Our Work
Shackled to CA regulations likely to disenchant NM drivers
In March 2024, New Mexico became the fourth member of a group of states, including California, Oregon, and Washington, determined to make their drivers pay to enact California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The Rio Grande Foundation, New Mexico’s state-based, free market think tank, partnered with us to determine how much drivers in the Land of Enchantment are likely to pay for being shackled to California’s draconian LCFS. The results aren’t pretty.
AOER’s modeling shows that “[b]y 2040, the regulations will cause gas prices to be 45 cents per gallon higher than they otherwise would be, and diesel prices will be 52 cents higher.” Read the full report here.
Green New Walz
On August 6, 2024, Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her Vice Presidential running mate.
The media are trying to portray Walz as a “folksy” “moderate.” AOER’s Vice President of Research Isaac Orr and Research Director Mitch Rolling know better. The two have spent the last six years dissecting and analyzing Walz’s every move in energy policy.
They conclude, “Walz has never seen a California energy policy he didn’t try to implement in Minnesota. His standard tactic has been the bait-and-switch, first proposing a seemingly moderate policy during election season and then lurching to the extreme end of the spectrum at his first opportunity.”
Under a Harris-Walz administration, Americans can expect higher gasoline prices and utility bills. At the same time, they should prepare for blackouts and crumbling infrastructure.
Click here to read The Green New Walz.
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Is Hydrogen Power Colorado’s Economic Hindenburg?
AOER Fellow Trevor Lewis explains in a research brief for the Independence Institute: “Colorado’s 2.05 million natural gas-using households, businesses, and manufacturers will inevitably need to pay an additional $9,500 to $71,000 over the next 15 years.” It does make us wonder if Coloradans have been asked if they want to pay this much for experimental energy sources to power their state.
AOER Analysis Included in Motion to Stay New EPA Regs
The North Dakota Transmission Authority (NDTA) included AOER’s analysisas an exhibit for North Dakota’s participation along with 24 other states’ motion to stay the Environmental Protection Agency’s new carbon regulations.
AOER’s Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling opined about their study and the new regulations on their Energy Bad Boys Substack post: “5.2 Million Americans Will Be Left in the Dark by EPA’s Carbon Rules on Power Plants.”
They write that the new rules are “worse than you can possibly imagine. This is especially true in the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), where EPA regulations would leave five million people shivering in the dark”… because the “EPA doesn’t conduct hourly reliability analyses, it has no idea when wind and solar resources are available on the system to serve demand. As a result, the EPA simply assumes that wind and solar generation will magically match perfectly with demand.”
AOER analysis finds EPA’s new rules will cost hundreds of billions, leave millions of residents in the dark
AOER was hired to model and analyze the cost and reliability of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently finalized carbon rules officially titled “New Source Performance Standards for Greenhouse Gas Emissions From New, Modified, and Reconstructed Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; Emission Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Existing Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units; and Repeal of the Affordable Clean Energy Rule.”
These new rules will set limits on greenhouse gas emissions for existing coal and new natural gas power plants. Our analysis found that EPA’s proposal would cost Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) $382 billion and Southwest Power Pool (SPP) $66 billion through 2055 and, if implemented, lead to devasting blackouts, especially in SPP.