Virginia Del. Dave LaRock’s letter to Gov. Northam (download pdf)
Virginia Passes Major Renewable Energy Legislation
Re-posted with permission from Heartland.org.
MARCH 24, 2020
The newly minted Democratic majority legislature in Virginia narrowly passed sweeping legislation designed to overhaul how the state’s utilities generate electricity, sending the bill on to Gov. Ralph Northam for his expected signature.
Multiple Mandates
The Clean Economy Act (CEA), passed March 6, essentially codifies the 100 percent carbon-dioxide-free energy goals outlined in an executive order from Gov. Ralph Northam in September 2019. It also strips the state’s utility regulators of much of their oversight authority over the regulation and approval of electric utilities and puts Virginia on the path to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.
CEA “directs the [State Air Pollution Control Board] to adopt regulations establishing a carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program to limit and reduce the total carbon dioxide emissions released by electric generation facilities, which regulations shall comply with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative [RGGI] model rule,” the legislation states.
RGGI is a cooperative agreement between Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont to cap and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector through regulation.
Preapproval Requirements
Aside from taking Virginia into RGGI, CEA would restrict the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s (SCC) traditional authority to approve new power generation facilities, barring it from approving “any investor-owned utility to own, operate, or construct any electric generating unit that emits carbon [dioxide] as a byproduct of combusting fuel to generate electricity” until the state legislature has had a chance to review a report concerning carbon dioxide emissions being undertaken by Virginia’s Air Pollution Control Board.
The bill also requires utilities and the SCC to consider the social cost of carbon when reviewing the need for a new generation facility.
As part of the effort to meet the target of producing all the state’s electricity from sources that emit no carbon dioxide during operation by 2050, the legislation sets targets for energy storage and offshore wind. The law requires the SCC to approve a minimum of 2.4 gigawatts (Gw) of new energy storage projects by 2035 and set interim targets for storage between now and then. In addition, CEA directs the SCC to expedite the approval of 5.2 Gw of offshore wind by the end of 2034.
The CEA also requires utilities to undertake programs, overseen by the SCC, to reduce the use of electricity by Virginians through conservation measures and programs. Under the bill, utilities should reduce their customers’ electricity use 5 percent below current levels by 2025 and maintain programs to continue reducing use thereafter.
Concerns Energy Costs
Before CEA’s final adoption, state officials warned about the cost of its renewable energy requirements to ratepayers, because offshore wind and battery storage are more expensive than traditional fossil fuel power plants or even other forms of renewable energy.
An analysis of a preliminary version of the bill conducted by the SCC concluded the typical residential household would likely see an increase of $23.30 per month on its monthly electric power bills between 2027 and 2030, solely attributable to the bill’s renewable energy requirements.
In testimony before a state Senate committee developing the bill, Attorney General Mark Herring’s (D) office expressed reservations the bill expressly calls for eliminating the SCC’s role in determining whether the “enormous costs” of implementing the bill’s provisions are reasonable and prudent and therefore can be passed on to ratepayers.
“In our view, the legislation will prevent the regulator from being able to work to accomplish the Commonwealth’s clean-energy goals in a manner consistent with ratepayer protections,” Meade Browder, a senior assistant attorney general, testified before the Senate.
Unnecessary, Premature Closures
CEA will shutter valuable power facilities with years of useful operating life remaining, all for no environmental gain, says Paul Driessen, a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
“The Virginia bill would mean tearing down numerous generating stations that have many productive years remaining, and replacing them with hundreds of gargantuan offshore wind turbines, solar installations totaling several times the land area of Washington, D.C., and tens of thousands of Tesla-style backup batteries,” Driessen said. “The price of electricity for air conditioning, computing, cooking, heating, lighting, recharging cell phones and other mobile devices, refrigeration, and other costs will skyrocket for businesses, charitable organizations, churches, families, factories, government agencies, hospitals, and schools.
“The renewable energy technologies would require millions of tons of antimony, carbon fiberglass composites, concrete, copper, rare-earth elements, steel, and other raw materials mined on the cheap overseas with little attention to U.S. laws, regulations, or ethical standards for child labor, workplace safety, fair wages, air and water pollution, wildlife preservation, or mined land reclamation,” Driessen said.
‘Unregulated Corporate Protectionism’
Passage of the CEA reverses progress the legislature had been making to defend ratepayers from monopolistic practices, says Lynn Taylor, president of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy.
“This year there have been a number of promising bipartisan efforts within the General Assembly to regain control of the regional energy monopolies in Virginia,” Taylor said. “In lieu of reasonable reform, the legislature chose to support unregulated corporate protectionism.
“Virginians will ultimately be saddled with the environmental and financial costs of the governor’s poorly conceived ‘clean power’ act for years to come,” Taylor said. “In the long run, a dramatic expansion of nuclear power in Virginia may be the only fragmented solution to serious problems exacerbated by this act.”
Bonner R. Cohen, Ph.D. ([email protected]) is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research and a senior policy analyst with CFACT.
Strict Voter Identification Laws, Turnout, and Election Outcomes
This research brief is republished with permission from CATO Institute.
February 19, 2020
By Mark Hoekstra and Vijetha Koppa
From 2000 to 2018, 20 states enacted voter identification requirements, bringing the total to 34 states. The most pronounced shift has been toward strict voter identification. While no states had such laws in 2000, 10 states had enacted (and sustained) such laws as of 2018. Under strict requirements, a vote is counted only if the voter produces a photo ID (in seven states) or nonphoto ID (in three states) within a specified period. These laws are controversial and have come under immense public and legal scrutiny. Proponents argue that these laws are necessary for protecting the election process from fraud and note that identification is required for other normal life activities. Critics argue that voter impersonation fraud is rare and that the laws are designed to disenfranchise low‐income and minority voters. They also note that as many as 11 percent of American adults lack a valid photo ID required to vote and argue that there are significant costs and impediments associated with acquiring a valid ID. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the potential effects of these strict voter identification laws on voter turnout and election outcomes
Assessing the causal impact of these laws is difficult for multiple reasons. The infrequency of elections, the recent enactment of these laws, and the fact that the vast majority of prospective voters have IDs make it difficult to evaluate the effects. In addition, ongoing legal challenges muddy the waters. For example, Texas’s strict voter law was enacted in May of 2011, struck down by a federal court in August of 2012, reinstated in June of 2013, struck down again in October of 2014, reinstated five days later, and ultimately struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in July of 2016. In 2017, Texas passed a nonstrict version of the law in which a voter without an ID could cast a provisional ballot and have it counted by signing an affidavit, bringing an end to the seven‐year‐long litigation. While Texas is perhaps an extreme example, the general legal ambiguity of these laws raises questions as to whether voters correctly perceived whether the law was in effect and what the law required.
To overcome these challenges, we take a novel approach toward addressing these laws’ impact on turnout and election outcomes. Rather than attempt to identify effects using a typical policy evaluation methodology, we carefully document how many people vote without IDs in states that do not (yet) have strict voter identification laws. Specifically, we use administrative voting records from Michigan and Florida to identify the size of the voting population that potentially could be either fraudulent (if you believe the laws’ proponents) or disenfranchised (if you believe the critics). Both Michigan and Florida have nonstrict voter identification laws, which means they ask for IDs from voters but have provisions through which votes may be cast and counted without voters actually producing IDs. Michigan counts votes cast by voters without IDs after they sign legal affidavits regarding their identities at the polls. Florida allows voters without IDs to cast provisional ballots and then counts the ballots if their signatures at the polls match those on their voter registration forms. Importantly for this study, because of these provisions, both states track the number of ballots cast by individuals who did not have IDs.
Using these data, we are able to record the number of votes cast by individuals without IDs. In doing so, we identify the maximum number of votes cast that might not have been cast and counted if a strict voter ID law were passed in these states. This enables us to show, under a variety of conservative assumptions, the maximum extent to which a strict voter ID law would reduce turnout or affect election outcomes. The strength of this approach is that it enables us to estimate the impact of a strict voter identification requirement without relying on assumptions regarding the counterfactual. In contrast, we identify clear upper bounds of the effect of the law on both turnout and election outcomes. We view this as the central contribution of our study.
The limitations of this approach are twofold. While we can clearly identify effects for potential laws if they are passed in the (large) states of Michigan and Florida, it is an open question as to whether the results would extend to other states. In particular, our results are most relevant for the more than 20 states that already have some voter identification laws in place; we would expect our results to be less relevant for the minority of states that have no voter identification requirements. In addition, while we expect our approach to overestimate effects, given that some people without an ID would acquire one if a law were passed, we do not account for effects on voters who already have the necessary ID. For example, we will not capture effects on those who falsely perceive that the law affects their ability to vote or those who are more likely to vote because they perceive an improvement in election integrity.
Results indicate that there is little scope for strict voter identification laws to affect voter turnout. This finding stems directly from the extremely small number of votes cast by individuals without IDs, even in settings where such votes are explicitly allowed and counted. Specifically, we show that a voter identification law would reduce turnout by no more than 0.06 percent in Florida and 0.2 percent in Michigan. This suggests that at least in these two states, very few voters without IDs choose to vote even when they can.
Unsurprisingly, the small effects on turnout imply that there are very few elections in our sample that could have been affected by a strict voter ID law. Even under the most extreme assumption — that all votes for the winner (and none for the runner‐up) cast without an ID would be excluded under strict law — we estimate that a strict law could have changed the outcome in fewer than 0.35 percent of local elections and 0.09 percent of state and national elections in Florida. Similarly, we show that fewer than 0.55 percent of state and national elections in Michigan could have been affected. Estimates under more reasonable assumptions result in even smaller (and likely more accurate) potential electoral impacts. In short, the evidence presented here indicates that even if the worst fears of critics or proponents were true — that all those who would have voted without IDs are fraudulent or that all would be disenfranchised — it would have at most a tiny effect on election turnout and outcomes.
To our knowledge, this is the first paper to use administrative data to carefully document the number of voters who voted without IDs and the number of elections that could potentially be affected by strict voter identification laws. In doing so, it complements two other strands of literature on voter identification laws. The first has focused on estimating the number of people in the general population who lack the identification necessary to satisfy strict voter identification laws. Estimates are generally nontrivial, giving rise to concern about these laws’ potential effects. A national survey reports that nearly 7 percent of U.S. citizens did not have ready access to documents providing proof of citizenship and that as many as 11 percent of citizens lacked government‐issued photo identification. Studies have also documented that the lack of identification is concentrated among those who are low‐income, female (often due to name change after marriage), elderly, African American, or Hispanic. Similarly, the American National Elections Studies indicates that 7 percent of citizens lack a government‐issued photo ID. The estimates in this paper do not necessarily imply that those estimates are overstated. Rather, it is possible that the vast majority of individuals without identification do not vote even in the absence of a strict ID requirement. This could be because they have little interest in voting or because they mistakenly believe that their vote will not be counted if they do not have an ID despite efforts by the states to make it clear that the votes count. Regardless, our results indicate that a change from a nonstrict voter ID law to a strict law — the margin over which the most‐serious legal challenges have been raised — is unlikely to have a meaningful effect on voter turnout or election outcomes.
In addition, our paper also contributes to the literature that uses policy evaluation methodologies to identify the effects of these laws. Results from those studies are mixed, with some finding increased turnout and others finding significant declines. The advantage of our approach relative to these studies is that we can assess the prospective effects of the laws without making assumptions about the counterfactual.
Our results suggest that the practical importance of strict voter identification laws is likely overstated. Specifically, our findings indicate that unless voters without identification in other states vote at much higher rates than their counterparts in Michigan and Florida or unless the laws affect the voting of citizens who have IDs, the passage of these laws is unlikely to affect voting behavior and election outcomes.
NOTE:
This research brief is based on Mark Hoekstra and Vijetha Koppa, “Strict Voter Identification Laws, Turnout, and Election Outcomes,” NBER Working Paper no. 26206, August 2019, https:// www.nber.org/papers/w26206.
Certificate of Need Laws Will Impede Preparedness For The Expected Surge in COVID-19 Cases
Republished with permission from CATO Institute.
March 11, 2020
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection in the U.S. continues to increase. All indications are that we are now just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Hospitals across the country are gearing up for an anticipated deluge of sick patients in their emergency departments, and hospital admissions that will stress—and possibly overwhelm—their intensive care units and general bed capacity. In response to the outbreak in China, a 1,000-bed isolation hospital was constructed in just 10 days—a feat that would be difficult to replicate in this country with its web of federal, state, and local regulations.
In today’s Washington Examiner, Lindsey Killen of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Naomi Lopez of the Goldwater Institute draw attention to the archaic Certificate of Need Laws (CON laws) that continue to exist in 38 states. These state laws, promoted by the National Health Planning and Resource Act of 1974, were intended to reduce health care costs by eliminating redundancy in health care delivery systems. They vary from state to state, but essentially require a panel to review any plans by hospitals or other health care organizations to expand, build new hospitals, or in some cases, add equipment. The review panels include incumbent health care organizations. Imagine a CON law for restaurants that empanels existing restaurant owners to review applications by persons wishing to build a new restaurant or expand the capacity or offerings of an existing one. It doesn’t take long to understand how that turns into an incumbent protection law. By the early 1980s it became clear, as in all cases of central planning, that CON laws were doing nothing to reduce health care costs and may have had the opposite effect. The federal law was repealed during the Reagan Administration.
More than 3 decades after repeal of the federal law, CON laws persist in 38 states and attempts to reform or repeal them are often met by fierce resistance from incumbents who try to make the case that they only have the interests of the general public in mind. If the expected surge in COVID-19 cases exceeds the capacity of hospitals and emergency rooms, resulting in avoidable deaths, at least some of the blame belongs to CON laws, an example of central planning reminiscent of the “5‑year plans” of the Soviet politburo.
Killen and Lopez alert readers to a paper released last week by the Goldwater Institute’s Christina Sandefur, entitled “Competitor’s Veto: State Certificate of Need Laws Violate State Prohibitions on Monopolies,” that makes the case that, in addition to the economic and public health consequences of these outdated laws, CON laws violate state constitutions.
A public health crisis such as the one that now confronts us provides an opportunity to review and repeal laws and regulations that impede preparedness. Certificate of Need Laws are low hanging fruit.
Bloomberg Privately Funds Attorneys in State AG Offices While Running for President
Posted to Politics February 16, 2020 by Jessica R. Towhey
Republished from InsideSources.com
Michael Bloomberg’s billions aren’t just buying ads. In at least two Super Tuesday states, his money funds private lawyers working inside attorneys general offices, advancing his political agenda on the environment.
One Democrat AG compares accepting this private funding from a political candidate with federal funding from “President Trump’s” Department of Justice.
Bloomberg Philanthropies gave $6 million in 2017 to create the New York University School of Law’s Environment and Energy State Impact Center to provide lawyers to state attorneys general whose sole focus would be on environmental and climate change lawsuits and regulatory actions.
Massachusetts and Minnesota, whose Democratic voters will go to the polls on Super Tuesday, are among at least 10 states where activist attorneys are working for the state AGs offices but are paid through the Impact Center. Their mission is to promote state legal action to advance Bloomberg’s political views, such as lawsuits against energy companies.
“Candidates who are approved by the attorneys general and the State Impact Center will receive offers to serve as SAAGs (or the equivalent appropriate title within the office) from the attorneys general, based on an understanding that they will devote their time to clean energy, climate change and environmental matters,” Impact Center Executive Director David J. Hayes wrote in an email inviting attorneys general to apply for the program.
Hayes is a former deputy secretary and chief operating officer of the Department of the Interior for Presidents Clinton and Obama.
The email, obtained by Climate Litigation Watch, was sent to attorneys general offices in California, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Washington, D.C., on Aug. 25, 2017. The email noted that the State Impact Center would pay the law fellows’ salaries and explained that each would be an experienced attorney in environmental or related law.
New York participates in the program, and in December lost what environmental activists had dubbed “the trial of the century” against ExxonMobil. Originally brought by former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the three-week trial ended with state Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager ruling that the energy giant had neither misled investors about the impact of climate change nor broken any state laws.
In the run-up to the trial, lawyers for ExxonMobil objected to what they saw as a conflict of interest in having “two employees of private parties who are currently working in the [New York] Attorney General’s Office … selected and paid for by private interests who were pursuing an agenda” involved in the case, according to a court transcript. ExxonMobil attorney Justin Anderson said the lawyers are “compensated entirely by this third-party … that’s funded by Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropy.”
Kevin Wallace, acting chief for the Investor Protection Bureau for the New York Attorney General, accused ExxonMobil of “picking on an individual, a young lawyer.” Emails from Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh obtained by Climate Litigation Watch, however, indicate that the legal fellows are experienced attorneys.
“Do you know anyone five to 10 years out of school who would be interested in saving the planet from the predations of [former EPA Administrator] Scott Pruitt and [former Interior Secretary] Ryan Zinke?” Frosh emailed to the dean of Yale Law School. Frosh served as a recruiter for the State Impact Center program, frequently exchanging emails with Hayes.
A spokesman for the State Impact Center declined to answer questions about the program, including whether anyone other than Bloomberg Philanthropies has provided funds for the legal fellows program. The spokesman also declined to comment on whether there was a conflict of interest with Bloomberg running for president while funding assistant attorneys general in at least 10 offices.
“The nonpartisan State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law brings academic rigor and independence to its mission of supporting state attorneys general who are protecting existing environmental regulations, addressing climate change and respecting the law,” spokesman Tom Lalley said in an email. He also declined to name any participating attorneys general who are Republicans to back up the “nonpartisan” description of the program.
Most of the attorneys general offices known to be participating in the program declined to comment either on the program or on the potential conflicts of interest accepting funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, whose office participates in the program, is suing ExxonMobil in a case that bears several similarities to New York’s. Healey’s office declined to comment.
A spokesman for New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas compared private money given through an individual’s foundation to federal tax dollars.
“Our office accepts fiscal support from President Trump by way of the Department of Justice, as well as NYU, because the Attorney General is independent and only focused on representing the interests of New Mexico,” said spokesman Matt Baca.
Although Bloomberg is a late entrant to the Democratic presidential primary, he has already far outspent his opponents. According to Advertising Analytics, he has spent $209.3 million on broadcast television, $13.7 million on cable, $1.1 million on radio, and $27.2 million on digital ads. His Super Bowl ad reportedly cost $10 million.
Bloomberg’s campaign is entirely self-financed, and he is presenting himself as a centrist in a field crowded with candidates from the progressive left. The Democratic National Committee recently dropped a requirement that candidates receive a minimum number of donors to qualify for debates, prompting an outcry from some former candidates who were unable to meet the arbitrary thresholds that Bloomberg was using to buy his way to the nomination. Bloomberg skipped the Iowa Caucuses to focus on Super Tuesday states.
Steve Milloy, founder of JunkScience.com and a senior fellow with the Energy & Environment Institute, severely criticized Bloomberg’s donations to New York University and the legal fellows program.
“God help anyone on the right who tried to do that,” Milloy said. “The Left and allies in the [mainstream media] would be in total outrage mode if they discovered that the NRA or pro-life movement had funded state AGs to carry out the groups’ political agenda.”
A spokeswoman for the NRA scoffed at the privately funded program.
“No one should be surprised,” said spokeswoman Amy Hunter. “This is yet another example of billionaire Michael Bloomberg using his money to impose his personal agenda on the American people. He wants to be emperor of America, and make every citizen his subject.”
Independent Institute’s List of Books on the Folly of Socialism
What everyone should know about the practical and moral failures of the socialist project
March 11, 2020
Republished with permission from Independent Institute.
(Oakland, CA)—A list of about forty books on the folly of socialism has been downloaded thousands of times and has been endorsed by economists, scholars, and journalists around the world.
More than 30 years after Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev implemented reforms that helped burn the ideal of a planned economy to the ground, socialist doctrines are once again gaining in popularity, especially among young people.
The list was compiled by Independent Institute Senior Fellow Williamson Evers, Ph.D., who offers this “counter curriculum” highlighting some of the most insightful critiques of socialism ever written. The list of books highlights the necessity of competition and voluntary free markets, rather than coercive monopolies of industries such as energy, banking, and technology in a socialist society.
“If you can read just one book on this list, then make it Red Plenty, by Francis Spufford,” says Evers. “If you can read only two, make your second pick Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, by Ludwig von Mises.”
Evers tells young people enamored with Scandinavian-style socialism, that most so-called democratic socialist countries are actually capitalist countries with high income taxes but also with no price controls such as minimum wage laws, and actually have freer trade than the United States in many cases. Real socialism, says Evers, usually promises the public that it will be democratic socialism, but soon puts into effect dictatorship and the crushing of constitutional liberties.
Books on the list include; The Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell, and The Road to Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek.
The complete list of books can be found at this link on the Independent Institute’s website.