About Ron Arnold

Ron Arnold is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.

House panel hopes to air inconvenient truths about EPA’s ‘war on coal’

Rep. Ed Whitfield was set to grill Janet McCabe -- the EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation -- on the factual accuracy of statements in the agency's proposed rule governing carbon dioxide regulations for power plants. If only he also had called to testify a representative from the American Lung Association - which has received 591 EPA grants totaling over $43 million plus over 2,800 foundation grants totaling $76 million to ensure that they will never question the EPA's faulty science.

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|2014-06-19T21:11:29-04:00June 19th, 2014|Comments Off on House panel hopes to air inconvenient truths about EPA’s ‘war on coal’

If it’s wet, EPA wants to regulate it

WOTUS gives untrustworthy federal bureaucrats custody of every watershed, creates crushing new power to coerce all who keep America going and offers no benefit to the victimized and demoralized tax-paying public.

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|2014-06-12T07:36:02-04:00June 12th, 2014|4 Comments

Big Green’s untold billions

Behemoth Big Green outstrips Big Oil in expendable revenue by orders of magnitude — if you know how to follow the money.

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|2014-05-21T12:25:49-04:00May 14th, 2014|16 Comments

Secure property rights: Hold government to the law

The Bundy ranch standoff illustrates the tension between land rights and an ever more expansive federal bureaucracy. Could ranchers find the law on their side?

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|2014-04-23T22:22:56-04:00April 23rd, 2014|2 Comments

Big Green’s “sue-and-settle” strategy draws pushback from states, Congress

When the lesser prairie chicken was listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a threatened species, it was the last straw for Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. The State of Oklahoma, and likely several other states, has filed a lawsuit against the Interior Department for collusion in violating federal law. Meanwhile, four separate bills have been filed in Congress to limit attorney fees for endangered species litigants and address three other ESA concerns.

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|2014-04-02T01:56:10-04:00April 2nd, 2014|Comments Off on Big Green’s “sue-and-settle” strategy draws pushback from states, Congress

Solving the PCB problem with cooperation instead of litigation

Ron Arnold details the story of how industry, environmentalists, and regulators are working together to overcome a paradoxical EPA rule that allows PCBs in products but bans the disposal of wastewater containing PCB residues. This story, sadly, is atypical of today's EPA, especially as it applies to energy and water issues.

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|2014-03-25T14:47:22-04:00March 24th, 2014|Comments Off on Solving the PCB problem with cooperation instead of litigation

Putting an end to the EPA’s “secret science”

Ron Arnold says it is time to end the "secret science" that is the underlying justification for many of its costly, anti-business, and anti-citizen regulations. As Rep/ David Schweikart (R-AZ) said, “For far too long, the EPA has approved regulations that have placed a crippling financial burden on economic growth in this country with no public evidence to justify their actions.”

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|2014-02-18T19:04:01-05:00February 18th, 2014|4 Comments

Watchdogging Obama’s regulatory state

In Obamaland (Illinois), children are punished for entrepreneurship and told to cease and desist. Down in Austin, Texas, however, a 9-year-old has created a thriving business with the blessing of even the local politically correct. Of course, maybe BeeSweet would have been shut down had it not grown so quickly into a significant business!

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|2014-02-11T02:48:03-05:00February 11th, 2014|Comments Off on Watchdogging Obama’s regulatory state

Obama has forgotten these are the people’s parks!

In closing not just the national parks, but access roads leading to private property, President Obama is demonstrating that he is willing to punish and hurt millions of Americans to get his own way. This is not leadership -- it is the work of a petulant child ascended to the throne.

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|2013-10-21T16:28:04-04:00October 15th, 2013|1 Comment

Time to shed some light on phony federal “science”

With so many federal reports containing no data – only conclusions put forth by another scientist – there is no way to debate, debunk, or disprove the underlying facts. It’s almost impossible even to get court orders to track down and disclose the data, if Freedom of Information Act requests are denied, which they frequently are (legally or otherwise). If there is no way to test a statement, hypothesis or theory, it is not science. It’s opinion or politics. If you hide the raw data, no one can test it, and it’s easy for agenda-driven “researchers” and regulators to implement laws that are based on junk science or even fraud.

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|2013-09-04T17:32:29-04:00September 4th, 2013|Comments Off on Time to shed some light on phony federal “science”

The eagles die at Altamont!

Bob Johns, spokesman for the American Bird Conservancy ... confirmed ...[that] the Altamont operation alone has killed more than 2,000 golden eagles. But that’s not all. “Nationwide, the wind industry kills thousands of golden eagles without prosecution,” Johns said, “while any other American citizen even possessing eagle parts such as feathers would face huge fines and prison time.”

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|2013-05-21T12:50:48-04:00May 21st, 2013|2 Comments

Rockefeller Foundation’s anti-oil crusade targets Keystone XL Pipeline

Canadian researcher Vivian Krause wrote, “A large part of Tides Canada’s funding comes from the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. These are The Big Five. They give away about US$1.2-billion every year.” In a chilling reminder, she concluded, “If these foundations decide to undermine a foreign industry, they probably can.”

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|2013-04-23T15:17:48-04:00April 18th, 2013|1 Comment

Grotesque greedy Green land grabs

“Green grabbing involves novel forms of valuation, commodification and markets for pieces and aspects of nature, and an extraordinary new range of actors and alliances. Pension funds and venture capitalists, commodity traders and consultants, GIS service providers and business entrepreneurs, eco-tourism companies and the military, Green activists and anxious consumers, among others, find once unlikely common interests.”

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|2013-04-11T23:14:58-04:00April 11th, 2013|11 Comments

Eagle killers get off scot free?

Free-market advocates have a hard time explaining that being anti-environmentalist is not the same as being anti-environment. Big Green has done such a thorough job of casting itself as nature's selfless, altruistic guardian that supporters don't even notice that their rants against "money-grubbing polluters" always end with "Send Money."

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|2013-04-17T16:08:43-04:00July 19th, 2012|Comments Off on Eagle killers get off scot free?
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