Topic: Energy and Environment

A Legal Blow to Cities That Want to Take Your Property

By
Randal O'Toole

As Roger Pilon has previously noted, on Tuesday, June 25, the Supreme Court issued a decision that helps protect people’s property rights from greedy municipalities. On Thursday, the New York Times published an op-ed critical of that decision by Vermont Law School Professor John Echeverria, who considers it a blow to “sustainable development,” whatever that means. 

In the case, a Florida property owner named Coy Koontz Sr. wanted to fill and develop 3.7 acres of wetlands. To mitigate the wetland fill, Koontz offered to put 11 acres of his property (75 percent of the total) under a conservation easement. But the St. Johns River Water Management District denied the permit, saying it wanted either 13.9 acres of Koontz’s land (leaving him less than an acre, or just 5 percent of the total, for development) or for Koontz to spend a bunch of his money helping the district restore wetlands elsewhere.

Koontz sued, citing the Supreme Court’s Nollan and Dolan decisions. (Cato and the Institute for Justice filed an amicus brief supporting Koontz.) In the Nollan/Dolan cases, permits were granted on the condition that the property owners give some of their land to the public. The Supreme Court had held that such conditions were an unconstitutional taking of private property.

The Florida Supreme Court rejected Koontz’s argument, saying that there was a big difference between his situation and the Nollan/Dolan cases. In the latter cases, the permits were granted conditional upon the property owners giving up land. In Koontz’s case, the permit was denied unless he gave up land or money.

Echeverria considers these differences to be so clear and obvious that he is amazed that five Supreme Court justices were bamboozled into overturning the Florida court’s decision. After all, granting a permit conditional on giving up your land is completely different form denying a permit unless you are willing to give up your land. Moreover, giving you a choice between giving up your money or property is completely different from simply demanding that you give up your land.

Read the rest of this post »

Topics: 
Energy and Environment, Law and Civil Liberties

Climate vs. Climate Change

By
Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger and Patrick J. Michaels

Global Science Report is a weekly feature from the Center for the Study of Science, where we highlight one or two important new items in the scientific literature or the popular media. For broader and more technical perspectives, consult our monthly “Current Wisdom.”

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding in the difference between climate and climate change.

This is on very public display in the president’s recently unveiled Climate Action Plan, which details a series of executive actions designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to control the future course of the climate.

In justifying the need for these actions, and why he doesn’t have time to wait for Congress to act, the president points to numerous recent examples of extreme weather disasters while linking weather extremes to climate change brought about by anthropogenic greenhouse gases emissions.

In doing so, he goes awry of the best science.

Here’s why.

Read the rest of this post »

Topics: 
Energy and Environment

Did the President Give a Green Light to the Keystone XL Pipeline?

By
Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger

In his speech today laying out his Climate Action Plan, President Obama took a few minutes to address the Keystone XL pipeline.

The fate of the pipeline is still in the hands of the State Department, where the president said they are stilling mulling it over.

But he said today that he would only approve the pipeline if it did not “significantly exacerbate” carbon dioxide emissions and if the climate impacts of the pipeline were negligible. He said “The net effects of climate impact will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project will go forward. It is relevant.”

This is great to hear.

I testified before the House Subcommittees on Energy and Environment on exactly this topic back in the beginning of May.

Here is how I summarized the pipeline’s impact on the climate:

[I]f the Keystone XL pipeline were to operate at full capacity until the end of this century, it would, worst case, raise the global average surface temperature by about 1/100th of a degree Celsius. So after nearly 100 years of full operation, the Keystone XL’s impact on the climate would be inconsequential and unmeasurable. [emphasis in original]

According to the president’s criteria, that should pretty much guarantee his approval of the pipeline.

Topics: 
Energy and Environment

The President’s Climate Action Plan: Intervention Where It Isn’t Necessary

By
Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger

In his speech today, President Obama laid out his plan—formulated around executive action—to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in hopes of mitigating future climate change.

Funny thing is, absent his Climate Action Plan, the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have been on the decline for a decade, and now are at about the same level as our emissions in the early 1990s. In fact, the decline in emissions is taking place at a rate faster than the one sought by the president.

So why mess with a good thing? There is no way that introducing a bunch of new government regulations is going to improve the situation. If the Great Recession is any indication, the outcome of government involvement in the energy industry will be a poor one.

And to what end? As I have repeatedly shown, reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions has no significant impact on the future course of climate change.

On top of that, new science is accumulating that indicates that the future course of climate change is likely to be less steep than our current climate model-based estimates.

And despite the president’s long list of supposed climate wrongs that are consistent with human-caused climate change, there is an equally long list of climate wrongs that have been averted for reasons “consistent with” climate change.

Taken together, declining U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and declining estimates of climate change, should have been enough to convince the president that things were already on the proper track—no government intervention necessary.

But this administration is characterized by intervening where it is not necessary. The president’s Climate Action Plan is more of the same. 

Topics: 
Energy and Environment

Obama Tackles Global Warming — On His Own Authority

By
Roger Pilon

In a speech today at Georgetown University, President Obama will lay out his sweeping plan to address what he believes is our “moral obligation” to address climate change – apparently oblivious to serious studies questioning the extent and cause of the problem, to the futility of our acting alone as China, India, and others do nothing, and to the far-reaching economic effects his plan will have on an economy already struggling with regulatory overkill.

And he plans to do all of this not with the concurrence of Congress but in the face of congressional opposition. He will act unilaterally, by executive order. Yet he has that power, thanks to constitutionally dubious congressional delegations and court decisions stretching back over many years. See here for a detailed discussion of how the president came to have such awesome power.

Topics: 
Energy and Environment, Government and Politics, Law and Civil Liberties

Averting Disasters

By
Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger

In his Berlin speech on Wednesday, President Obama touched on the topic of human-caused climate change and promised “we will do more” to address the issue—presumably by reducing our carbon dioxide emissions at a pace faster than we already are.

What he hopes to achieve by this is unclear, as I have shown that the pace of U.S. emissions reduction has virtually no impact on the future rate of global warming.

President Obama, too, seems to realize a broader effort would be required, as he said “[w]ith a global middle class consuming more energy every day, this must now be an effort of all nations, not just some.”

Without such action, the president asserts that we will face a “grim alternative”—“more severe storms, more famine and floods, new waves of refugees, coastlines that vanish, oceans that rise.”

But even with global action, it is far from scientifically clear that the result of reducing climate change will be a net positive.

I can hardly blame the president for not realizing this, or for not being overly aware of the benefits of global warming.  And I am not talking about the well-known boost to the planet’s plant life (including food crops), but potential direct effects on weather and climate.

Read the rest of this post »

Topics: 
Energy and Environment

On Iran’s Inflation Bogey

By
Steve H. Hanke

With Friday’s Iranian Presidential election fast approaching, there has been a cascade of reportage in the popular press about that opaque country. When it comes to economic data, Iran has resorted to lying, spinning and concealment – in part, because of its mores and history, and more recently, the ever-tightening international sanctions regime. In short, deception has been the order of the day.

The most egregious example of this deception concerns one of Iran’s most pressing economic problems – rampant inflation. Indeed, while the rest of the world watched Iran’s economy briefly slip into hyperinflation in October of 2012, the Statistical Centre of Iran and Iran’s central bank both defiantly reported only mild upticks in inflation.  

It is, therefore, rather surprising that the major international news outlets have continued to report the official inflation data without so much as questioning their accuracy. Even today, with official data putting Iran’s annual inflation rate at a mere 31 percent, respectable news sources faithfully report these bogus data as fact.

As I have documented, regimes in countries undergoing severe inflation have a long history of hiding the true extent of their inflationary woes. In many cases, such as the recent hyperinflation episodes in Zimbabwe and North Korea, the regimes resort to underreporting or simply fabricating statistics to hide their economic problems. Often, they stop reporting economic data all together; or, when they do report economic statistics, they do so with such a lag that the reported data are of limited use by the time they see the light of day.

Iran has followed this course – failing to report important economic data in a timely and replicable manner. Those data that are reported by tend to possess what I’ve described as an “Alice in Wonderland” quality. In light of this, it is fair to suggest that any official data on Iran’s inflation be taken with a grain of salt.

So, how can this problem be overcome? At the heart of the solution is the exchange rate. If free-market data (usually black-market data) are available, the inflation rate can be estimated. The principle of purchasing power parity (PPP), which links changes in exchange rates and changes in prices, allows for a reliable estimate. Indeed, PPP simply states that the exchange rate between two countries is equal to the rates of their relative price levels. Accordingly, if we can obtain data on free-market exchange rates, we can make a reliable estimate of the inflation rate.

In short, changes in the exchange rate will yield a reliable implied inflation rate, particularly in cases of extreme inflation. So, to calculate the inflation rate in Iran, a rather straightforward application of standard, time-tested economic theory is all that is required.

Using this methodology, it is possible to estimate a reliable figure for Iran’s annual inflation rate. At present the black-market IRR/USD exchange rate sits at 36,450. Using this figure, and a time series of black-market exchange rate data that I have collected over the past year from currency traders in the bazaars of Tehran, I estimate that Iran’s current annual inflation rate is 105.8 percent – a rate almost three and a half times the official annual inflation figure (see the accompanying chart). 

Topics: 
Cato Publications, Energy and Environment, Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy, Foreign Policy and National Security, General, International Economics and Development

Pages