Duggan Flanakin, Author at CFACT

About Duggan Flanakin

Duggan Flanakin is the Director of Policy Research at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. A former Senior Fellow with both the Texas and Arkansas Public Policy Foundations, Mr. Flanakin has a Master's in Public Policy from Regent University. During the years he spent reporting on environmental regulation in Texas and nationwide, Mr. Flanakin authored definitive works on the creation of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and on environmental education in Texas.

EPA uses junk science to wage war on coal

The Obama Administration, through the corrupted Environmental Protection Agency, promised to kill the U.S. coal industry and they are already far along toward their goal. Along with it, they are wreaking havoc on the U.S. economy and threatening power outages of mammoth proportions. To justify this, they cite so-called scientific studies that are kept secret so that their findings cannot be easily challenged. But there's more -- other job-killing regulations also not backed by sound, peer reviewable science -- that will take the U.S. further away from long-term prosperity. Can this onslaught be stopped or even slowed down?

By Duggan Flanakin|2015-01-12T16:13:39+00:00January 12th, 2015|Uncategorized|2 Comments

Fracking in Texas: What do students think?

Given that Texas leads the nation in oil and gas production, and that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has been the driver in this jobs renaissance, one might think that Texas college students, especially at the state's flagship university, would be well informed on oil and gas production and on fracking in particular. The truth is that, despite the fact that cheap energy is vital for economic growth and expensive energy hurts the poor and those on fixed incomes the most, about half of the students interviewed had no opinion or just did not know what fracking is. This creates an opportunity for education -- and if Texas students are so uninformed, one might assume that students in other states might also benefit from a sound public education campaign like Real Energy Not Green Energy.

By Duggan Flanakin|2014-10-25T13:46:10+00:00October 25th, 2014|CFACT Insights|Comments Off

Opposition mounts to Obama’s proposed Pacific Monument expansion

Pacific Islanders incredulous. WATCH NOW "What country do we live in? With the stroke of a pen President Obama will close an area the size of the Gulf of Mexico... There are no coral reefs in the deep blue" and the fish there are highly migratory. "Does the President and his advisers understand what highly migratory means?"

By Duggan Flanakin|2014-08-28T18:39:23+00:00August 28th, 2014|Videos|Comments Off

How should global warming be taught?

So what should children be taught? Well, how about both sides for starters.

By Craig Rucker and Duggan Flanakin|2014-07-25T14:42:21+00:00July 22nd, 2014|Op-Ed Articles|13 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!

By Ron Arnold and Duggan Flanakin|2014-02-11T02:48:03+00:00February 11th, 2014|CFACT Insights|Comments Off

CFACT provides expert testimony at EPA coal hearings from coast to coast

EPA has been holding public hearings on coal energy around the country. CFACT's Duggan Flanakin, Bonner Cohen, and Paul Driessen took the microphone in Dallas, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.to ensure some hard facts make into EPA's record. CFACT Collegians brought the fight to sessions in Atlanta and Seattle. EPA's new rules which, which effectively shut down every coal-fired power plant in the country at a cost of hundreds of thousands of jobs and forcing electricity rates to skyrocket -- are a very bad investment and should be thrown down the toilet.

By Duggan Flanakin|2013-11-09T17:06:07+00:00November 9th, 2013|CFACT Insights|11 Comments

EPA is waging its war on coal under false pretenses

It is one thing for EPA to further restrict emissions of air toxins and contaminants -- It is far different to claim that science justifies a war on carbon dioxide emissions.

By Craig Rucker and Duggan Flanakin|2013-09-28T09:48:14+00:00September 27th, 2013|Op-Ed Articles|8 Comments

Not so bright lights

“Renewable energy” is a deliberate false labeling strategy, designed to curry favor with trendy urbanites who are ignorant about energy and economic reality. The real cost to U.S. economic growth, jobs and living standards from following the Green Brick Road to ecological paradise is equally beyond their ken.

By Craig Rucker and Duggan Flanakin|2013-08-15T08:34:39+00:00August 14th, 2013|Op-Ed Articles|17 Comments

Keystone obfuscation must end now!

If he truly cares about American jobs, it is time for President Obama to expedite approval of Keystone. Any further delay would send a clear signal to the nation, and to Canada, that he will never approve the project and has no real interest in creating jobs and getting our economy back on track. The charade would be over. The President who promised to bankrupt coal companies would go on record as trying to bankrupt oil companies and keep Americans in unemployment lines.

By Duggan Flanakin and Craig Rucker|2013-07-09T12:30:40+00:00May 21st, 2013|CFACT Insights|3 Comments

The PTC should be SOL

National Journal: The U.S. has a $16 trillion national debt that is growing nearly exponentially. Precious federal dollars ought not be wasted to promote production of high-cost energy. Let the wind production tax credit expire with the old year.

By Duggan Flanakin and Craig Rucker|2012-12-19T10:03:16+00:00December 18th, 2012|Op-Ed Articles|Comments Off

Christiana’s nightmare – for the rest of us

Aside from the fact that someone (Al Gore, international bankers and their kin) will make a killing off any carbon trading schemes – and that the UN bureaucracy is seeking to pad its own employment rolls and pocketbooks – the sad reality is that none of the shenanigans at Doha (or at any previous or future UNFCCC dog and pony show) is likely to improve the well-being of the billions of humans in so-called developing countries one whit.

By Craig Rucker and Duggan Flanakin|2012-12-05T21:33:03+00:00December 3rd, 2012|Op-Ed Articles|2 Comments

Obama vs. Romney on gasoline

Initially, President Obama passed on the gasoline price issue, but Governor Romney picked it back up, noting that, "When the President took office, the price of gasoline here in Nassau County was about $1.86 a gallon. Now it's $4.00 a gallon." Obama had to agree on the prices, but had some very interesting things to say about what they meant.

By Duggan Flanakin|2012-10-24T12:29:00+00:00October 24th, 2012|CFACT Insights|Comments Off

Obama vs. Romney on oil and natural gas

President Obama boasts that, "We have increased oil production to the highest levels in 16 years. Natural gas production is the highest it’s been in decades." What's this "we" stuff? Romney counters, "the president’s right in terms of the additional oil production, but none of it came on federal land. As a matter of fact, oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land, and gas production was down 9 percent.

By Duggan Flanakin|2012-10-25T12:15:29+00:00October 24th, 2012|CFACT Insights|2 Comments

Obama vs. Romney on coal

President Obama said, "We have seen increases in coal production and employment" during his term. Governor Romney retorted that, "I was in coal country. People grabbed my arms and said, 'Please save my job.' The head of the EPA said, 'You can’t build a coal plant. You’ll virtually -- it’s virtually impossible given our regulations.'

By Duggan Flanakin|2012-10-25T08:36:33+00:00October 24th, 2012|CFACT Insights|3 Comments

Time to pull the plug on electric car hype

Why is the market now dead for the award-winning Chevy Volt and its cousin, the Nissan Leaf? The answer is simple: battery life and battery cost. As one observer put it, the 1902 Studebaker got 40 miles to a charge, and today’s Chevy Volt can go maybe 50 miles before its much more expensive batteries run out of juice and your back to the fossil fuel engine.

By Craig Rucker and Duggan Flanakin|2012-10-24T14:46:55+00:00October 23rd, 2012|CFACT Insights, Op-Ed Articles|2 Comments

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