Marc Joffe is a senior policy analyst at the Reason Foundation. The Reason Foundation is a libertarian think tank that seeks to advance “a free society by developing, applying, and promoting libertarian principles, including liberty, free markets, and the rule of law.” The Reason Foundation was also a member of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a collection of organizations that deny climate change.
Marc Joffe has published several articles with the Reason Foundation. In a recent article, “High-speed Rail Is Unlikely to Play a Major Role In Achieving Climate Goals,” he wrote that while “advocates of high-speed rail projects sometimes argue that high-speed rail would help reduce emissions and fight climate change…the constriction timelines, costs, and travel patterns of typical high-speed rail projects make that unlikely in the United States.” He continued by saying that the construction would be costly and generate more emissions and people are better off waiting for more electric cars.
In his article “Subprime Green Bonds Could Cause Headaches for Homeowners, Investors and Local Governments,” Joffe compared green energy loans to the “subprime mortgages that led to the Great Recession.” He called the loans “predatory” and condemned the home contractors that offered the loans. Joffe concluded that while “energy-saving technology is undoubtedly a good investment in many cases, [this] seems like the wrong way to do so.” He did not offer another policy solution while he condemned this one.
In an article published in 2020, “The Implications of California Governor’s Plan to Eliminate Gasoline-Powered Cars,” he condemned the California government’s decision to phase out gasoline-powered cars in exchange for electric vehicles. Joffe was very concerned with the economics of road maintenance without the tax from gasoline sales, and later in the article he said that trains might be an improvement over electric vehicles, despite condemning trains in a later article.
Before working for the Reason Foundation, Joffe worked for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. The Mercatus Center accepts climate science, and believes that climate change will pose a real economic threat, but believes that the real economic danger lies in the solutions posed.
See also:
Kenneth P. Green
Koch Foundations
Climate of Denial