This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, November 7th, 2019. I'm Caleb Brown.

Governments are good at mandating things, but the private sector is better at innovating, helping consumers

evaluate trade-offs between, say, having your TV on in the background and costly energy

consumption.

Todd Myers directs environmental policy at the Washington Policy Center.

We spoke last week in Colorado Springs.

When people think about regulation, especially environmental regulation, they tend to view it as something

that governments have to do. And while there probably is a role for government when

you're dealing with issues that require massive collective action.

There are innovations that no government on the planet could come up with that have nonetheless

improved environmental quality. So, and it's easy to just take those for granted.

It's easy to take that level of innovation for granted.

But when we look at the impact of various technological innovations on environmental quality,

how do we, how should we be looking at that?

Well a good example of where there is heavy government regulation and yet it is private sector technology that is making the biggest difference is with smart thermostats.

So the federal government spent billions of dollars in the Obama administration to roll out smart meters.

And the promise was that it would give you more control over how much energy you use so that you had the information to say, oh, I shouldn't use energy now.

But what's really making the difference is actually nest thermostats, and then there's another similar thermostat called ECOB.

And nest is actually partnered now with utilities

so that it rewards you when you shift your demand

outside of peak hours.

Peak hours is when it's most expensive.

...