fisher, travis ier

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oops 2x SEE FISHER 2

MERRI OK

SEE SPANISH STUDY

RED TEAM DOE BS STUDY CURRY ZELDIN DECAPITATION STRIKE

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Climate scientists find errors in a new DOE climate report : NPR

Dozens of scientists find errors in a new Energy Department climate report

September 2, 2025

Heard on All Things Considered

A group of more than 85 scientists have issued a joint rebuttal to a recent U.S. Department of Energy report about climate change, finding it full of errors and misrepresenting climate science.

This comes weeks after the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Environmental Defense Fund filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration that alleges that Energy Secretary Chris Wright "quietly arranged for five hand-picked skeptics of the effects of climate change" to compile the government's climate report and violated the law by creating the report in secret with authors "of only one point of view."

The DOE's Climate Working Group consisted of four scientists and one economist who have all questioned the scientific consensus that climate change is a large threat to the world and sometimes frame global warming as beneficial.

The group of climate scientists found several examples where the DOE authors cherry-picked or misrepresented climate science in the agency's report. For instance, in the DOE report the authors claim that rising carbon dioxide can be a "net benefit" to U.S. agriculture, neglecting to mention the negative impacts of more heat and climate-change fueled extreme weather events on crops.

The DOE report also states that there is no evidence of more intense "meteorological" drought in the U.S. or globally, referring to droughts that involve low rainfall. But the dozens of climate scientists point out that this is misleading, because higher temperatures and more evaporation — not just low rainfall — can lead to and exacerbate droughts. They say that there are, in fact, many studies showing how climate change has exacerbated droughts.

"This report was reviewed internally by a group of DOE scientific researchers and policy experts from the Office of Science and National Labs," writes Ben Dietderich, chief spokesperson for the DOE in an email to NPR.

Dietderich adds that "the Trump administration is committed to engaging in a more thoughtful and science-based conversation about climate change and energy."

The Trump administration wants the government to stop regulating climate pollution. The DOE report was cited multiple times by the Environmental Protection Agency in its recent proposal to roll back what's known as the endangerment finding, which is the basis for rules regulating climate pollution, including from coal and gas-fired power plants, cars and trucks, and methane from the oil and gas industry.

The DOE report "is about providing fodder for further actions down the track, which will roll back progress on climate action," says John Cook, a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne who studies climate science misinformation. " The DOE report is basically arguing climate change is no big deal, therefore we shouldn't act. Always it's about trying to delay action and maintain the status quo."

The group of more than 85 scientists recently submitted their review of the Climate Working Group report to the Federal Register as part of the DOE's 30-day open-comment period, which closes on Tuesday.

Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, coordinated the response from dozens of climate experts. He says unlike the DOE report, climate reports from groups such as the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change feature the work of hundreds of global scientists and require multiple rounds of peer review.

Dessler argues that this DOE report, released in late July, is important to pay attention to, because of what he and other scientists identify as problems with the science, and because of how the report is being used by the Trump administration to roll back the endangerment finding. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has said the goal of the administration is "driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion."

Travis Fisher is the director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. He coordinated the work of the DOE's Climate Working Group. He says the DOE would look at what comes in during the open-comment period.

"If there are errors, they'll correct them, of course," Fisher says. "And I don't know if any group like this could produce a 150-page document without any errors. So we'll see what comes up."

Fisher adds,  "It's just a matter of good government and good science to address all comments that come in."

---

GGL 6 26

[### The Power Struggle: Examining the Reliability and Security ...

Cato Institute

https://www.cato.org › Testimony](https://www.cato.org/testimony/power-struggle-examining-reliability-security-americas-electrical-grid)

by T Fisher — I commend you for your efforts to better understand the impacts of public policy on the reliability and security of America's power grid.Read more

[### Testimony of Travis Fisher Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (.gov)

https://www.energy.senate.gov › services › files](https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/7A5AED76-3E9C-4971-9684-221127D5DA90)

PDF

Mar 25, 2026 — At Cato, I am the Director of Energy and Environmental Policy Studies, and my research focuses on the role of free markets in improving the ...Read more

[### Travis Fisher on Why a Dynamic Electric Grid Is “Essential ...

Cato Institute

https://www.cato.org › Free Society › Spring 2025](https://www.cato.org/free-society/spring-2025/travis-fisher-why-dynamic-electric-grid-essential-human-flourishing)

Mar 24, 2025 — Travis Fisher, the director of energy and environmental policy studies at Cato, argued in a recent interview with Free Society that only a dynamic, market- ...Read more

[### In Search of a Market to Improve Reliability in the U.S. ...

SSRN eLibrary

https://papers.ssrn.com › sol3 › papers](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4699843)

by G Lyons · 2023 — Travis Fisher. Cato Institute. Date Written: December 20, 2023. Abstract. The U.S. electricity grid is facing serious reliability challenges.Read more

Videos

[Cato Institute on Instagram: "America's electric power grid can ... Instagram · Cato Institute

Apr 13, 2026](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXE3KyVlQwm/)

Instagram · Cato Institute

[

1:17](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXE3KyVlQwm/)

[America's electric power grid can't keep up with demand. A ... Facebook · The Cato Institute

Apr 13, 2026](https://www.facebook.com/CatoInstitute/videos/americas-electric-power-grid-cant-keep-up-with-demand-a-new-ideaconsumer-regulat/1516777126541424/)

Facebook · The Cato Institute

[

1:18](https://www.facebook.com/CatoInstitute/videos/americas-electric-power-grid-cant-keep-up-with-demand-a-new-ideaconsumer-regulat/1516777126541424/)

[Consumer-Regulated Energy with Travis Fisher YouTube · Competitive Enterprise Institute

Apr 9, 2026](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37b3wYJDcPg)

YouTube · Competitive Enterprise Institute

37:00

:{* View all}:

[### DOE Staff Report on Electricity Markets and Reliability

Department of Energy (.gov)

https://www.energy.gov › prod › files › 2017/09](https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/09/f36/3_Presentation%20on%20DOE%20Staff%20Report%20on%20Electricity%20Markets%20and%20Reliability%20-%20Travis%20Fisher%2C%20DOE.pdf)

PDF

Sep 14, 2017 — DOE Staff Report on Electricity. Markets and Reliability. Travis Fisher. Senior Advisor, Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability.Read more

42 pages

[### Travis Fisher: Author of Rick Perry's grid study called clean ...

Energy and Policy Institute

https://energyandpolicy.org › travis-fisher-rick-perry-gr...](https://energyandpolicy.org/travis-fisher-rick-perry-grid-study/)

May 30, 2017 — Travis Fisher has mischaracterized clean energy policies as a greater threat to the reliability of the power grid than extreme weather and ...

[### New Customers Should Be Connected to the Grid Faster

LinkedIn · Travis Fisher

80+ reactions · 1 week ago](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/travisscottfisher_a-new-report-sponsored-by-the-edison-electric-activity-7469746944404529152-gYu2)

Travis Fisher. Free market energy economist focused on electricity ... power, faster, while preserving reliability and protecting existing ...Read more

[### Travis Fisher testifies at the hearing, "The Power Struggle

Cato Institute

https://www.cato.org › Multimedia › Media Highlights Tv](https://www.cato.org/multimedia/media-highlights-tv/travis-fisher-testifies-hearing-power-struggle-examining-reliability)

Mar 12, 2024 — Travis Fisher testifies at the hearing, “The Power Struggle: Examining the Reliability and Security of America's Electrical Grid,” before the ...Read more

[### Looking Ahead at Power Grid Reliability

The Heritage Foundation

https://www.heritage.org › climate › event › keeping-th...](https://www.heritage.org/climate/event/keeping-the-lights-america-looking-ahead-power-grid-reliability)

FERC Commissioner James Danly joins Heritage's Travis Fisher to dig into the details of what we know about power grid reliability, what the impact of ...Read more

WHY IS THIS CT AS SCHOL? BC CATO INST?

QUITE SLICK VIDS ETC

https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/budgetary-cost-inflation-reduction-acts-energy-subsidies

The Budgetary Cost of the Inflation Reduction Act’s Energy Subsidies

IRA Energy Tax Credits Could Cost $4.7 Trillion by 2050

The massive cash transfer from taxpayers to private firms under the guise of environmentalism creates an overwhelming and undue burden on taxpayers who continue to pay for fiscally irresponsible federal spending.

March 11, 2025 • Policy Analysis No. 992

By Travis Fisher and Joshua Loucks

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) became law on August 16, 2022. Despite its name, the act was mostly designed to decarbonize the US economy by providing subsidies to producers of clean energy and consumers of low-carbon-emitting preferred products such as electric vehicles.

A contentious point of debate surrounding the passage of the IRA was its budgetary impact—how much liability American taxpayers would have to take on to subsidize clean energy. Various governmental and nongovernmental organizations estimated fiscal costs that turned out to be too low and that they later revised upward.

Using a transparent budget scoring methodology, we estimate that the energy subsidies in the act will cost between $936 billion and $1.97 trillion over the next 10 years, and between $2.04 trillion and $4.67 trillion by 2050. This estimate is substantial because several of the IRA’s largest subsidies are uncapped.

...

When Congress passed the IRA, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimated the energy-related IRA subsidies would cost about $370 billion. An analysis by Goldman Sachs later estimated the IRA’s 10-year cost would be $1.2 trillion.

However, the IRA’s energy subsidies are multiple times larger than initial estimates, and they expose American taxpayers to potentially unlimited liability. Congress should repeal all the energy subsidies in the IRA. At a minimum, Congress should cap total spending on energy subsidies and require budget experts at the CBO, JCT, and other government organizations to publish transparent and updated estimates of the IRA’s long-term costs.

Introduction

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) became law on August 16, 2022. Despite its name, the act was mostly designed to expedite the decarbonization of the US economy by providing subsidies to producers of low-emission energy and some consumers of low-carbon-emitting products such as electric vehicles. A contentious point of debate surrounding the passage of the IRA was the various estimates of its budgetary impact—how much liability American taxpayers would have to take on to subsidize clean energy. Various governmental and nongovernmental organizations estimated fiscal costs that turned out to be too low and that they later revised upward.

In this paper we aim to explain the energy spending in the IRA and demonstrate that it is highly variable, uncapped, and has been underestimated; provide a transparent and replicable method for scoring the IRA in the upcoming 10-year budget window; estimate a range of total spending (total taxpayer liability) through 2050; highlight the major spending drivers; and advocate for full legislative repeal of the IRA while noting significant reforms that could be made to the IRS guidance and regulations dealing with IRA implementation.

Table 1 summarizes the upper- and lower-bound estimates of energy spending in the IRA, both for the coming 10-year budget window and for a longer budget window stretching to 2050. It also shows the effect of applying a 3 percent discount rate to the spending in the 2050 budget window, which is to reduce the net present value of the stream of IRA spending by approximately 30 percent.

   ===

http://www.alternet.org/environment/can-trumps-koch-funded-appointees-stall-americas-clean-energy-momentum

When The Washington Post reported earlier this month that President Trump appointed Daniel Simmons to run the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the paper called him a “conservative scholar.”

Conservative scholar? “Fossil fuel industry propagandist” would have been more accurate.

:{:{A veteran of Charles and David Koch’s climate science denier network, Simmons has spent much of his career disparaging clean energy. His most recent job was at the Institute for Energy Research (IER), where he served as the think tank’s vice president for policy. Prior to joining IER, he was the Natural Resources Task Force director for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporation-funded lobby group that, like IER, has been trying to repeal state standards that require electric utilities to use more renewable energy.}:

And before that, he was a research fellow at the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University. All three organizations have received substantial funding from the Koch brothers, owners of the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries, who have spent more than $100 million over the last two decades on dozens of think tanks and advocacy groups to spread climate disinformation.}:

:{:{IER and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), are particularly indebted to the Kochs for both funding and staffing. Between 2010 and 2014, they received more than $5 million from Koch-controlled funds. And, like Simmons, top IER-AEA officials are well-entrenched members of the Koch network. IER founder and CEO Robert L. Bradley, Jr., for example, is an adjunct scholar at the Koch-founded and -funded Cato Institute and the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute. He also has been a featured speaker at the Koch-funded Heartland Institute’s annual climate science-bashing conference.}:

IER-AEA President Thomas Pyle, meanwhile, is a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Pyle oversaw the Trump Energy Department transition team, which included Simmons and Travis Fisher, an IER economist who also is now on the DOE staff.}:

Given Simmons’ résumé, it’s no surprise that he belittles efforts to address global warming, disingenuously asserting that the “economic damages” of curbing carbon emissions “would be greater than the damage caused by a warming world.” Never mind that if we continue to burn carbon at the same rate, U.S. property losses by 2050 from sea level rise alone would be astronomical, ranging from $66 billion to $106 billion.

Predictably, Simmons also is a staunch opponent of federal support for wind and solar power. He argues that the “government should get out of the business of betting taxpayer dollars on energy projects,” conveniently ignoring the fact that fossil fuels themselves are heavily subsidized. According to a new analysis by Management Information Services for the Nuclear Energy Institute, fossil fuels have received $666 billion (in 2015 dollars) in federal incentives since 1950, four times what renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, biofuels and biomass, have received. More than 80 percent of that fossil fuel support went to the oil and gas industry, which, according to a 2011 study by DBL Investors, has been receiving an average of $4.86 billion (in 2010 dollars) in federal subsidies every year since 1918.

Perry’s Anti-Renewables Study

Simmons will serve as acting assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy until the Senate confirms someone for the post. He will then settle in as the office’s principal deputy assistant secretary. While it’s too early to find his fingerprints on anything, his former IER colleague, Travis Fisher, has already raised some concerns. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who also has received generous contributions from the Kochs over the years, tapped Fisher to conduct a study to assess if federal support for renewable energy threatens baseload power generators — nuclear and coal plants — and undermines electricity grid reliability.

Seven members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee have questioned the rationale for the study. In a letter to Perry, they complained that the “study, as you have framed it, appears to be intended to blame wind and solar power for the financial difficulties facing coal and nuclear electric generators” and criticized the fact that Fisher, who is clearly biased against renewables, was tasked with leading the study. Historically low natural gas prices are largely responsible for recent nuclear and coal plant closures, the senators pointed out, and several recent studies have found that wind and solar power facilities strengthen grid reliability.

The irony here, of course, is Texas — where Perry served as governor from 2000 until 2015 — is the nation’s leading state for wind energy. Lone Star wind turbines generate enough electricity to power 7 million average U.S. households and provide more than 24,000 jobs. On top of that, 10,000 Texans work in the solar industry and another 70,000 work in the energy efficiency field. By comparison, the coal industry employs only 50,000 workers nationwide.

Regardless, Perry likely plans to use Fisher’s grid reliability study as a pretext for rolling back incentives for wind and solar and boosting coal, one of President Trump’s campaign promises. Likewise, the study could give the Trump administration ammunition to attack state standards requiring utilities to increase their use of renewables.

Clean Energy Progress at the State Level

States are where the action is — and likely will continue to be — given the Trump administration’s aversion to renewable energy and years of gridlock on Capitol Hill.“There’s a lot of clean energy momentum across the country, including in states where you might not expect it,” said John Rogers, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and lead author of a recent reportrating state-by-state progress. “The federal government has been playing an important role in encouraging renewable energy, efficiency and vehicle electrification—at least until recently—but we found that the states that have shown leadership are already reaping economic and environmental benefits, including new jobs, cleaner air and lower public health risks.”

Indeed, the growth of clean energy across the country has been nothing short of stupendous. Wind power generation, for example, increased more than tenfold over the past decade, according to the UCS report, while its cost dropped by two-thirds over the last six years. Wind farms in 41 states now provide enough electricity to power more than 20 million average U.S. households. Solar power capacity, meanwhile, has jumped more than 900 percent since 2011, while the cost of residential solar electric power fell by more than 50 percent since 2009 and large-scale solar costs declined even more.

:{:{The public is, by and large, on board.}:

A new Pew Research Center poll found that 83 percent of Americans say expanding the use of renewable energy is a “top” or “important” national priority. Further, 54 percent of the survey respondents agree that “government regulations are necessary to encourage businesses and consumers to rely more on renewable energy sources.”}:

Renewable energy’s remarkable track record has encouraged a number of states to up the ante. Just a few years ago, ambitious states set a goal of generating 25 percent to 30 percent of their electricity from renewable energy. Today, six of the 29 states with renewable energy standards are aiming to generate 50 percent or more of their electricity from wind, solar and other clean sources.

That’s the good news. The bad news is Koch surrogates have been targeting these state standards for years, and now two former IER staff members — not to mention their new boss — are in a position to do something about them. Certainly it would be the height of hypocrisy for an administration that extols states’ rights to try to scuttle state renewable energy standards, but for the Trump administration, hypocrisy is the norm. With so much clean energy momentum in blue and red states alike, the open question is just how much damage Trump’s DOE appointees will be able to do.

==

http://www.alternet.org/environment/key-hires-energy-department-raise-concerns

Most people who know anything about Rick Perry know he’s a friend to the fossil fuel industry. For 14 years, he was the Republican governor of Texas, a state that contains one-third of the nation’s oil reserves and is home to oil giants ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Valero Energy. As a political candidate, Perry received millions in donations from oil and gas companies and their executives. Until recently, he was a board member of Energy Transfer Partners, the co-owner of the dirty tar sands oil transport mechanism, Dakota Access Pipeline, which was approved by Donald Trump in January and runs through Native American lands in North Dakota.

Perry supported new coal plants in Texas as well, but he also allowed a major expansion of wind energy and signed a renewable portfolio standard that aided growth in that industry. He appears to favor an all-of-the-above approach to energy production, as opposed to the severely anti-clean energy agenda Trump projects and which the conservative Heritage Foundation hoped he would adhere to. In the past, however, Perry called the science of climate change a "contrived phony mess.”

Now, as head of the Department of Energy—an agency he wanted to eliminate during his 2012 presidential bid (and the name of which he famously forgot in a televised debate)—Perry seems to be welcoming climate-change deniers into his fold while at the same time sticking up for the department’s energy efficiency and renewables programs.

The Department of Energy made headlines when disaster was narrowly averted after a tunnel collapsed at a nuclear site in Washington state and when Perry refused to join the other G7 nations in a joint climate accord at a summit in Italy.

Here’s what’s been going on behind the scenes at the Department of Energy in its first three months under Perry.

Clean Energy Enemies Join the Department

At least three staffers from conservative, anti-clean energy think tanks now have roles in the Energy Department. This comes after Thomas Pyle, a former Koch Industries lobbyist, ran Trump’s transition team for the department. Pyle is president of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), a think tank co-founded and partially funded by fossil fuel industrialist Charles Koch, as well as its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance. A leaked Pyle memo obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy from December revealed Trump’s energy plan, a “fossil fuel industry wish list.”

Travis Fisher, an economist and current Energy staffer, most recently worked for IER, where he wrote columns opposing renewable energy and defending fossil fuels. Big funders of IER have included ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, several Koch-backed nonprofits and two Koch family foundations.

Fisher was once an intern at the John Locke Foundation, one of several North Carolina-based think tanks founded and funded by close Koch ally Art Pope.

On April 14, Perry issued a memo requesting a study, to be overseen by Fisher, on whether clean energy programs are hindering coal and nuclear programs. The study has caught fire from the left, with a group of Democratic senators writing to Perry with serious concerns, calling it “a thinly disguised attempt to promote less economic electric generation technologies, such as coal and nuclear, at the expense of cost-competitive wind and solar power.”

They wrote, “The notion that a 60-day review conducted by ideologues associated with a Koch brothers-affiliated think tank should supplant research and analysis conducted by the world’s foremost scientists and engineers would be a grave disservice to American taxpayers.”

Chief of staff to Perry is Brian McCormack, former vice president of political and external affairs at the Edison Electric Institute, an influential trade group for investor-owned electric utilities that has attacked residential solar access and opposed renewable energy targets and the 2007 Clean Water Restoration Act, according to SourceWatch. While there, McCormack was a key player in the institute’s campaign to take down rooftop solar energy. EEI’s PAC, funded mostly by employees in the fossil fuel industry, gives the majority of its campaign donations to Republican candidates and PACs, and the group funds independent super PACs and political nonprofits as well. At DOE, McCormack will likely help shape the future of several of the departments’ solar programs.

On May 3, the Department of Energy hired another Institute for Energy Research alum, Dan Simmons, to head the Office of Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which Trump wants to cut by 70 percent and the Heritage Foundation wants to eliminate entirely. As vice president of policy at IER, he attacked subsidies for rooftop solar and called for increased fossil fuel exploration on federal lands.

Simmons also directed the Natural Resources Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative “bill mill” where politicians and big-business representatives, many from fossil fuel companies, work together to craft model legislation that will boost corporate profits. Finally, Simmons was a research fellow at the heavily Koch-funded Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Now he’ll oversee a major DOE office in charge of grants, competitions and initiatives including solar funding program SolarShot and efficiency program Energy Star, which is operated by both the DOE and the Environmental Protection Association (which, in turn, is led by fossil fuel shill Scott Pruitt, who has wanted to shutter the agency for some time).

Who else will carry out the Energy Department’s agenda is largely unknown, as most top department officials are only temporary appointees. Trump has yet to nominate anyone for 20 out of 22 top Energy positions, in keeping with his slow nomination process: Out of 557 key positions requiring Senate confirmation, Trump has put forth a mere 49 nominees, according to the Washington Post.  

Aside from ordering the study on coal and nuclear energy, Perry has done other things that were surely hailed by fossil fuel companies.For instance, the new Energy secretary refused to join the six other nations at the April G7 summit in signing joint declaration reaffirming commitments to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate. Perry found out there that opposing the agreement will have significant diplomatic and political consequences; he was met with foreign diplomats who voiced concerns that the U.S. will slow down its renewable energy production, thus hampering international efforts at combatting climate change.

A Perry Push for Energy Efficiency?

Trump’s 2018 budget blueprint called for steep cuts to the Energy Department’s efficiency and renewables programs, but Congress passed only modest cuts through the end of this year: The low-carbon transportation programs will get a 3.6 percent cut, and renewables program will see a 5.6 percent cut. However, its energy efficiency programs will have a 12.7 percent increase. Fossil energy research programs will get a 5.7 percent boost.

While the signs are not very good for clean energy expansion or significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions any time soon, it seems, at least for now, that a sliver of the Energy budget will still go toward efficiency and clean energy efforts.  

According to Clean Technica, Perry has been “trolling his deputy” by aggressively promoting its energy efficiency programs. Although Trump wanted to kill Energy Star, which sets efficiency standards for appliances and buildings, the DOE has been regularly posting blogs about energy efficiency jobs and touting renewables on social media, including from Perry’s own Twitter account. If the EPA and the Department of Education crumble as planned, perhaps vestiges of the Department of Energy will remain.

Over in the State Department, Rex Tillerson, who worked for 40 years at Exxon, the oil company that dangerously misled the world on climate change, recently signed an international declaration recognizing climate change, despite the many powerful climate change deniers in the White House.

Don’t expect Perry to be a warrior for clean energy, but look for instances where he may do things that are out of step with the goals of Trump, Pruitt and other members of the opposed-to-any-form-of-green-energy cohort.

==