In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Bjorn Lomborg expands on his findings on the environmental implications of the Inflation Reduction Act:

Unlike most other nations on the planet, the U.S. has substantially reduced its carbon emissions over the past 15 years. This is largely owing to the fracking revolution that replaced a lot of America’s coal with natural gas, which is cheaper and cleaner. Even without the new law, the U.S. was on track to cut emissions substantially by 2030, according to research by the Rhodium Group. Averaging their high and low emission predictions, the U.S. would drop emissions by almost 30% absent the new law. With the new law, emissions will decline instead by a little over 37%. The “most significant legislation in history” will actually cut emissions by less than eight percentage points.

While the administration talks up its emission reductions, it never seems to tout the law’s impact on temperature and sea level—for good reason. If you plug the predicted emissions decline into the climate model used for all major United Nations climate reports, it turns out the global temperature will be cut by only 0.0009 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century. This is assuming the law’s emission reductions end when its funding does after 2030. But even if you charitably assume they’ll somehow be sustained through 2100 without any interruption, the impact on global temperature will still be almost unnoticeable, at 0.028 degree Fahrenheit.

The law will similarly have little effect on the sea level. A model that calculates changes in ocean levels predicts waters will be somewhere between 0.006 and 0.08 inch lower in 2100 than they would have been without the Inflation Reduction Act.

To reach even this minuscule climate impact, the law would have to be kept intact over the rest of the decade, across four more Congresses and two presidential terms. Given the $369 billion price tag on the act’s climate policies, it’s hard to imagine the Inflation Reduction Act surviving a Republican majority. It might not even survive sustained Democratic rule.

Based on that it seems reasonable to conclude that the IRA isn’t about climate change. And in fairness the U. S. had a lot more to do in reducing its carbon emissions than France, Germany, or the UK so comparing our results over the last 15 years with theirs is a bit misleading.

And it clearly isn’t about reducing inflation, either? What is it about?

Yesterday afternoon President Biden announced a program to forgive student debt. The president’s announcement is here.

Today the reactions are beginning to come in. The editors of the Washington Post, who can generally be relied on to support the president’s initiatives, are critical:

Under progressive pressure to force grandiose policy changes, President Biden has generally embraced sensible reforms over flashy gimmicks. But his Wednesday student loan announcement did just the opposite.

They oppose the measure on the grounds that it is regressive and expensive, concluding:

Mr. Biden’s student loan decision will not do enough to help the most vulnerable Americans. It will, however, provide a windfall for those who don’t need it — with American taxpayers footing the bill.

In her Washington Post column Megan McArdle is even more critical, asking how many ways can a policy be bad? She criticizes the policy on the grounds above plus that it is likely to resemble the “doc fix”, well enough intentioned but ultimately political kabuki that accomplished little. She further suggests that loan forgiveness will actually increase college costs which I think is correct.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal are more critical yet, adding to the objections above questioning the president’s power to forgive student loans on his sole authority:

Waving his baronial wand, President Biden on Wednesday canceled student debt for some 40 million borrowers on no authority but his own. This is easily the worst domestic decision of his Presidency and makes chumps of Congress and every American who repaid loans or didn’t go to college.

The President who never says no to the left did their bidding again with this act of executive law-making, er, breaking. The government will cancel $10,000 for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year and $20,000 for those who received Pell grants. The Administration estimates that about 27 million will be eligible for up to $20,000 in forgiveness, and some 20 million will see their balances erased.

But there’s much more. Mr. Biden is also extending loan forbearance for another four months even as unemployment among college grads is at a near record low 2%. Congress’s Cares Act deferred payments and waived interest through September 2020, but Donald Trump and Joe Biden have extended the pause for what will now be nearly three years.

I doubt that the president will have much difficulty in securing whatever Congressional authorization he needs, probably with narrow majorities along party lines.

I do not believe that there is an educational debt problem. IMO there is a “not enough jobs that pay enough to service educational debt” problem. This seems like a good time to repeat a proposal I made some time ago.

The six largest states (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois) could band together to create an online accredited degree-awarding university that offered bachelors degrees at no charge. Each of those states presently has at least one non-performing state university. Using the money they’re spending on those would provide the proceeds. Higher education at no cost beats the heck out of loan forgiveness.

Every administration since the Clinton Administration has at least paid lip service to the notion that the key to a brighter future was in higher education. They’re all been wrong, indeed, they’ve had it backwarrds but that’s been the policy. These days you can make more money as a welder or a plumber than working at most jobs that require a college degree.

You might find this article at the World Economic Forum which includes an infographic on the “canopy cover” (percentage of space shaded by trees) of European cities interesting. I was reminded a bit of that line in the movie Crocodile Dundee. Those are cities? Oslo has about the same population as Denver; Bern has about the same population as Elgin, Illinois.

In case you’re wondering Chicago’s “canopy cover” is around 20%—that’s about the same as Seattle’s and considerably higher than New York or Los Angeles.

I have a question about this piece at East Asia Forum:

China is the world’s largest trading nation and becoming more important. Whereas total US goods trade fell to US$3.8 trillion in 2020 from US$4.2 trillion in 2019 before recovering to US$4.7 trillion in 2021, total Chinese trade in goods increased from US$4.6 trillion in 2019 to US$4.7 trillion in 2020 and grew to a staggering US$6 trillion in 2021. China’s trade is predominantly market-driven, not state-driven. The private sector accounts for roughly 92 per cent of China’s exports, of which 42 per cent are from foreign invested firms. That is a huge constraint on policymakers.

Trade in goods between China and the United States grew 19 per cent in 2021 to US$693 billion according to US data, even though China fell short of the agreed purchases of US goods under their Phase One trade deal.

American companies expanded their operations in China with US$38 billion of new investment in 2021 to bring the US stock of direct investment in China to US$118 billion. Japanese investment into China also continued to increase, further integrating their economies. Total direct investment flows into China rose by a third in 2021 to a record high of US$334 billion for the year. That’s a lot of businesses committing to the Chinese market with new factories and operations even with Chinese borders closed and harsh domestic policies in pursuit of zero-Covid.

The mutually beneficial economic relationship runs counter to Washington’s instinct to counter every Chinese interest globally. The zero-sum approach to China dusts off the Cold War template.

Here’s my question. Is it true, as said later in the piece, that China has “fundamentally bought into the US-led order, not sought to overthrow it tout court”? I don’t see things quite that way. IMO the Chinese authorities see global trade as a zero sum game, are willing to reap whatever benefits they may from the “US-led order”, but chafe under the very order in which they’ve benefited so greatly.

I found this round table at Politico of a group of “coupologists”, i.e. scholars who study coups d’état, engaging and informative, particularly the historical references. As you might expect they did not settle on a consensus view. Descriptions they used include:

• Riot
• Coup
• Insurrection
• autogolpe

All agreed that whatever happened included a riot. Here are some sample snippets:

Ryan McMaken: Well, my view is that it is a riot in the sense that it’s difficult to attribute any particular goal to the people who were actually involved at the Capitol. I mean, certainly last I checked, 11 people were charged with seditious conspiracy. So that would imply that at least some people involved had some particular goal in mind.

But I just don’t think there was enough critical support from inside the regime to support the idea that it was actually a coup. In fact, the data coming out from the January 6 panel suggests that Trump was delusional if he thought he had any sort of meaningful support outside of himself. I mean, even his own family members seemed unenthusiastic. It was actually Mike Pence who was communicating with the military and they were taking orders from the vice president, not even the president. Trump did not really attempt to call in any sort of real support from the coercive arms of the government. If you can’t count on the police, if you can’t count on the military to provide some kind of support or at least some other elite group that has real power within the regime, then that strikes me as something that’s not a coup.

or

Matthew Cleary: I guess I fall somewhere in the middle. Certainly, riot is an easy way to describe it. Insurrection is better, and I think insurrection would be my preferred term for it. And I agree with Ryan that “coup” is a little too strong, and there are some important differences between what happened on January 6th, on the one hand, and your typical Latin American coup on the other hand. The most important being the lack of participation of any military or police forces of the state. In fact, Trump the man, the person, could not or did not count on the support of any institutional actors, so far as I know. Not the Supreme Court, not the Congress as a whole, although certainly he has some supporters in Congress, not other important institutions of the state.

The classic definition of a coup is the use of one part of the state apparatus to seize power of the state apparatus overall, and Trump just didn’t have that.

I have been extremely circumspect in my diction in discussing the events of the day, preferring the very neutral “breach” over other characterizations for the simple reason that it is not libelous. Given the multiple convictions to date I think it’s fair to say there was a riot.

I’m not sure how you’d go about disaggregating technical decisions about what happened from emotional or political ones.

There has been a lively discussion going on in comments about the Russia-Ukraine War. I am filled with questions:

• Isn’t Russia likely to escalate the war if the war becomes an existential issue for Russia?
• Is it possible for Ukraine to be secure without making the situation an existential issue for Russia?
• How is Russia likely to react to Ukrainians assassinating Russia politicians or media figures in Russia?
• How crazy is Dennis Rodman?

I find this story simultaneously tragic and comic. The editors of the Washington Post are irate that Texas Gov. Abbott is busing migrants who cross our southern border without authorization to DC, New York, and Los Angeles:

A recent slowdown in the stream of buses bearing migrant asylum seekers to D.C. from the southwest border has paused talk about what Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has called a “humanitarian crisis.” Don’t be misled. It is likely that many more buses are on their way, owing to the Republican stuntmen who govern Texas and Arizona, and that D.C. will again be overwhelmed by migrants needing at least temporary shelter as well as medical and other assistance. That means the city, along with federal agencies and nonprofit organizations now handling the problem with little support, need to prepare now.

The buses are an act of political gamesmanship initiated this spring by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R); Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) promptly followed suit. Their aim is to embarrass the Biden administration and generate headlines on the surge in illegal border crossings, which the GOP is using as a political cudgel in the midterm elections.

Some 7,000 migrants are thought to have arrived in D.C. since the spring. Others are being bused to New York City, where Mayor Eric Adams (D), by verbally sparring with Mr. Abbott, has positioned himself as a convenient foil for a Texas governor seeking a third term in office.

Some of the migrants — from Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and elsewhere — have suffered trauma in their trek north. Many have immediate needs on arrival, for food, shelter and medical attention. The large majority who arrive in Washington are transients who intend to board a bus, train or plane for another destination. But hundreds have stayed, and many more will do so in the coming months.

This story received substantial commentary in the talking heads programs yesterday.

The situation of the migrants themselves is tragic. The comic aspects are many including the consternation of leaders in cities that had declared themselves “sanctuary cities” and the observations by those in the media that Texas citizens are paying for the migrants’ transportation. I’m pretty sure that Texans are aware that the migrants cost them a lot more when they remain in Texas.

There are so many ways this issue could be remedied it’s hard to know where to start. The federal government could exert more efforts at stemming the flood of migrants pouring across our southern border, estimated to be over 2 million this year. If President Biden devoted as much energy to warning migrants not to come as he did to inviting them to come during the campaign, it might help. And then there’s always the proposal I made years ago: if Washington paid the entire cost of housing, feeding, educating, etc. migrants here illegally, I suspect the reaction of people in Texas and Arizona might well be different. After all securing the border is the federal government’s responsibility. Make it next to impossible for migrants without green cards to work in the U. S. as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand do.

I am sure this will be controversial. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey question the legality of the warrant used to search Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence:

The warrant authorized the FBI to seize “all physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§793, 2071, or 1519” (emphasis added). These three criminal statutes all address the possession and handling of materials that contain national-security information, public records or material relevant to an investigation or other matters properly before a federal agency or the courts.

The materials to be seized included “any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021”—i.e., during Mr. Trump’s term of office. Virtually all the materials at Mar-a-Lago are likely to fall within this category. Federal law gives Mr. Trump a right of access to them. His possession of them is entirely consistent with that right, and therefore lawful, regardless of the statutes the FBI cites in its warrant.

Those statutes are general in their text and application. But Mr. Trump’s documents are covered by a specific statute, the Presidential Records Act of 1978. It has long been the Supreme Court position, as stated in Morton v. Mancari (1974), that “where there is no clear intention otherwise, a specific statute will not be controlled or nullified by a general one, regardless of the priority of enactment.” The former president’s rights under the PRA trump any application of the laws the FBI warrant cites.

The PRA dramatically changed the rules regarding ownership and treatment of presidential documents. Presidents from George Washington through Jimmy Carter treated their White House papers as their personal property, and neither Congress nor the courts disputed that. In Nixon v. U.S. (1992), the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that Richard Nixon had a right to compensation for his presidential papers, which the government had retained under the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974 (which applied only to him). “Custom and usage evidences the kind of mutually explicit understandings that are encompassed within the constitutional notion of ‘property’ protected by the Fifth Amendment,” the judges declared.

The PRA became effective in 1981, at the start of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. It established a unique statutory scheme, balancing the needs of the government, former presidents and history. The law declares presidential records to be public property and provides that “the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records.”

The PRA lays out detailed requirements for how the archivist is to administer the records, handle privilege claims, make the records public, and impose restrictions on access. Notably, it doesn’t address the process by which a former president’s records are physically to be turned over to the archivist, or set any deadline, leaving this matter to be negotiated between the archivist and the former president.

The PRA explicitly guarantees a former president continuing access to his papers. Those papers must ultimately be made public, but in the meantime—unlike with all other government documents, which are available 24/7 to currently serving executive-branch officials—the PRA establishes restrictions on access to a former president’s records, including a five-year restriction on access applicable to everyone (including the sitting president, absent a showing of need), which can be extended until the records have been properly reviewed and processed. Before leaving office, a president can restrict access to certain materials for up to 12 years.

The only exceptions are for National Archives personnel working on the materials, judicial process, the incumbent president and Congress (in cases of established need) and the former president himself. PRA section 2205(3) specifically commands that “the Presidential records of a former President shall be available to such former President or the former President’s designated representative,” regardless of any of these restrictions.

Nothing in the PRA suggests that the former president’s physical custody of his records can be considered unlawful under the statutes on which the Mar-a-Lago warrant is based. Yet the statute’s text makes clear that Congress considered how certain criminal-law provisions would interact with the PRA: It provides that the archivist is not to make materials available to the former president’s designated representative “if that individual has been convicted of a crime relating to the review, retention, removal, or destruction of records of the Archives.”

Nothing is said about the former president himself, but applying these general criminal statutes to him based on his mere possession of records would vitiate the entire carefully balanced PRA statutory scheme. Thus if the Justice Department’s sole complaint is that Mr. Trump had in his possession presidential records he took with him from the White House, he should be in the clear, even if some of those records are classified.

I cannot comment intelligently on this If anyone comes across a direct and authoritative commentary on these criticisms I would appreciate links being left in the comments.

Update

The closest thing I have found to a response to the op-ed was in this op-ed by Bradley P. Moss at Fox News:

The truth needs to be set forth plainly and simply, and so let’s get down to brass tacks here. What happened on August 8, 2022, was not tyranny. It was not political persecution. It was not a minor dust up over bureaucratic processes blown out of proportion. It was the criminal justice system operating just like it does with any other private citizen on any other given day ending in a “y.”

Trump was the president and commander-in-chief up until noon on January 20, 2021. The moment Joe Biden took the Oath of Office, Trump became just another private citizen in his 70s who vacations in Florida during the winter months to avoid the bitter cold back in his native home in the Northeast. He was no longer shielded by any privileges or protections of the Office of the Presidency at the point beyond physical security protection. He is subject to the laws of the United States just like anyone else.

What also is true is that Trump had particular legal obligation as the former president to properly turn over presidential records to the National Archives and Records Administration. That is mandated by the Presidential Records Act because those records are the property of the United States. They are not Trump’s personal property.

He doesn’t address some of the issues raised in the WSJ op-ed directly but does so indirectly.

I’ve been so busy lately it has been hard to find time to post. Jack has been with us more than a month at this point. Here he is at 12 weeks. His ears are starting to come up. He doesn’t look so much like a baby any more.

Puppies are a lot more work nowadays than they seemed to be 20 years ago. On the other hand we are much better trainers than we were 20 years ago.