Aug 19, 2025 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
As policy, the abundance agenda was inevitable. It is a reaction to a pollyanna-ish view that assumed away the complexity and hard choices of the energy transition. Its popularity is a learning story. One of the joys of teaching is helping students develop a deep...
Jul 10, 2025 | Blog, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
Many writers and pundits (me included) have noted that the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) Act will make electricity more expensive (by shifting project development costs from taxpayers to ratepayers) and slow growth in energy supply, just as future demand for...
Jun 17, 2025 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
The U.S. Senate is currently considering the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB). The version passed by the House would drastically scale back the energy infrastructure investment subsidies contained in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The Senate is trying to cobble...
Jun 15, 2025 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate, News, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
So far 2025 has seen a lot of “pivoting” away from clean energy and toward natural gas. Los Angeles Times writer Sammy Roth recently documented one such pivot, by wind energy champion and conservative billionaire Phil Anschutz. Tech industry giants who led the charge...
Jun 10, 2025 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, News, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
A few weeks ago was graduation weekend at the University of Texas, during which I had the occasion to walk from the law school (in the northeast corner of campus) to an appointment at the business school (at the southwest corner). In that 15 minutes I passed by many...
Jun 5, 2025 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, News, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
It is no secret that ideological and social media have amplified the worst of human nature in many ways. One away it does this is to supercharge the human instinct to blame a group for the bad acts of its individual members, and to endorse punishment of all the...
