Energy & Environment: Markey Wants Answers on Rare Earths
• Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., "is pressing the Obama administration for information about alleged Chinese restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals used in defense and energy technologies, warning of threats to U.S. interests," The Hill reports.
• "Three months after BP capped its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico, the state of Louisiana is still building a chain of sand berms off its coast to block and capture oil even as federal officials and many scientists argue that the effort will prove pointless," the New York Times reports.
• An Idaho couple has "sued the state to stop the shipments by Imperial Oil and ConocoPhillips" to an oil sands site in Canada, "arguing that the" truck loads delivered there "would threaten the integrity of Idaho's historic portion of U.S. 12, as well as the safety of communities that depend on it as the main road in and out of the area," the Times also reports. "National environmental groups and climate change activists are supporting their efforts, seeing a broader opportunity to stall development of Canada's oil sands, which they denounce as a dirty source of energy. "
• "Combating climate change has long taken a back seat to coal production in West Virginia, but in the hard-fought House race in this state's 1st district, global warming hasn't even made it onto the bus," The Hill reports. "In interviews on Thursday, both the Democratic and Republican nominees for Congress voiced skepticism of the science behind global warming, and the Republican, David McKinley, flatly called concerns about climate change 'an attack on coal.'"
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Benjamin Zycher
Biography provided by participant
Benjamin Zycher is the president of Benjamin Zycher Economics Associates, Inc., a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also an associate in the Intelligence Community Associates program of the Office of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State. In addition, he is a member of the advisory board of the quarterly journal Regulation.
Formerly, he was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a senior economist at the RAND Corporation, a member of the board of directors of the Western Economic Association International, an adjunct professor of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, an adjunct professor of economics and business in the Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics, California State University Channel Islands, a member of the advisory council of Consumer Alert, the vice president for research at the Milken Institute, the founding editor of the quarterly journal Jobs & Capital, and a senior staff economist at the President's Council of Economic Advisers for the first two years of the Reagan Administration. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Zycher holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California Los Angeles and a
Master of Public Policy from the University of California Berkeley.
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