The United States is the world's largest exporter of natural gas — a remarkable change from decades ago, when America was dependent on the often-hostile OPEC nations for its energy needs. That's probably saved us as much as $4 trillion in the past two decades. That change is largely thanks to the "Shale Revolution," the development of fracking and horizontal drilling technology that is now responsible for 36 percent of total U.S. production. In a new @nberpubs paper, Berkeley's Lucas W. Davis uses data on gas prices in the United States, Europe, and Japan to estimate the savings generated by the Shale Revolution. The effect is obvious in the plot below: Starting in 2007, American prices diverge sharply from Europe and Japan. We're also more insulated from big shocks. He pegs the total as between $3.1T and $4.3T between 2007 and 2025. That's $164B to $227B per year — between $500 and $700 per person per year. nber.org/papers/w35245

The Biden Administration, in removing the guardrails Jeff Sessions and Jeff Clark put on the DOJ’s settlement authority during Trump 45, took the position that the only limits are constitutional and statutory. See the attached Grassley-Gupta exchange. And when House GOP passed legislation to do that in 2017 and 2023 or 2024, Senate Dems blocked it. On the statutory front, Congress in 1982 authorized infinite spending from the Judgment Fund. 31 USC 1304. So does that override the Major Questions Doctrine to establish single-payer? Probably not under the current SCOTUS lineup, but who has standing? I’ll note that the settlement you describe isn’t all that hypothetical: the Sweet v Cardona settlement effectively undid Biden v. Nebraska by forgiving billions of dollars of student loans DOE had no authority to forgive. (I speculate Biden/Harris didn’t make campaign hay out of it because they were scared of offending judges in the then-pending Ninth Circuit appeal by being too open about their evasion of the SCOTUS ruling. The Ninth Circuit ruled post-election that the colleges challenging the settlement didn’t have standing and they chose not to seek cert or even to ask around to see if someone would do it pro bono.) Similarly, the Obama administration repeatedly asked Congress to fund a $500M EV charging network, Congress repeatedly refused, so the Obama DOJ made Volkswagen spend $1B to fund it as part of a settlement instead of giving the money to the Treasury for Congress to appropriate. Judge Breyer didn’t even mention the issue in his ruling approving the settlement when my then-client objected that this was ultra vires. Alas, no client authorization to appeal. It’s bad policy! Congress should explicitly limit DOJ’s authority! But we need to understand that this isn’t a Trump-specific problem. If this is what it takes to get bipartisan support for fixing it, Trump has greatly strengthened our democratic institutions. But at the moment, he’s just playing by the rules Democrats established and insisted upon. The only real difference is that Trump, as is his wont, is being considerably less suave about the corruption he’s mimicking. “When you say keys, you mean kilos of cocaine, right?”

Shai flopped on every single shot attempt.

Astros’ offense continues May malaise, outfield options are scarce: Takeaways nytimes.com/athletic/7295904…

What scene in a movie made you laugh so much that you were physically hurting?

Seriously, has there even been a more uninformed, bias media platform in Texas this century than the TX Tribune? Plenty of left and right POV platforms but the ignorance of the California/East coast grown staffers is astonishing. Please let me know.

Astros SS Carlos Correa has a significant injury to his left ankle that will keep him out of action for weeks, or maybe even months, dealing Houston another massive injury blow, sources told MLB. com late Tuesday. mlb.com/news/carlos-correa-r…

Breaking: After weeks on life support, LIV Golf has lost the funding of its Saudi backers, sounding the death knell for the upstart league that split pro golf on.wsj.com/4uaDMg4