Entries by Sean Hackbarth

Setting Things Straight: Bill McKibben is Very Wrong About Fracking

KEY TAKEAWAY:  Bill McKibben is wrong. #fracking isn’t contaminating our water or polluting our air. Bill McKibben molds facts like Play-Dough to push his unrealistic, “keep it in the ground” energy dream. A big part of public policy debates involves countering misleading claims. In this regular feature, I highlight important facts about the key issues being […]

Obama Sides with ‘Keep It In the Ground’ Fanatics

KEY TAKEAWAYS: Excluding Atlantic coast from offshore drilling is next step in Obama’s “Keep it in the ground” energy strategy. President Obama chooses cementing legacy among anti-energy zealots over America’s energy security. President Barack Obama continues choosing cementing his legacy among anti-energy zealots rather than ensuring America’s energy security. Instead of the all-of-the-above energy strategy he […]

Here’s Where Things Stand One Year Into Net Neutrality

KEY TAKEAWAY: Broadband investment flat in first year of #NetNeutrality. Coincidence? One year after the FCC tossed out a successful regulatory policy that left a light touch on the Internet, allowing it to transform how we communicate, shop, and run our businesses, let’s see what has happened and where we’re headed. Here are 4 things we know: […]

Let’s See the University of Cincinnati’s Hydraulic Fracturing Research

KEY TAKEAWAY: A $400K federal grant obligates U of Cincinnati to publicize its hydraulic fracturing research. Recently, I wrote about hydraulic fracturing opponents being put in the uncomfortable position of funding a University of Cincinnati research project that found fracturing didn’t contaminate groundwater in Ohio’s Utica Shale. New information has surfaced on how its research was […]

VIDEO: The Supreme Court Pause of EPA’s Carbon Regulations Explained

Why did the Supreme Court pause EPA’s Clean Power Plan? The Supreme Court granted a stay of EPA’s carbon regulations—the Clean Power Plan. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called it an “important rebuke to the political method of the anticarbon activists in the EPA and White House.” Ditching fossils fuels will be a capital-intensive […]

EPA’s ‘Covert Propaganda’ Campaign to Sell Its Water Rule Explained

“Covert propaganda” is something you’d expect from a foreign spy agency not from EPA. Yet that’s what the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded in a report on the agency’s efforts to sell its water rule– Waters of the United States (WOTUS), The New York Times reports: Federal agencies are allowed to promote their own policies, […]

President Obama’s Absurd Reasons for Rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline

President Obama tossed economics and science out the window and onto the White House lawn when he rejected the Keystone XL pipeline. After leaving it in bureaucratic limbo for seven years, the president claimed the project–which would safely transport Canadian and American crude oil to Gulf Coast refineries–would have little economic effect and would hurt […]

Asia Will Build 500 Coal-Fired Power Plants This Year No Matter What the U.S. Does

Two stories about coal use in Asia highlight the futility of EPA’s efforts to reduce global carbon emissions by straightjacketing the U.S. economy with draconian carbon regulations. First, there’s The New York Times story that China has been using more coal than anyone thought: China, the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases from coal, has been […]

Federal Court to EPA: Stop Enforcing Water Rule

A federal appeals court delivered a big blow to the Obama administration’s attempts to use federal water regulations to amass unprecedented control over land use, The Wall Street Journal reports [subscription required]: A federal appeals court on Friday issued a nationwide stay blocking a new Environmental Protection Agency regulation that seeks to expand the amount […]

Regulatory Reform Was Off the GOP Debate Radar

KEY TAKEAWAY Federal agencies make more laws than Congress. We can get our rules right with the Regulatory Accountability Act. The second GOP Presidential debate covered a lot of issues, and while not every one can be covered–not even in a three-hour debate–it was disappointing that regulations only received a handful of mentions and no discussion. […]

EPA tramples a cattle rancher, hammers a steel manufacturer and zaps a power plant

Above the Fold, the U.S. Chamber’s new digital platform, published a three-part series looking at EPA’s regulations and how it affects the day-to-day operations of American businesses. Whether it’s EPA’s water rule, tougher ozone standards, or carbon regulations, real businesses explain in their own words how they will be hurt by EPA’s overbearing regulations. Please […]