IPI PolicyBytes | Categorised Content

SoundBytes 218: Is the Stimulus Money Creating Jobs?

Merrill Matthews Jr. — Wed, 2 Dec 2009 14:28:11 -0500

Is the Stimulus Money Creating Jobs? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says yes, but for most Americans it’s a long commute.

One goal of President Obama’s stimulus bill was to create environmentally friendly “green jobs.”

And it’s done just that. The Washington Times reports that 11 U.S. wind farms have bought nearly 1,000 electricity-producing wind turbines, creating about 4,500 jobs, uh, oversees.

See, nearly 700 of those turbines were bought from China.

Now a new American-Chinese joint venture just announced it plans to buy nearly 250 Chinese-made turbines. That venture wants 30 percent of its $1.5 billion in funding from the stimulus money.

So if you’ve been looking for work for a while, you need to know that taxpayer-financed stimulus money is creating jobs.

And you might even be able to get one of them.

Good news: No climate change treaty this year

Tom Giovanetti — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:45:11 +0200

I'm in Geneva this week for a meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), so this week I'm kinda in an IP frame of mind.

Today's good news is that no binding treaty is going to come out of next month's Copenhagen conference on climate change.

It's good news for any number of reasons one of which is that the global IP skeptic community will not be able to use climate issues to undermine international patent rights on "green" technologies, at least not now, and at least not through this mechanism.

SoundBytes 212: Do You Own a Green Car Yet?

Merrill Matthews Jr. — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:19:50 -0500

Do You Own a Green Car Yet? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says taxpayers may soon, like it or not.

The U.S. Department of Energy has just granted a $500 million loan to a start-up California car company that has never mass-produced a car.

Fisker Automotive’s first car, which rolls out next year, is a beautiful hybrid sports car. But it sells for $90,000, and is being made in Finland.

Fisker swears that the half-billion dollar taxpayer loan will only be used to produce a more affordable U.S.-made hybrid car—for $40,000. And that the loan will be repaid, with interest.

Of course, that’s only if the company can actually sell those cars.

American taxpayers already own Chrysler and GM. And now we’re investing a half-billion dollars in a start-up.

TechBytes 6.30: Don’t Go Wobbly on Innovation

Tom Giovanetti — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:49:55 -0500

A common theme in science fiction literature and movies is technology run wild. The machines take over, bioweapons researchers accidentally release an engineered virus into the population, or nano-sized machines suddenly develop intelligence and start malevolently chewing through the biosphere, leaving a sea of “grey goo” in their wake.

There’s just enough of a nugget of truth in the setup of these dramas to make them remotely believable. But that’s where science fiction doomsday scenarios depart from human experience. The fact is that innovation and technology have led to the creation of wealth, better health, greater access to knowledge, and thus overall greater quality of life.

But there are still parts of the world that innovation hasn’t reached—where people don’t have access to clean water, adequate health care, basic energy and educational resources.

SoundBytes 200: Is There an Easy Way to Reduce Greenhouse Gases?

SoundBytes — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:38:37 -0500

Is There an Easy Way to Reduce Greenhouse Gases? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says it’s time for scientists to ask, where’s the beef?

The UN says that cows are responsible for 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. That’s more than trains, planes and cars, combined.

See, a cow’s digestive system produces a lot of methane gas, which causes them to burp. And that methane goes into the atmosphere.

So scientists are working to change cow diets to reduce those gases—and, hopefully, global warming.

If they do, maybe we won’t need those little electric cars the government wants GM to make—but which consumers may not want to buy.

And we certainly won’t need the Democrats’ new “cap and trade” tax that will raise energy costs for every American household.

TaxBytes 6.27: When Politics Trumps Science and Economics

TaxBytes — Tue, 7 Jul 2009 13:17:42 -0500

Congress has passed a massive “cap and trade” energy bill designed to raise the price of energy in the U.S. in order to reduce the use of fossil fuels by 17 percent by 2020 and by 83 percent by 2050.

President Barack Obama has called the bill a “jobs bill.” But sentencing the U.S. economy to high-cost energy is not a particularly good strategy for creating jobs. Charles River Associates, a Harvard-based economics consulting firm, estimates a net loss of about 2.5 million jobs each year.

During the campaign, candidate Obama also pledged that he would never raise taxes in any form on Americans making less than $250,000 per year. But his cap and trade tax is estimated to cost American families almost $2,000 a year when it becomes effective—due to higher prices for electricity, oil, gasoline, natural gas, home heating oil, coal, food and transportation costs—to almost $7,000 a year for a family of four by 2035.

No other organization on earth makes decisions like this

Tom Giovanetti — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:05:21 -0500

Once again, the U.S. Congress is going to vote on a massive piece of legislation without even a couple of days to read and consider the details of the bill.

"The fastest speed-readers and the most intelligent minds can't make informed decisions with that much time. How can Congress?" Sunlight Foundation Engagement Director Jake Brewer said today in a statement. "The problem here is the bill wasn't developed in the open in a committee, so no one -- including those members of Congress not on the Energy Committee -- knows how this latest version was created."

The foundation points out that while the bill, formally called the American Clean Energy and Security Act, was 946 pages long last week, it has ballooned to 1,201 pages in recent days with little explanation for how or why.

TexBytes 09.14: We’re S-H-O-C-K-E-D—and You May Be, Too

TexBytes — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:53:30 -0500

Oil and natural gas prices are way down, yet Texans’ electricity bills have remained stable, or have even increased a little. So what gives?
There seems to be a natural tendency for the public and their elected officials—with a big push from the media—to blame profit-hungry energy-company CEOs.

But as in so many other cases, when prices go up, a good place to find the explanation is the state Legislature.

See, even as oil and gas prices have gone down, the state has been requiring energy companies to use more “clean fuels,” such as wind and solar power, which come at a premium.

Bill Murchison in San Angelo Standard Times

Erin Humiston — Sat, 7 Mar 2009 11:29:48 -0500

In this weekend’s San Angelo Standard Times, IPI senior research fellow Bill Murchison discusses the re-regulation of Texas electric utilities.

A study by a coalition of Texas municipalities - the Cities Aggregation Power Project, whose members include San Angelo, Odessa and Abilene - says the state needs "meaningful reform" of its electric deregulation policies to compensate for what it calls generally higher electricity prices since deregulation began 10 years ago.
The power industry responds that the Texas Electric Choice Act of 1999 is achieving what it was meant to achieve - the replacement of regulation with "fierce competition" that not only enhances investment in new power sources but maintains downward pressure on prices.

Bill Murchison: A promise politicians can’t keep on electric rates

Erin Humiston — Mon, 2 Mar 2009 09:45:37 -0500

IPI senior research fellow writes today in the Waco Tribune Herald:

“A study by a coalition of Texas municipalities — the Cities Aggregation Power Project, whose members include Robinson and Lorena — says the state needs ‘meaningful reform’ of its electric deregulation policies to compensate for what it calls generally higher electricity prices since deregulation began 10 years ago.

The power industry responds that the Texas Electric Choice Act of 1999 is achieving what it was meant to achieve — the replacement of regulation with “fierce competition” that not only enhances investment in new power sources but maintains downward pressure on prices.

Who’s right?”

To read the full op/ed, please visit the Waco Tribune Herald online.