Washington, D.C., May 21, 2014 – The Pace University’s School of Law has made a great choice in Karl Rábago to head its groundbreaking Energy and Climate Center. He is among the most measured and thoughtful advocates for renewable energy and sensible energy policies that I have ever had the privilege of covering as a […]

Washington, D.C., May 20, 2014 – The stench of McCarthyism has begun to permeate the debate over climate science. Some of the extreme devotees of the doctrine of the indelible fingerprint of mankind on a warming world are adopting the tactics of the odious and late Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. Most […]

Washington, D.C., May 18, 2014 – India is well known for the limited scope and dodgy reliability of its electrical infrastructure. The largely-rural country is legendary for its flickering lights and unpredictable electric service. An exception is the western state of Gujarat, where consumers enjoy electricity 24/7. The electrification record in Gujarat played a significant […]

Washington, D.C., May 8, 2014 – It just gets messier and messier at the Environmental Protection Agency, which I anointed in March as the champion of agency mismanagement in Washington. That blog was based in large part on the case of  the now jailed John Beale, who defrauded EPA (and the taxpayers) of $900,000 by […]

Washington, D.C., May 5, 2014 – The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Program in New Mexico looks increasingly like a governmental version of Oscar Wilde’s “Picture of Dorian Gray.” For years, on the surface, the project to store transuranic waste from the nation’s nuclear weapons edifice in underground salt beds in New Mexico program […]

Washington, D.C., April 28, 2014 – Here’s a classic case of how Congress can slyly pick the pockets of American consumers. The victims don’t even know that they are missing the money. Although in the larger framework of the federal budget, the amount isn’t very impressive, since 1992 consumers of electricity from nuclear plants have […]

Washington, D.C., April 22, 2014 – It’s a really gutsy move. Identical twins Rich and Kevin Gates, who run a small Pennsylvania hedge fund, are challenging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to sue them for allegedly violating the agency’s trading rules. Their firm – Powhatan Energy Fund – has been charged by FERC with engaging […]

Alex Radin, a true public power pioneer, died last Friday (April 11) at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 92.   Radin joined the American Public Power Association – a Washington lobbying group representing municipal, state, and customers of federally-owned utilities – in 1948, the third hire for the small organization, as an editor. […]

Washington, D.C., April 13, 2014 – The nomination of Norman Bay, the Obama administration’s latest pick to join the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and become its chairman, may be in serious jeopardy. Bay, a former federal prosecutor in New Mexico, is currently FERC’s chief enforcement officer, where he’s had a high-profile role in going after […]

Washington, D.C., April 6, 2014 — Texas Gov. Rick Perry doesn’t want federal money to expand health care to poor Texans. He wants federal money to store nuclear waste to benefit rich folks, most of them not Texans. In a letter to Lieutenant Gov. David Dewhurst (who is more powerful in the bizarre Texas government […]