Here are today’s new essays in the Cato Institute’s special online forum on reviving growth:
1. Richard Florida says that cities are our future.
2. Megan McArdle takes aim at regulatory complexity.
3. Dane Stangler wants more immigration and better teachers.
4. Scott Winship focuses on expanding opportunity for the disadvantaged.
5. Michael Mandel calls for hacking the regulatory state.
6. Brad DeLong waves his magic wand three times.
You Ought to Have a Look is a feature from the Center for the Study of Science posted by Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. (“Chip”) Knappenberger. While this section will feature all of the areas of interest that we are emphasizing, the prominence of the climate issue is driving a tremendous amount of web traffic. Here we post a few of the best in recent days, along with our color commentary.
Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. Knappenberger
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One of the planet’s most prolific weather and climate Tweeters is Florida State PhD and WeatherBell wizard Dr. Ryan Maue (rhymes with zowie). Ryan’s initial claim to fame was his analysis of tropical cyclone (e.g., hurricane) activity that shows, over the past 45 years, lots of variability but no overall change. Originally published in 2009, it flies in the face of global warming doomsayers who predict increases in all manner of extreme weather events including hurricanes and their tropical brethren. As a young scientist, going against the grain is not typically a good career move (which is why the global warming establishment is self-perpetuating), but Ryan is driven more by the truth than by political correctness. In fact, political correctness is an antonym of Ryan.
He has risen to prominence as the creator of the amazing analyses and graphics produced by the private weather forecasting firm WeatherBell Analytics. Many of these products find their way onto Ryan’s Twitter page along with some insightful (and often witty) commentary. His analysis of current weather events is unparalleled. If you’ve heard of the “polar vortex,” you can thank (or blame) Ryan: he first popularized this arcane professional term last winter.
This past week he has been active, covering the humongous lake-effect snows burying parts of greater Buffalo, the cold outbreak setting all-time monthly low temperature records in the Eastern United States, and pushing back against the growing tide of media that so desperately wants to link it all to global warming.
From our standpoint, Ryan is one of the best young weather/climate guys out there. If you don’t want to limit yourself to only encountering Ryan’s analysis on the Drudge Report (which actually isn’t too limiting since his work is frequently featured there), then you ought to have a look for him on Twitter and become another of his more than 13,000 followers. To tune in to Ryan telling it like it is, check out @RyanMaue.
Also worth noting is that the deadline for the public to comment on the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants is December 1 (yes, that’s the Monday after Thanksgiving). This legislation is the crème-de-le-crème of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan and seeks to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants to 30% below the emission level in 2005 by the year 2030. According to the EPA, that will result in a reduction of 730 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to taking 150 million cars off the road.
While that sounds like a lot, it really is a very little, especially when it comes to the climate impact. In public comments we are about to submit, we calculated that these emissions reductions would avert only 0.02°C of projected global warming by the end of the century—a value too little to care about (and assuming a warming that is way too much). That is, unless you care about the price. Then you come to realize just how much pain this insignificant gain costs.
Just this week, an economic analysis from Energy Venture Analysis was released examining the impact of the proposed EPA regulations on energy prices. From the report’s press release:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed carbon rule is the latest in a series of regulations alongside rising natural gas prices that will increase the cost of electricity and natural gas by nearly $300 billion in 2020 compared with 2012, according to a study released today by Energy Ventures Analysis, Inc. The study, “Energy Market Impacts of Recent Federal Regulations on the Electric Power Sector,” demonstrates the heavy financial burden the EPA’s collection of regulations will force on American families, businesses and manufacturers through soaring energy costs.
The study found the typical household’s annual electricity and natural gas bills would increase by $680, or 35 percent, from 2012 compared to 2020, escalating each year thereafter as EPA regulations grow more stringent. The cost of electricity would increase the most in states that have implemented deregulation of wholesale electric power markets, where the price of electricity will rise to the marginal cost to support new generating capacity.
The full report, including an online tool to examine the impacts on a state-by-state basis, is available here.
If you wish to point out any of this to the EPA, or if you have other details (pro or con) that you feel worth mentioning, you can submit your comments at the website Regulations.gov. We are currently busy putting the final touches on ours!
And finally, a bit of a departure. While typically our focus here is on global warming, the bigger view of the Center for the Study of Science is examining how federal control of research dollars influences science. Global warming is a prominent (and popular) example, but it is by no means the only science topic that is co-opted by the government.
We just came across this example even though it was reported on earlier this year: “Feds Accused of Steering Funding to Anti-pot Researchers.” As drug legalization is a major libertarian emphasis, we thought it was worth dusting off this article and mentioning it here. That the feds are apparently meddling in the scientific research process and favoring those researchers who will produce results that support the federal stance (in this case, that marijuana is bad) should hardly be surprising for anyone who follows us at the Center for the Study of Science.
From the article’s lead:
As the nation’s only truly legal supplier of marijuana, the U.S. government keeps tight control of its stash, which is grown in a 12-acre fenced garden on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
From there, part of the crop is shipped to Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina, where it’s rolled into cigarettes, all at taxpayer expense.
Even though Congress has long banned marijuana, the operation is legitimate. It’s run by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which doles out the pot for federally approved research projects.
While U.S. officials defend their monopoly, critics say the government is hogging all the pot and giving it mainly to researchers who want to find harms linked to the drug.
For the rest of the story of the government bogarting the weed, be sure to check out the full piece.
That’s it for this week. We’ll be off for Thanksgiving next week, but we’ll be back with other interesting tidbits that you ought to have a look at come the first week of December.
International trade boosts our economy, but U.S. seaports need major improvements to maximize the benefits of trade. Bloomberg reported a couple months ago that congestion at West Coast ports is so severe that shippers are diverting a growing share of traffic to Canada. The Wall Street Journal reports today that the problems are continuing.
One issue is the aggressive labor union that controls the West Coast ports:
For more than a month, a rotating cast of about a dozen container vessels, bulk ships and tankers has sat anchored just outside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, some waiting as long as eight days to berth.
… Uncertainty over contract negotiations between terminal operators and the West Coast Longshoremen’s union has further aggravated the congestion, local officials and economists say.
Businesses up and down the West Coast that rely on the ports for importing and exporting goods have expressed concern over the protracted negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, representing workers at West Coast ports, and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents carriers and terminal operators. ILWU members have been working without a contract since a six-year pact expired July 1.
In recent weeks, the PMA has accused the union of slowdowns at the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, Wash., and withholding some critical workers in Los Angeles and Long Beach, contributing to the current congestion. Some longshoremen walked off the job Oakland, Calif., last week, aggravating concerns over a widespread labor disruption during the holiday shipping season.
Port employers as well as retailers and manufacturers say their greatest fear is the possibility of a total shutdown across West Coast ports—similar to a 10-day worker lockout in 2002 after labor talks failed. The shutdown cost the U.S. economy several billions of dollars, industry groups say. Mr. Louttit of the Marine Exchange said the disruption at one point left 65 ships sitting at anchor off the Southern California coast.
The solution to these labor problems is straightforward: Congress should repeal “collective bargaining,” which is a euphemism for monopoly unionism. In other words, it should repeal the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which confers unjustified powers on unions and encourages them to disrupt workplaces.
The share of the private-sector workforce that is unionized has plunged for decades because unions make no sense in the modern fast-paced economy. But the unions that hang on in some industries cause a lot of trouble, as we’ve long seen with the high-paid longshoremen on the West Coast. I don’t imagine that NLRA repeal is on President Obama’s agenda, but it is a reform that policymakers should pursue down the road.
There has never been a better time to be alive on this planet. While many measures of wellbeing are already on a positive trajectory, humanity’s innate curiosity and enterprising spirit continue to push many individuals to seek the stars. The Rosetta mission’s successful comet landing was just the latest development. Privately-funded initiatives, such as SpaceX and Mars One, are taking the lead on a bolder project: a mission to Mars. Greater availability of knowledge and resources is enabling ever-more ambitious space exploration.
Successful space exploration requires expertise. Today, more people pursue advanced degrees globally, many of them in critical fields like physics, math, computer science, geology, and engineering. Furthermore, scientific knowledge compounds over time, and so each generation understands more than the last.
With a higher quantity and quality of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers than at any point in history, humankind is better equipped than ever to tackle the complex challenges of extraterrestrial travel.
Space exploration also requires a tremendous investment of resources. Throughout most of history, even if humankind had possessed the technical knowledge for space travel, scarcity would have prohibited the endeavor. Fortunately, wealth and prosperity are rising rapidly while poverty is in decline. Increasing abundance makes it possible to take on previously unthinkable projects like space exploration.
Increasing abundance and scientific advancement are expanding humanity’s capacity to pursue ambitious undertakings. Not only has there never been a better time to be alive on this planet, but, thanks to growing prosperity and knowledge, there has also never been a better time to attempt exploration beyond Earth.
To follow-up on my colleague Walter Olson’s earlier post on the Paul Krugman piece on King v. Burwell, what struck me was Krugman’s flexible approach to statutory interpretation.
Here he is in today’s piece:
Last week the court shocked many observers by saying that it was willing to hear a case claiming that the wording of one clause in the Affordable Care Act sets drastic limits on subsidies to Americans who buy health insurance. It’s a ridiculous claim; not only is it clear from everything else in the act that there was no intention to set such limits, you can ask the people who drafted the law what they intended, and it wasn’t what the plaintiffs claim. …
…if you look at the specific language authorizing those subsidies, it could be taken — by an incredibly hostile reader — to say that they’re available only to Americans using state-run exchanges, not to those using the federal exchanges.
As I said, everything else in the act makes it clear that this was not the drafters’ intention, and in any case you can ask them directly, and they’ll tell you that this was nothing but sloppy language. …
So, don’t worry so much about the specific language; instead, look at the drafters’ intent and the surrounding context. Got it.
On the other hand, here’s Krugman from January of 2013, writing about the idea of a platinum coin:
Enter the platinum coin. There’s a legal loophole allowing the Treasury to mint platinum coins in any denomination the secretary chooses. Yes, it was intended to allow commemorative collector’s items — but that’s not what the letter of the law says. And by minting a $1 trillion coin, then depositing it at the Fed, the Treasury could acquire enough cash to sidestep the debt ceiling — while doing no economic harm at all.
So in this situation, you should stick to the “letter of the law,” and not worry so much about the drafters’ intent.
Hmm, how to reconcile those two Krugman assertions about the proper approach to statutory interpretation? That’s a tough one. Wait, I got it! We’ll call this the Krugman canon of construction: “Interpret statutes in whatever way makes them consistent with your policy preferences.”
From my latest at Darwin’s Fool:
Republicans won an impressive number of victories last night, including a larger and more conservative House majority and enough wins to give the GOP at least a 52-seat majority in the Senate. As Jeffrey Anderson and Robert Laszewski have noted, Republicans made ObamaCare a major issue in the election (the New York Times’ denials notwithstanding). Senate Republicans will fall several seats short of the 60-vote super-majority needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster of an ObamaCare-repeal bill, though. ObamaCare opponents are therefore debating whether and how Republicans could repeal some or all of the law via the Senate’s “budget reconciliation” process, which allows certain legislation to pass the Senate with only 51 votes. Some opponents have proposed getting around these difficulties by getting rid of the filibuster entirely. I think there’s a more prudent, targeted way Republicans could put ObamaCare repeal on the president’s desk, give Democrats a taste of their own majoritarian medicine, and convince Senate Democrats of the virtues of restoring the filibuster on legislation and judicial nominations.
It goes like this…
Every country aims to lower inflation, unemployment, and lending rates, while increasing gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. Through a simple sum of the former three rates, minus year-on-year per capita GDP growth, I constructed a misery index that comprehensively ranks 109 countries based on “misery.” Below are the index scores for 2013. Countries not included in the table did not report satisfactory data for 2013.
