Reset at Resources for the Future? (latest fundraising pitch hints at intellectual diversity)

RFF’s New (Trump-era) Pitch

Okay, but will the heralded information be reliable, as in ‘may the best ideas be presented and debated’, even the case against regulating CO2 as a pollutant.

For example, RFF has trenchantly avoided a real debate over the “social cost of carbon” (SCC). Yet the assumptions behind the Obama Administration’s SCC are highly disputable, and reasonable assumptions can flip the sign from positive to negative (as in CO2 has net benefits) to eviscerate any case for pricing CO2 is off the table. (Alan Krupnick and Ray Kopp, RFF senior fellows and co-directors of the Center for Energy and Climate Economics, are you listening?)

One anecdote. Pundit Jerry Taylor was invited to speak at an RFF carbon pricing panel a few months back. Cato-era Taylor, who was against CO2 regulation, was never invited to so present. But the new Jerry Taylor, funding his (misnamed) Niskanen Center from pro-carbon-tax sources, now politically correct to RFF, was invited (more here).

RFF’s blockade against critics of climate alarmism/forced energy transformation is a sad case of intellectual back-of-the-bus, separate-water-fountain discrimination.

RFF’s new pitch continues:

In this time of change, Resources for the Future (RFF) remains dedicated to independent, actionable research to inform practical solutions that strengthen the environment and the economy. We will continue to provide economic insights for smarter energy, climate, and natural resource policies. We will continue to explore new questions and facilitate forward-looking dialogues on issues top of mind for decisionmakers in the United States and around the world.

Will “new questions” include the (previously) politically incorrect? What, for example, is the opportunity cost of climate-related regulation, whether taxing CO2 or regulating energy demand and supply? What is foregone private or public goods? Should the green greenhouse gas,

Back to the pitch:

Your investment in RFF means that together we will continue to provide objective research and analytical frameworks to help our leaders make smarter decisions. We can’t do this without you. While few details are known about the energy and climate policies of the incoming administration, your support now is more important than ever….

Humm …. “While few details are known about the energy and climate policies of the incoming administration, your support now is more important than ever.” Does this mean that RFF will a bastion of opposition, precluding opposing viewpoints from their seminars and publications?

Or will RFF invite top scholars for new views of climate-related regulation and the efficacy of politically enabled energies such as industrial wind power, on-grid solar, and ethanol?

The Obama Administration brought out the worst in RFF in the last eight years. Will the Trump era of new energy/climate thinking be intellectually respected and debated under RFF’s new president, Richard Newell.

One can only hope that RFF does not become Fortress RFF.