overzealous regulators in check.

  
  
  

• Who Should Pay for the Gulf Oil Spill?: Liability and Incentive Issues Raised by the Deepwater Horizon Incident

  By James Plummer, Competitive Enterprise Institute
  
  On Point, 08/03/2010
  

  In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon incident, political pressure to limit and ban offshore drilling is on the rise. The answer is not to ban offshore drilling, but to correct the errors in the liability and insurance markets that helped precipitate the disaster. Raising or eliminating the liability caps would encourage more prudent behavior by oil companies and the insurance companies and bond markets that finance them. Raising the caps after the fact obscures the ways in which interference in the market likely encouraged risk taking. Congress should consider repealing the entire Trust Fund structure, which socializes risk among prudent and imprudent firms and encourages imprudent behavior.

  
  
  
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Natural Resources, Environment, Science Features

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• The Reality of Renewables

  By Rob Gordon
  
  October 03, 2008
  

  In explaining why the United States has failed to tap its own energy resources, China’s People’s Daily explains: “The underlying reason is for environmental considerations.” According to the Chinese paper, “It would be a joke to say the US is short of oil.” The American public has figured out the...

  
  
  

• The Great Leap Backward: ’70s Energy Policies Will Make Us Poorer

  By Ben Lieberman and Nicolas Loris
  
  October 03, 2008
  

  America is currently facing energy challenges reminiscent of the 1970s. Unfortunately, rising gas prices have policymakers repeating the mistakes from that decade—mistakes that took a bad situation and made it worse. Then, as now, good energy policy is easy to distinguish from bad energy policy: Good policy leads to more...

  
  
  

• Index of Leading Environmental Indicators 2002

  By Steven Hayward and Julie Majeres
  
  April 01, 2002
  

  Each year, Pacific Research Institute’s Index of Leading Environmental Indicators reveals the good news – environmental quality has been improving continuously, and in some cases dramatically, for the past 30 years.  In fact, according to government data, it is the single greatest success story in American public policy. While the amount...

  
  
  

• Private Conservation: A Tocquevillian Tradition

  By R.J. Smith
  
  April 01, 2002
  

  America's unique approach to private conservation and private stewardship grows out of the penchant by Americans to undertake and form voluntary associations. Alexis de Tocqueville, in his Democracy in America, singled out this characteristic of the American people as one of the most striking things that separated them from the people...

  
  
  

• The Lone Mountain Compact: Principles for Preserving Freedom and Livability in America’s Cities and Suburbs

  November 01, 2000
  

  The phenomenon of urban sprawl has become a pre-eminent controversy throughout the United States. Recently, a number of scholars and writers — gathered by the Political Economy Research Center at a conference about the issue at Lone Mountain Ranch in Big Sky, Montana – decided to distill their conclusions into...

  
  
  

• Being Naturally Resourceful: Righting a Wrong

  By Becky Norton Dunlop
  
  March 01, 2000
  

  I think that I shall never seeA poem as lovely as a tree… March comes to an end and our thoughts turn to spring, the time of renewal, re-creation and a renaissance of nature. We are reminded each springtime of the resilience of natural resources. Harsh winter temperatures, violent weather...