My Testimony On New York's "Scoping Plan" To Achieve Net Zero Carbon Emissions

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  • Today I trekked out to Brooklyn to testify at a public hearing on New York’s plans to achieve “net zero” electricity by 2030 or so, and a “net zero” economy by 2050. Actually, it wasn’t much of a trek — the hearing took place at an auditorium in Brooklyn Heights, near the first subway stop on the other side of the East River.

  • The organization holding the hearing was the New York Climate Action Council. This body was created under New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 (Climate Act), and is tasked with figuring out how to achieve the statutorily mandated net zero targets.

  • The first statutory target is 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, which as a practical matter means that fossil fuels must be almost completely eliminated from the electricity sector by that date.

  • The Council issued its Draft Scoping Plan for how to achieve the targets on December 30, 2021. The Draft Scoping Plan is some 300 pages of text plus 500 pages of appendices; but the gist comes down to, we will order the private sector to eliminate emissions by various dates certain, and then it is up to the little people to work out the details. Today’s hearing allowed for members of the public to comment on the Draft Scoping Plan, supposedly so that any appropriate adjustments can be made before the Plan becomes final later this year.

  • What follows is an approximate text of my presentation:

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New York Gerrymandering Reform Comes Around To Bite Democrats

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  • The decennial census came out in 2020, and now, as the 2022 elections approach, we are in redistricting season. The gerrymanderers are out in force, fighting for advantage in every Congressional and state legislative race nationwide.

  • For many decades, gerrymandering battles often got fought in the federal courts, where the side that had come out on the short end in the legislature would argue for redress under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution.

  • In 2019 a 5-4 conservative majority of the Supreme Court substantially ended that game in a case called Rucho v. Common Cause. Rucho held that in most circumstances gerrymanders present political questions that are not justiciable by the federal courts. (The decision does carve out at least one exception, for racially-motivated gerrymanders. That seemingly small exception might be applied by creative lawyers to cry foul over almost any redistricting map, so don’t count on federal litigation on this subject to go away.)

  • The gerrymandering game has been playing out in a very humorous way here in New York.

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Latest Progressive Policy Disaster: Homelessness In San Francisco

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Latest Progressive Policy Disaster: Homelessness In San Francisco

  • Three and a half years ago, in November 2018, the good people of San Francisco enacted by a referendum called Proposition C a new special corporate payroll tax which would raise multiple hundred million dollars per year for the specific purpose of finally and once and for all solving the problem of homelessness.

  • During the run-up to that referendum, in October 2018, I had two posts discussing Proposition C, the nature of the progressive thinking behind it, and its prospects for success. On October 26 it was “The Morality Of Our Progressive Elite”; and on October 30 it was “More On The Morality Of Our Progressive Elite.”

  • Toward the end of that second post, I posed this question: “[What are] the prospects that San Francisco’s new $300 million might actually reduce the population deemed ‘homeless’?” My answer was: “Right around zero.”

  • On April 26 the San Francisco Chronicle ran a big feature article on the subject, with the headline “Broken Homes” (behind paywall). On April 28, that article was then expanded and commented on by Steven Hayward at PowerLine (“California’s Ongoing Suicide Attempt”), and by Erica Sandberg at the City Journal (“San Francisco’s Housing First Nightmare”).

  • And the answer is: The results are far, far worse than mere failure to reduce the population deemed homeless.

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Comedy Gold: How To Cope With Your "Climate Anxiety"

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  • Every day you read how the “climate crisis” is real, and rapidly getting worse. Humans burning fossil fuels to support out-of-control consumerism have brought the earth to the brink of disaster. Droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, and plagues of every sort are proliferating.

  • Of course, you are feeling all the natural human reactions: fear, dread, not to mention overwhelming guilt at your own role in causing the crisis through the grave sin of enjoying your life. In short, you have entered the state known to the experts as “climate anxiety.”

  • The New York Times, as usual, was way out front on this issue. But, as that Times headline concedes, “stewing and ignoring the problem” won’t ease your excruciating angst. You’re looking for real solutions here. You want to “do something.”

  • Fortunately for you, a whole new mini-profession of psychologists has sprung up to advise you.

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Student Loan Update: Free Government Money In Action

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Student Loan Update: Free Government Money In Action

  • The federal student loan program has been back in the news lately. On April 6 the Biden Administration announced the extension of the “pause” on payments of principal or interest federal student loans through August 31.

  • Does anybody believe that when August 31 comes the “pause” will not be then extended yet again at least through Election Day in November? Supposedly this is a matter of Covid “emergency.” Is this particular branch of the Covid “emergency” ever likely to end?

  • Federally-guaranteed student loans seemed like such a good idea when the program got started. Many of the best and brightest would benefit from college, but could not afford the cost. With federal support via guaranteed student loans, the young people could maximize their potential, and society would benefit at the same time from their increased productivity. The cost to the taxpayers would be minimal because the borrowers would have to repay. What’s not to like?

  • And then it all turned into a gigantic honeypot to be used for vote buying.

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The New York Times Does Energy Storage

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  • If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you know that the mythical transition to an energy future of pure “green” wind and solar electricity faces a gigantic problem of how to provide energy storage of the right type and in sufficient quantity.

  • To make the electrical grid work, the wildly intermittent production of the wind and sun must somehow be turned into a smooth flow of electricity that matches customer demand minute by minute throughout the year. So far, that task has been fulfilled largely by natural gas back-up, which ramps up and down as the sun and wind ramp down and up.

  • But now governments in the U.S., Europe, Canada and elsewhere say they will move to “net zero” carbon emission electricity by some time in the 2030s. Natural gas emits CO2, so “net zero” means that the natural gas must go. The alternative is energy storage of some sort.

  • So how can this problem be addressed?

  • To get some insights into the progressive approach, we turn as always to the New York Times.

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