Energy Costs

AI

Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center

Cities should rethink their zeal for subsidizing AI data centers

Kate Gallego has had it. In her 2025 State of the City address, Phoenix’s mayor called on lawmakers to eliminate Arizona’s special tax treatment for “new data centers.” Calling it “a holdover from a time before our economy was the magnet for job growth that it is today,” Gallego declared ...
Blog

Spending Watch

Legislators Did Not Relieve California’s Energy Poverty Problem

Legislators Did Not Relieve California’s Energy Poverty Problem Wayne Winegarden September 2025 The legislative year is over and there is lots to be concerned about. Paramount among these concerns, the legislature passed several bills that will worsen the state’s energy affordability problems. Perhaps most disappointing, though not unexpected, legislators passed ...
Business & Economics

Louisiana Is Litigating Away Its Economic Prosperity

Numerous Louisiana parishes are suing oil and gas companies over coastal erosion. A Plaquemines Parish courtroom has a front row seat to one of the more high-dollar cases taking place where the plaintiffs have reportedly asked for more than $3 billion in damages from just one of the defendants. Undoubtedly ...
Blog

Should the Dodgers Have to Cancel their Phillips 66 Sponsorship? A Lawmaker Says Yes.

In a March 11 letter, Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez, a Long Beach Democrat, asked owner and Chairman Mark Walter “to end the Los Angeles Dodgers’ sponsorship deals with fossil fuel companies.” “Ending the sponsorship with Phillips 66,” which owns the 76 brand (formerly Union 76) that partners with the ...
Blog

Put Up Your Nukes, California

An endling, the last member of an endangered species, lives above a cove in San Luis Obispo, County. Having endured on those grounds for four decades, it is likely to go extinct sometime in the 2030s. There is, however, a growing effort to not only save it, but to breed more ...
Commentary

President Trump Unleashes a New Energy Future Benefiting Americans

On January 20, the U.S. Department of Energy ended the Biden Administration’s misguided pause on processing new Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) export applications. This is great news. The Biden policy never made sense and unwisely inhibited efforts to export more LNG, particularly to our EU trading partners. Read the entire ...
California

The vanishing electric vehicle advantage

The theory is that though upfront costs are higher, EV “refueling” holds a major advantage of electric vehicles over their gas-powered counterparts. EVs do not require gasoline, which California has taxed and regulated into oblivion, sending prices soaring; instead they rely on electricity that costs less. But those savings are ...
Blog

Gas Warfare in California

It took only a few hours after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a regulatory bill for Phillips 66 to announce that it is closing its Los Angeles refinery complex. Without actually using the words, the company is saying there’s no reason to stick around and be abused. In a ceremony designed ...
Commentary

Learn more about rebates

Are rebates the best use of tax dollars?

Californians who meet specific income thresholds may be eligible to receive rebates of $4,000 and up to $8,000 if they buy electric heat pumps for their homes. But the Pacific Research Institute, a Pasadena think tank that espouses free-market solutions to policy matters, questions whether the rebate program is a good ...
Blog

Market innovations can make our cities energy independent

Market innovations can make our cities energy independent By Edward Ring | November 15, 2024 A revolution in urban planning is well under way, driven by advances in wastewater recycling and runoff harvesting, along with waste-to-energy technologies and indoor agriculture. But perhaps the biggest and most unheralded breakthrough is the ...
AI

Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center

Cities should rethink their zeal for subsidizing AI data centers

Kate Gallego has had it. In her 2025 State of the City address, Phoenix’s mayor called on lawmakers to eliminate Arizona’s special tax treatment for “new data centers.” Calling it “a holdover from a time before our economy was the magnet for job growth that it is today,” Gallego declared ...
Blog

Spending Watch

Legislators Did Not Relieve California’s Energy Poverty Problem

Legislators Did Not Relieve California’s Energy Poverty Problem Wayne Winegarden September 2025 The legislative year is over and there is lots to be concerned about. Paramount among these concerns, the legislature passed several bills that will worsen the state’s energy affordability problems. Perhaps most disappointing, though not unexpected, legislators passed ...
Business & Economics

Louisiana Is Litigating Away Its Economic Prosperity

Numerous Louisiana parishes are suing oil and gas companies over coastal erosion. A Plaquemines Parish courtroom has a front row seat to one of the more high-dollar cases taking place where the plaintiffs have reportedly asked for more than $3 billion in damages from just one of the defendants. Undoubtedly ...
Blog

Should the Dodgers Have to Cancel their Phillips 66 Sponsorship? A Lawmaker Says Yes.

In a March 11 letter, Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez, a Long Beach Democrat, asked owner and Chairman Mark Walter “to end the Los Angeles Dodgers’ sponsorship deals with fossil fuel companies.” “Ending the sponsorship with Phillips 66,” which owns the 76 brand (formerly Union 76) that partners with the ...
Blog

Put Up Your Nukes, California

An endling, the last member of an endangered species, lives above a cove in San Luis Obispo, County. Having endured on those grounds for four decades, it is likely to go extinct sometime in the 2030s. There is, however, a growing effort to not only save it, but to breed more ...
Commentary

President Trump Unleashes a New Energy Future Benefiting Americans

On January 20, the U.S. Department of Energy ended the Biden Administration’s misguided pause on processing new Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) export applications. This is great news. The Biden policy never made sense and unwisely inhibited efforts to export more LNG, particularly to our EU trading partners. Read the entire ...
California

The vanishing electric vehicle advantage

The theory is that though upfront costs are higher, EV “refueling” holds a major advantage of electric vehicles over their gas-powered counterparts. EVs do not require gasoline, which California has taxed and regulated into oblivion, sending prices soaring; instead they rely on electricity that costs less. But those savings are ...
Blog

Gas Warfare in California

It took only a few hours after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a regulatory bill for Phillips 66 to announce that it is closing its Los Angeles refinery complex. Without actually using the words, the company is saying there’s no reason to stick around and be abused. In a ceremony designed ...
Commentary

Learn more about rebates

Are rebates the best use of tax dollars?

Californians who meet specific income thresholds may be eligible to receive rebates of $4,000 and up to $8,000 if they buy electric heat pumps for their homes. But the Pacific Research Institute, a Pasadena think tank that espouses free-market solutions to policy matters, questions whether the rebate program is a good ...
Blog

Market innovations can make our cities energy independent

Market innovations can make our cities energy independent By Edward Ring | November 15, 2024 A revolution in urban planning is well under way, driven by advances in wastewater recycling and runoff harvesting, along with waste-to-energy technologies and indoor agriculture. But perhaps the biggest and most unheralded breakthrough is the ...
Scroll to Top