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The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is out with new data on oil and gas leasing on federal lands—and it isn’t pretty. BLM issued fewer new leases in fiscal year 2014 than in any year since 1988 (though they leased slightly more acres than in 2013). The following chart shows how new BLM oil and gas leases dropped to 1,157 in FY 2014, a 26-year low that continues a long-term trend of depressed energy development on federal lands. As we have pointed out for years, BLM keeps...
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WASHINGTON DC – Today, the American Energy Alliance (AEA) announced the launch of a major education and accountability initiative, the American Energy Scorecard. With energy at the top of the agenda for the 114th Congress, AEA is unveiling the nation’s first and only free-market congressional energy accountability scorecard. The American Energy Scorecard educates lawmakers about the most important energy votes of the year and empowers the American people to hold their elected...
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Institute for Energy Research senior economist Dr. Robert Murphy published a piece today on National Review Online that debunks the conservative case for a carbon tax. The op-ed is a response to a piece written by Dr. Irwin Stelzer in which he calls on conservatives to support a carbon tax. Here's an excerpt from Dr. Murphy's piece:

In his December 29 piece for National Review Online , Irwin Stelzer tries to convince conservatives that they should support a carbon tax because — coupled...

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When you’re an environmentalist and you’ve lost The Washington Post editorial board, it might be time for soul searching. Last week, the same editors who support EPA’s carbon dioxide rules and routinely call for a carbon tax came out against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision to ban hydraulic fracturing in the Empire State, dubbing it “ignoble” and “the wrong approach.” As the editors explain:

State regulators admit they have no proof that fracking has been...

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Governor Jay Inslee has proposed a cap-and-trade program for Washington State that would function much like a carbon tax—except with less accountability. Even on its own terms, suppressing emissions at the state level makes no cost/benefit sense. As the Governor’s own analysis indicates, this is a move to plug a budget deficit. Finally, Washington State residents shouldn’t fall for his rhetoric when downplaying the significant impact they will see in energy prices. Inslee’s Plan...
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As we previously noted, President Obama’s former law professor and campaign donor Laurence Tribe submitted a public comment slamming the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) climate rule as an unconstitutional “executive overreach.” Now Professor Tribe has penned an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal that really drives home the point. Tribe, who once called Obama “the best student I ever had,” writes:

Even more fundamentally, the EPA, like every administrative...

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WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama held a press conference at the White House today during which he discussed the Keystone XL pipeline. Though he refused to take a stand on the proposed project, the president expressed concerns that Keystone would primarily benefit Canadian interests, not the American people. The president’s dismissive attitude toward cooperating with Canada on Keystone stands in stark contrast to his conciliatory approach with other world leaders. AEA President...
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An eye-catching headline at Bloomberg News is making the rounds: “Cheap Oil Jamming Rails Means Higher U.S. Power Bills.” The claim would be newsworthy if it had any basis in reality. Here’s how the article begins:

U.S. electricity costs are poised to reach the highest level since 1999 because railroads are too clogged to deliver enough coal to power plants. While the U.S. has the world’s biggest coal reserves, utilities are forecast by the government to end the year with the...

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