General

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., 19 January 2013 — This is a story without much significance beyond the usual cautionary tale about bureaucracies, which hardly needs retelling. But it is amusing nonetheless. So I present for your amusement and edification, the tale of the vanishing nuclear plants. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which watches over […]

By Kennedy Maize (@kennedymaize) Washington, D.C., 2 January 2013 – It came as no surprise when, shortly after Christmas, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson said she will step down sometime this month. Jackson, a controversial and hard-charging but politically adept EPA chief, will return to her New Jersey home, where she may run for […]

By Kennedy Maize (@kennedymaize) Washington, D.C., 15 Dec. 2012 – Pushed by the pending fiscal cliff and the expiration of 20 years of piecemeal tax subsidies, the U.S. wind industry is proposing a phase out of the production tax credit that has helped wind power to boom in the past few years. The proposal by […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., 19 November 2012 – One of the more interesting back stories of the saga of Tropical Storm Sandy and its devastation of Long Island’s electric power system is a tale of Cuomo father and son.  Father is former New York Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo and the son is current New […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., 9 November 2012 – “Three-dimensional musical chairs” best describes what happens in Washington during the start of a second presidential term. The jockeying for position can get confusing and nasty as folks seek to move up, down, around and out as the administration rearranges its second-term priorities. Sharp elbows can […]

By Thomas W. Overton There’s an old adage, “If you’re going to take a shot at the king, you’d better kill him.” No doubt this theme is reverberating around coal country boardrooms this week. Big Coal was one of the most prolific industries supporting Mitt Romney and the GOP this season.  Though estimates vary and […]

By Kennedy Maize (@kennedymaize) Washington, D.C., 7 November, 2012 — With Barack Obama given another four-year lease on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the policy and regulatory landscape for the electricity business is largely unchanged. But the roadmap may be somewhat different. Obama’s reelection represents neither an endorsement nor a repudiation of his policy initiatives on such […]

By Kennedy Maize (@kennedymaize) Washington, D.C., 24 October 2012 – Here’s one for climate science and policy wonks. Remember the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill? Among the community of the climate alarmed, there was much gnashing of teeth, tearing of hair, and sack cloth and ashes when the legislation that passed the Democratic House in 2009 died […]

By Kennedy Maize (@kennedymaize) Washington, D.C., 15 October 2012 – Would Republican Mitt Romney be tougher-minded than Barack Obama when it comes to some of the most egregious energy subsidies flowing out of Washington? As election day mercifully approaches, a duo of libertarian energy experts has examined Romney’s rhetoric on energy. They find that “the […]

By Kennedy Maize (@kennedymaize) Washington, D.C., 6 Oct. 2012 — A big science boondoggle bit the dust this month, giving the quest for fusion energy another black eye. But look for the high-energy physicists who have been living off of fusion confusion for more than a generation to mount a rescue mission, claiming somehow that […]