Analyst, Advisor and Adjunct Professor | Energy Advocate and ESG Critic | "The Race to Zero: How ESG Investing Will Crater the Global Financial System"
I grew up, went to school and worked in NYC for most of the past 65 years and this is the first time that I am hearing that former Mayor Ed Koch was somehow responsible for the all the deaths caused by the 1980s AIDS crisis in the city.
The irony of this baseless claim is that Ed Koch was a life-long bachelor and rumored to be gay, although he never acknowledged it in public. This was back in the halcyon days when people did not talk about their personal lives because it was nobody’s business.
As for the current Mayor Mamdani, it is completely understandable why an avowed Socialist would want to rewrite history since this is the only thing that they are good at. However, instead of focusing on renaming the Queensboro Bridge, maybe he should be thinking about how to replace the structure since it has been operating since 1909 and is living on borrowed time at this point.
The original Goethals Bridge in Staten Island, which was also a cantilever truss structure like the Queensboro Bridge, was built in 1928 and was already replaced nearly a decade ago by a new cable-stayed structure. Replacing the Queensboro Bridge (which is owned by the NYC DOT) will be a much more complicated undertaking given the population density and commercial development on both sides of the East River.
Add that to the to-do list for Mayor Mamdani.
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@TPPF@ManhattanInst@AEI@Heritage@aier@NYUStern@ACF_foundation@NYUWagner
#nyc #edkoch #queensborobridge #edkochbridge #mamdani #aidscrisis #bigapple
https://t.co/Nlkj9CzNKw
The Trump administration has already released 50 mmbbl from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) since the war with Iran began in late February. This is on top of a 50 mmbbl drawdown of commercial stocks over the same period.
Most of this U.S. inventory is being shipped overseas. U.S. oil exports have jumped from a run rate of 4 mmbbl/day pre-conflict to roughly 5 mmbbl/day since late April. Despite talk of a flotilla of oil tankers making a beeline to U.S. Gulf Coast ports, increased U.S. oil exports are only partially offsetting the global oil volumes being kept from market due to the bottleneck in the Strait of Hormuz.
It is unfortunate that mid-term political considerations are once again driving U.S. energy policy under a Republican administration just as they did back in 2022 under President Biden. If the Trump White House carries through with its public promise to drain a total of 172 mmbbl from the SPR, it will risk structurally damaging the natural Gulf Coast storage facility.
Summer driving and hurricane season are both now kicking off in the U.S. with a reduced inventory cushion throughout the system to help withstand weather-related supply disruptions. Despite the historical rule, this year’s El Nino phenomenon may not dampen Atlantic and Gulf Coast hurricane activity, just as it didn’t as recently as 2023.
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@TPPF@ManhattanInst@SFOF_States@Heritage@AEI@APIenergy@4AmericanEnergy@aier@petronerds@hamminstitute@EPRINC_DC@CFAinstitute@FIASI_NY@NYUStern
#energy #markets #investing #oil #spr #iran #hormuz #trump
The latest Weekend Beacon features @ishapiro on Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution, @PaulHTice on Lloyd Blankfein's memoir, Richard Frank on Tojo, @BSBenwick on why kids are picky eaters, and @jpodhoretz on The Devil Wears Prada 2!
My book review of Lloyd Blankfein’s new memoir, “Streetwise: Getting to and Through Goldman Sachs,” in today’s Washington Free Beacon.
Nearly a decade after retiring as CEO and Chairman of Goldman Sachs, where he spent his entire 36-year career in finance, the author Blankfein remains a steadfast steward and tireless defender of the firm's culture and reputation by rejecting pretty much any criticism of Goldman—whether before, during, or after the global financial crisis—as the product of competitive envy, political posturing, or media hype. Readers looking for a fresh perspective on the market events of 2008 will come away disappointed.
Check out the book review (“Lloyd Blankfein’s Hard Knock Wall Street Life”) here: https://t.co/YsZH9yHBj5
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@TPPF@ManhattanInst@Heritage@SFOF_States@AEI@aier@CFAinstitute@FIASI_NY@NYUStern@GoldmanSachs@lloydblankfein@FreeBeacon@WSJBooks@FedSoc
#finance #markets #goldmansachs #investing #streetwise #lloydblankfein #wallstreet
The fact that New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill is now sticking it to New Yorkers and foreign NYC tourists attending the upcoming FIFA World Cup matches at MetLife Stadium by having NJ Transit charge an exorbitant $150 ticket price to go one stop from Penn Station to Secaucus Junction does not equate to her “sticking up for New Jerseyans.”
Back in 2018, the previous Democratic administration of Governor Phil Murphy negotiated a terrible deal for the state that included the proviso of free transportation to and from the Meadowlands sports venue. New York Giants season ticket holders would have really loved that perk over the past 50 years.
Three years ago, FIFA and Trenton subsequently amended the transportation piece of their 2026 host agreement to require that soccer fans be simply charged market rates (“cost”) for using public transit. The current governor is now using this opening to price gouge and force out-of-state riders to help subsidize chronic operating losses at NJT.
Consider that Sherrill is now claiming that one-stop round-trip rail transportation for 8 matches (40,000 ticket holders each) will somehow cost NJT $48 million or roughly $6 million per partial day to operate. This compares to average daily rail passenger fares of $1.3 million to move 164,000 riders across the entire NJT system in fiscal year 2025.
That same fiscal year, total NJT operating expense (including rail, bus and light rail operations but excluding DD&A) averaged $8.8 million per day, further highlighting the ridiculous nature of the $6 million cost number assigned to the NJT World Cup shuttle service.
Since taking office, Governor Sherrill has continued with the same political posturing displayed during her 2025 gubernatorial campaign rather than addressing the Garden State’s many pressing problems. She is rapidly becoming an embarrassment on both the national and now international stages. The next four years are going to be long ones for New Jerseyans.
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@TPPF@ManhattanInst@SFOF_States@Heritage@AEI@aier@NYUStern@CFAinstitute@FIASI_NY@GSI_NewJersey@GovSherrillNJ
#newjersey #politics #gardenstate #trenton #finance #markets #investing #njtransit #fifa #worldcup #weare26
In space, no one can hear you screaming about man-made climate change.
The pictures of planet Earth taken by the Artemis II mission crew highlight once again how cloud cover is a much more important variable for global warming than trace greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. As the photo shows, on any given day (including 4/4/26), clouds cover roughly 70% of the Earth’s surface area and, the whiter and shinier they are, keep the planet cool by reflecting sunlight back into space.
A 1995 study by the Department of Energy (https://t.co/hKJmnEo5dr) found that reducing the Earth’s thick cloud cover by just 5% would have the same planetwide warming effect as a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. A 2021 research paper (https://t.co/vA9GngAxlz) found that reforestation leads to an increase in humidity and low-level cloud cover, which begs the question as to whether deforestation (especially in the tropics of the Global South) has led to a decrease in cloud cover over the past century, contributing to the recent rise in average global temperatures.
More scientific research needs to be done on clouds (and other climate variables) before jumping to the self-serving conclusion that the oil, gas and coal industries must be shut down to save the planet.
Sometimes you just need to get away to gain some perspective.
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@TPPF@ManhattanInst@SFOF_States@Heritage@AEI@aier@APIenergy@4AmericanEnergy@EPRINC_DC@hamminstitute@CFAinstitute@FIASI_NY@petronerds@NYUStern@NYUSternCSB
#energy #markets #investing #climate #esg #sustainability #netzero #renewables #epa #doe #endangermentfinding #trump
My latest opinion piece in RealClearPolitics on the New Jersey real estate scam otherwise known as the Mount Laurel doctrine, as seen through the eyes of tiny Mendham Borough in Morris County.
“The current coercive and inequitable system where private real estate developers serve as legal enforcers and leverage arbitrary fair share mandates to run roughshod over local zoning and effectively urbanize suburban towns is not what New Jersey’s Supreme Court had in mind when it issued its foundational affordable housing ruling back in 1975.”
Check out the op-ed here: https://t.co/BGoYVDNsQQ
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@TPPF@ManhattanInst@SFOF_States@Heritage@AEI@aier@CFAinstitute@FIASI_NY@MendhamBoroNJ@MenChesPatch@GSI_NewJersey@wakeupnj@fight4newjersey@MayorGhassali
#newjersey #politics #affordablehousing #mountlaurel #mendham #gardenstate #realestate #lowincome #trenton #finance #markets #investing
Predictably, this week’s Israeli attack on Iran’s South Pars natural gas field has touched off retaliatory strikes on energy infrastructure throughout the Persian Gulf, including an immediate missile attack on neighboring Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, where roughly 20% of the world’s LNG is produced. The complex suffered “extensive damage” and has suspended operations and invoked force majeure under its offtake agreements pending an end to hostilities in the region.
Since Qatar mainly supplies LNG to Asia Pacific countries (80% in 2024), the customer/contract pain will be chiefly felt by the likes of China, India, South Korea and Pakistan. On the output/ownership side, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Shell, TotalEnergies and Eni are all Ras Laffan joint venture partners with the Qatari NOC and will need to revise both near-term and longer-term production guidance, the latter because the LNG facility was in the midst of another major capacity expansion when the U.S./Israeli war with Iran broke out last month.
And while Chevron does not have LNG exposure to Qatar, the company is a joint venture partner (through its 2020 Noble Energy acquisition) in the Leviathan natural gas field offshore Israel, which now may become an energy infrastructure target for the Iranian regime. Recall that Cyprus was hit by Iranian missiles during the first few days of the war, so the Mediterranean would appear to be well within range of Tehran.
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@TPPF@ManhattanInst@SFOF_States@Heritage@AEI@APIenergy@aier@4AmericanEnergy@EPRINC_MPyziur@petronerds@CFAinstitute@hamminstitute@NYUStern
#trump #energy #naturalgas #lng #raslaffan #iran #israel #mideastwar #qatar #leviathan #exxonmobil #chevron #qatarenergy #totalenergies #eni #shell #conocophillips
My latest opinion piece in The Center Square discussing how NYS and MTA officials are cooking the books on NYC’s congestion pricing program as they duke it out in court with the Trump administration.
Based on the MTA’s own numbers, during its first year in operation, congestion pricing relieved absolutely no congestion in the congestion relief zone.
The fact that the Manhattan toll zone erected below 60th Street is not achieving its primary goal of traffic reduction would seem like reason enough for the federal government to prevail in court and win a judicial order shutting down the tax scheme for good.
Check out the op-ed here: https://t.co/GVeePzCWNe
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@TPPF@ManhattanInst@Heritage@AEI@APIenergy@aier@4AmericanEnergy@EPRINC_DC@petronerds@CFAinstitute@FIASI_NY@hamminstitute@NYUStern@NYUWagner@TCFdotorg@dagenmcdowell@RCamposDuffy
#esg #sustainability #markets #energy #climate #finance #infrastructure #transportation #dot #nys #mta #congestionpricing #nyc #trump #kathyhochul
Since last year’s unfortunate unforced error when the DOE was forced to officially disband its all-star Climate Working Group, the Trump administration has recovered strongly with last week’s final rule by the EPA repealing the 2009 Endangerment Finding about greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and eliminating all GHG emission standards for cars and light trucks.
The EPA’s well-crafted rulemaking sets up perfectly for the growing wave of legal challenges by climate activists and leftist politicians, all of which will need to be consolidated and run all the way up to the Supreme Court for final adjudication given the legislative and regulatory matters at hand.
In opting to no longer classify GHGs as regulated pollutants under the Clean Air Act, the EPA connects the dots from the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in West Virginia v. EPA (2022) and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) back to the U.S. Congress, where the authority for such an important economic and political decision resides.
More cleverly, the EPA explicitly relies on a de minimus standard to rescind all U.S. vehicle GHG emission standards, which will necessarily force the Supreme Court to revisit and overrule its ill-conceived majority decision in Massachusetts v. EPA (2007). Now that the Chevron precedent of regulatory deference has been discarded by the high court, Massachusetts v. EPA is the next specific shoe to fall, given that it effectively confers on the EPA the power to unilaterally determine what to regulate and imposes no minimum threshold for the cost of such regulation.
Hopefully, the Supreme Court also takes the time to nullify the concept of state legal standing when it comes to global climate change (which will cut down on frivolous lawsuits against the oil and gas industry) and firmly establish the doctrine of federal primacy in the area of climate and energy policy (which will stop rearguard climate regulatory actions by blue states such as CA and NY).
Regardless, once the Supreme Court passes final judgment on the EPA’s repeal of the Endangerment Finding, climate policy will be returned to the U.S. Congress where it belongs, and all the federal climate bureaucracy will be slowly dismantled. U.S. companies and financial institutions will no longer be under the regulatory gun to conform to the global climate agenda pushed by the United Nations since net-zero will no longer by the law of the land in the U.S.
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@TPPF@Heritage@AEI@APIenergy@aier@4AmericanEnergy@EPRINC_DC@hamminstitute@petronerds@CFAinstitute@FIASI_NY@NYUStern@NYUSternCSB
#energy #markets #investing #climate #esg #sustainability #netzero #renewables #epa #doe #endangermentfinding #trump
More quizzical infrastructure policy moves by the Trump administration.
President Trump is now threatening to block the opening of the almost-completed Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Detroit and Ontario unless the U.S. gets a piece of the toll action.
Such a surprising stance ignores the fact that the construction of the new cable-stayed bridge (plus the interconnect to I-75) was funded entirely by the government of Canada, so it is not surprising that all toll receipts will be collected on the Ontario side and earmarked to reimburse Canada.
Rather than opposing the project at the eleventh hour for as-yet-unclear political reasons, the White House should be celebrating this new piece of critical transportation infrastructure finally being placed into service after years of planning and development.
The brand-new Gordie Howe conduit mitigates the long-standing chokepoint risk to U.S.-Canadian trade posed by the nearby Ambassador Bridge, which was built way back in 1929 and currently handles roughly 25% of cross-border merchandise trade between the two countries.
The Ambassador Bridge is also privately owned by the Moroun family of Detroit, which has long opposed additional bridge crossings for competitive reasons, highlighting the inherent tension and conflict of interest that results when certain private sponsors are allowed to own and operate strategic public infrastructure assets. The Gordie Howe bridge will mitigate this risk by being jointly owned and administered by the federal government of Canada and the state government of Michigan.
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@ManhattanInst@Heritage@AEI@aier@APIenergy@4AmericanEnergy@EPRINC_DC@CFAinstitute@FIASI_NY@NYUStern
#trump #infrastructure #transportation #canada #trade #gordiehoweinternationalbridge #ambassadorbridge #detroit #carney
Just a thought.
Maybe the best way to raise awareness about the deficiency of Puerto Rico’s power infrastructure is not by waving a Puerto Rican flag and dancing on top of utility poles in a sea of tall grass while singing in Spanish in front of a predominantly English-speaking American audience that came to see a football game.
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@Heritage@AEI@APIenergy@aier@4AmericanEnergy@EPRINC_DC@NYUStern
#energy #infrastructure #power #electricity #grid #puertorico #superbowl #badbunny
During President Trump’s first term, the topic of infrastructure became a running joke, much like Abbott and Costello’s Niagara Falls vaudeville routine. Every time the administration would kick off another “infrastructure week,” a fight would break out and then everybody would stop talking about infrastructure. See the Trump Tower classic clip below from the Wayback Machine.
Now during his second term, Trump is the one endlessly picking fights when it comes to infrastructure development, arbitrarily starting and stopping projects already under construction. While offshore wind farms are a higher cost and inefficient source of intermittent power, pausing federally approved wind projects sets a terrible precedent that will be used by Democrats against fossil fuel infrastructure down the road and runs counter to the permitting reform now being debated in the Republican-controlled Congress.
More worryingly, the Trump administration is also halting federal funding for critical new transportation infrastructure such as the Gateway Project under the Hudson River, which will double rail tunnel capacity going into Pennsylvania Station. The existing two-track North Tunnel was placed into service in 1910 (not a typo) and was severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy back in 2012. New Jersey Transit commuters and Amtrak passengers have been traveling on borrowed time ever since. A portion of Gateway Project funds has been earmarked for rehabilitating and extending the useful life of the North Tunnel.
Ground has already broken on the long-overdue greenfield tunnel project and a federal judge recently stepped in to block Trump’s federal funding freeze based on its arbitrary and capricious nature. The press is reporting that the quid pro quo ask from the White House was the renaming of New York’s Pennsylvania Station and Washington’s Dulles Airport after President Trump (along the lines of the Kennedy Center). Movie buffs are celebrating the judicial ruling since it obviates the need for a follow-on Trump executive order mandating the redubbing of Die Hard 2 to strike all references to Dulles Airport.
Addressing the country’s decaying transportation and other economic infrastructure is no joking matter and should be an area of common ground ideologically. Hopefully both sides of the political aisle start approaching the topic with the seriousness that it deserves.
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@ManhattanInst@CityJournal@Heritage@AEI@aier@NYUStern@CFAinstitute@FIASI_NY
#trump #infrastructure #transportation #gatewayproject
Agreed. Thank God the Fed Chair Follies are finally over.
Kevin Warsh has been arguably the leading voice in public life for reforming the Federal Reserve. https://t.co/AQTI5Zbgh3 via @WSJopinion
My latest opinion piece in the Washington Post discussing how President Trump has appeared to turn on the U.S. oil and gas industry during his first year in office.
From talking down oil prices at every turn to pushing American energy companies to help rebuild Venezuela, the White House continues to work at cross purposes with the domestic industry.
If the Trump administration really wants to “Unleash American Energy,” then it should focus on regulatory regime change here at home rather than trying to manage global energy commodity price levels and micro-manage corporate capital spending plans.
Check out the WaPo Op-Ed here: https://t.co/ffDF1QhJz8
@EnergyRealities@MarkPMills@TPPF@ManhattanInst@SFOF_States@Heritage@AEI@APIenergy@4AmericanEnergy@aier@EPRINC_DC@hamminstitute@petronerds@CFAinstitute@FIASI_NY@NYUStern@NYUSternCSB
#energy #markets #investing #climate #esg #sustainability #netzero #trump #doe #renewables #fossilfuels #finance #venezuela #oil #unleashamericanenergy #drillbabydrill