Experts in the News

"The free market ideology ignores risks. Most people want to keep the lights on more than make a market theory work," said Baker Institute expert Dan Cohan. Cohan and others call for big changes to Texas' deregulated electricity market. 

President Biden’s approach to Saudi Arabia so far is mostly a reversion to the pre-Trump status quo, rather than an overdue and fundamental shift in policy, wrote nonresident scholar Annelle Sheline. Still, "while many rightly consider engagement with MBS distasteful, for the sake of Saudi and American citizens as well as the global climate, Biden should help [him] achieve his more admirable goals while constraining his malignant inclinations."

Gov. Abbott's demands to mandate winterization of the Texas power infrastructure miss the mark, wrote Rice faculty scholar Dan Cohan. "Reliable and resilient energy and water systems must prepare for a full spectrum of extremes, not just winter events."

Past efforts to reform the grid have stalled. Will this year be different?  "We’re a state with a weak governor system ... and each agency only addresses one piece of the problem," said Rice Faculty Scholar Dan Cohan of last week's catastrophic power failures. "This is going to need a fix from the state Legislature."  

"We’re all high-fiving ourselves because the numbers are going down, and I am saying that we are in the eye of the hurricane," said health policy fellow Peter Hotez of the coronavirus case count.