Just because we live in an age of science, marked by mobile computing, space exploration, and robot cars, doesn’t mean that people don’t still hold firm to beliefs with no scientific basis whatsoever. Case-in-point: rhinos are dying out, due primarily to a human appetite for the supposed healing power of their horns, even though these horns have been shown to have no medicinal properties and may even contain substances toxic to humans. Rhinoceros horns consist of keratin, a dense protein found in human hair and fingernails, but puzzlingly they’re worth more by weight than gold. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Mongabay senior contributing editor Jeremy Hance about the plight of two extremely rare breeds of Indonesian rhinoceros. We discuss efforts being taken to track and preserve them and take a close look at poaching and the brisk trade in illegal rhino horns.

In the 1970’s, coal fueled over half of the U.S. electric grid. Today, that number has dipped below 10%. This week on Sea Change Radio we speak with journalist and author, Bob Wyss, whose new book “Black Gold: The Rise, Reign and Fall of American Coal,“ provides an important retelling of the history of coal in this country. We look at the market forces that shaped coal’s rise, its devastating impact on the environment and human health, and talk about the ludicrous but dangerous attempts by the current Administration to prop up coal even as it’s on life support.

This week we dip into the Sea Change Radio archives to re-explore two discussions about charitable giving. First, we speak with Tyeshia “Ty” Wilson, the Director of Engagement at a nonprofit called Philanthropy Together whose mission is to advance charitable giving that is people-centered and equitable. We learn all about giving circles, how her organization facilitates them, and the importance of Black-led collective giving. Then we turn our attention to learn more about the financial instrument known as a donor advised fund or DAF, from journalist Alex Kotch. We examine the role of DAF fiduciary sponsors, particularly big investment firms like Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab and explore the question of who should be held accountable when a donor advised fund facilitates donations to red-flagged hate groups.

A recent Gallup poll found that, as is often the case early in a Republican presidency, Democratic Party affiliation has increased over the past few months, giving Democrats an edge. Paradoxically, the same poll shows the Democratic Party to be quite unpopular at the moment, particularly among Democrats themselves. This week on Sea Change Radio, we welcome John Stoehr of The Editorial Board back to the program to talk about the sad state of American politics. We focus much of this wide-ranging discussion on strategies that Democrats should employ to wrestle away the authoritarian grip that the MAGA right currently has on this country. We touch upon the real-world impacts of kitchen-table economic issues created by tariffs, and look at how Dems should be fighting GOP redistricting schemes.

Looking at energy policy under the current administration is a depressing exercise – the reconciliation bill of 2025 passed by the Republicans on July 4th, is a windfall for the oil & gas industry and devastating for renewables. Over 4.5 million homes with solar panels already installed, for example, are losing tax credits and other subsidies. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Sean Gallagher, the Senior Vice President of Policy at the Solar Energy Industries Association, also known as SEIA, about the effects this newly signed legislation will have on the solar industry. Keeping in mind that our conversation with Gallagher preceded the bill’s passing, we discuss the current state of solar and where it’s headed, and learn about the work of SEIA. Then, we dig into the Sea Change Radio archives and hear an excerpt from our interview with Paul Bierman, a geoscientist at the University of Vermont, as he talks about Greenland’s melting ice sheet.

Sometimes seemingly intractable problems are not as impossible to solve as one might think. A case in point is the hole in the ozone layer which was largely resolved by the fluorocarbon-banning policies that stemmed from the 1987 Montreal Protocol. Over the years, we have spoken with one of the key crafters of this historic treaty, Durwood Zaelke, a couple of times on Sea Change Radio and this week we talk with Daphne Wysham, whose organization, Methane Action, is working with Zaelke and others to figure out a way to reduce methane emissions from the atmosphere. We discuss the existential threat humans face by emitting all of this methane, look at some of the barriers and possible solutions to the problem and learn about the Methane Emergency Brake campaign that Wysham and Zaelke helped create.

Narrator | 00:02 – This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I’m Alex Wise. 

Daphne Wysham (DW) | 00:23 – There are a variety of different strategies, but there is a real urgency to getting this underway in the next few years because we’re out of time and we need to be pulling the methane emergency break as quickly as possible. 

Narrator | 00:39 – Sometimes seemingly intractable problems are not as impossible to solve as one might think. A case in point is the hole in the ozone layer, which was largely resolved by the fluorocarbon banning policies that stemmed from the 1987 Montreal Protocol. Over the years, we’ve spoken with one of the key crafters of this historic treaty, Durwood Zaelke a couple of times on Sea Change Radio, and this week we talk with Daphne Wysham, whose organization Methane Action is working with Zeki and others to figure out a way to reduce methane emissions from the atmosphere. We discussed the existential threat humans face by emitting all of this methane. Look at some of the barriers and possible solutions to the problem and learn about the methane emergency brake campaign that Weisman Zeki helped create. I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by Daphne Wysham. She is the CEO of Methane Action. Daphne, welcome to See Change Radio.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:57 – So why don’t you first explain what Methane Action is all about and what the mission of your organization is.

DW | 02:06 – Yeah. So Methane Action has been around for about four years, and we, uh, were launched prior to the launch of the Global Methane Pledge, which happened in 2021 and dating back to 2020. We were calling for a binding affair and binding global methane agreement, um, which we believe now more than ever is needed. We’ve, um, had several years to see the results of the pledges that countries have put forward, um, for 30% cuts below 2020 by 2030 of methane emissions. And unfortunately, there are two things wrong with a pledge. One is it’s insufficient to, even if everybody were to meet their, uh, methane pledges, it would be insufficient to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. Um, and secondly, people are not meeting those goals. So, um, we join, uh, the European Parliament, the, uh, prime Minister of Barbados and Chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, um, and a number of other leaders in calling for a binding global methane agreement, starting probably at the, uh, uh, subnational and then going up to the national level and the international level. 

AW | 03:32 – So what is the Methane Emergency Brake Campaign? You just were in bond Germany representing that effort. Why don’t you spell out a little bit more in the detail of how this campaign should work ideally? 

DW | 03:50 – Yeah. So the initial sort of co-sponsors of the Methane Emergency Brake Campaign are the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development based out of Washington, DC and Paris. Um, Methane Action, uh, based outta the US but working globally. And, uh, a group called Leave It in the Ground Organization, uh, or lingo for short. Um, all three of us have been watching with ALARM at rising methane levels and understand that the science suggests this is really one of the few tools that we have. Lowering methane emissions is one of the few tools that we have to avoid, um, tipping points that are looming ever larger, uh, the warmer the planet gets. Um, if we were to, for example, eliminate all manmade methane emissions tomorrow within 10 years, we could see a cooling of roughly half a degree Celsius. Um, so this is a significant tool in our toolbox that is not being sufficiently utilized. And one of the reasons it isn’t is because there aren’t any binding methane emissions reductions targets. And in fact, the us, which is the largest oil and gas producer in the world, has under Trump eliminated the, uh, the methane regulations that the Biden administration had put in place. So we’re going in the exact opposite direction of where we need to go on methane. 

AW | 05:27 – So, I hate to ask this question because it evokes a collective PTSD, but how is your organization planning to handle methane talks with the US government now that there are climate change deniers in charge?

DW | 05:42 – There are ways of addressing the, the venting and the flaring of methane that is going on in the US from outside, namely, um, the European, uh, union is importing a lot of LNG uh, uh, import. They’re, they’re, they’re importing LNG from the us, uh, and have accelerated those imports in part ’cause they’re very concerned about the Russian, uh, imports that they had been relying on given the war in Ukraine. So, um, what we are saying to the EU is, keep in place. Do not weaken your standards on methane and apply them to, uh, imports. In fact, we need to strengthen them, um, as a way of, you know, playing the same game that Trump likes to play of, of, uh, imposing tariffs. What we need is something like a border carbon adjustment mechanism, which the EU is in the process of, of rolling out, uh, a similar mechanism for methane. And this would incentivize the kind of behavior that would have been incentivized with the methane fee that Biden had proposed on oil and gas producers in the US but from an outside party,

AW | 07:07 – Right? So there’s ways to tri to, to squeeze the Americans, just like we’ve tried to squeeze opec, when I say squeeze, try to change their practices to become more environmentally safe. So the EU could be kind of the, the leverage point to then engage corporate America to abide by the previous administration’s practices that the Biden administration had put into place. Is that, is that kind of the, the strategy kind of a triangulation. 

DW | 07:40 – The starting with the EU, but expanding from the EU to other, uh, LNG importing countries like South Korea and Japan and other countries creating, um, a buyer’s club of higher standards on methane? As you know, obviously what we need to do is move away from LNG, uh, and, and methane gas, um, altogether as a source of energy. Um, but in the interim, what we need is not to reduce and lower the standards that are currently in place in the only region of the world that has strong standards, which is the eu. And that is in fact, what the Trump administration is lobbying, um, the EU to do is to, you know, you want these LNG imports, well, you’re gonna have to abide by our very, uh, environmentally unsustainable practices of just venting like crazy from the Permian Basin and all of these, uh, oil and gas, uh, fields that are essentially just unregulated. Um, we can see from space now with satellites just how significant these emissions are. Um, so we should be able to enforce, uh, stronger standards. You know, it should be a win-win, um, situation for the oil and gas industry because if they didn’t vent this gas, they could actually, uh, turn it into a commodity that could be sold. But there’s so much gas now being vented from, uh, so many oil and gas fields throughout the US and in particular in the southwest, that we are accelerating this methane emergency that we’re in rather than decelerating it.

Music Break | 09:33

AW | 10:13 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Daphne Wysham. She’s the CEO of Methane Action. So we’re talking about the natural gas production and flaring and other byproducts from the gas industry, the natural gas industry producing methane, but that’s not actually the majority of methane emissions globally. If you can give us kind of a snapshot of the composition of methane emissions, um, that would be terrific. 

DW | 10:45 – All fossil fuels have methane, whether it’s coal, oil or gas as sort of just when you drill for oil, oftentimes gas will come out a along with the oil. And similarly, when you dig for coal, you’ll have methane, uh, which is one reason why, you know, they bring canaries into the coal mine to make sure that there aren’t major explosions due to the methane in the coal, or they did. 

AW | 11:09 – They don’t still do that, do they? 

DW | 11:11 – I don’t know if they still do that. 

AW | 11:12 – That seems like a pretty archaic practice if they still do that. 

DW | 11:16 – No, because of course, right now what we’re doing is open pit, uh, mountaintop removal and nothing like what they used to do, uh, decades and decades ago, which was underground mining, although there are some parts of the world where they do that. Um, so fossil methane, uh, is in all fossil fuels. Um, but we also have biogenic sources of methane, and those come from, uh, the, the largest source is from, uh, from cattle and from other, uh, uh, concentrated animal feed operations in particular are a big source of methane. Um, that’s in part because of the diet that they’re fed and the way that their manure is handled. But, um, cows belch methane, um, and that is one of the largest sources of methane in the world, believe it or not, it’s agricultural sources of methane are larger than, uh, fossil methane. In addition, you have methane being produced from rice patties, uh, which of course, that’s, that’s considered a survival emission in many parts of the world. So we’re not gonna be going after, uh, rice patties imminently, although there are ways of suppressing the production of methane by applying certain, uh, uh, both draining the, the, the rice patty and also applying, um, iron to the, to, um, the rice patties to suppress the production of methane. But there are, uh, the lowest of the low hanging fruit is the fossil methane. And that’s why our, among our top three demands is to abide by the, uh, the, the call from the International Energy Agency, which basically they’re, they’re considered a fairly conservative organization. They said, we can and must cut fossil methane by 75% by 2030, and we’re nowhere near that. So if we are to avoid surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius, now, you could make the case, well, looks like we were already surpassing 1.5 because, uh, this last year we in fact did. But it, it, it’s hard to say whether or not on average, you have to look back in hindsight and find out whether or not we’ve surpassed 1.5 over the past 10 years, which we have not yet done. So there’s still a window of, of abiding by the IEA call for 75%. And in fact, the oil and gas industry said that it would be no problem to get to 100% reduction in methane emissions by 2030 back when there was a lot of talk around net zero by 2050. They said they were capable of doing this, but of course they’re not. And that’s why we need a binding emission methane emissions target. 

AW | 14:22 – So from a strategic standpoint, what’s the benefit of narrowing your focus on methane and not including other greenhouse gases within your portfolio? Why focus on methane? What kind of was the inspiration behind creating Methane Action? 

DW | 14:43 – Most people understand that CO2 is a problem, carbon dioxide, it’s, it’s, uh, it lasts in the atmosphere for probably hundreds if not thousands of years. Um, and we have been accelerating the production of CO2 in the atmosphere, uh, since the dawn of the industrial revolution with the consumption of fossil fuels. And what people haven’t fully understood is that methane is, um, responsible for, uh, roughly a third to a half of the warming that we’ve recently experienced. And, um, in fact, the rate of increase of methane in the atmosphere is faster than CO2 right now. And because it is instantaneously over a hundred times more potent than CO2, um, it’s a very potent greenhouse gas that we really need to be paying attention to over 10 to 20, uh, years. It’s roughly 82 to 86 times more potent than CO2, but instantaneously it’s over a hundred times more potent. And, um, what we’re seeing is not just a rise in, uh, anthropogenic or manmade sources of CO2, but we’re also seeing a rise in so-called natural sources of CO2 as climate change accelerates. So what I mean by this is, um, methane is produced, um, from wetlands, uh, from melting permafrost, and with climate change, we’re having both the problem of perm permafrost, uh, uh, melt accelerating, which is releasing methane that’s stored in the, in the formerly permanently frozen, um, tundra. And then in addition to that, we have expanding swamps in the tropics due to an increase in rainfall. So, um, in fact, it, it appears that tropical, um, wetlands may be the, the, the, the larger source of methane right now, but there could be an acceleration of methane being released from, from permafrost as, as the arctic, um, melts. So, um, this could create its own runaway, uh, methane feedback loop, which is very, um, would be very dangerous. We are already seeing the feedback loop play out now, and what we need to do is slow it down. So that’s one of the main reasons for focusing on methane. 

AW | 17:25 – We’ve had Durwood Zaelke on the program before talking about some of the successes of the Montreal protocol and removing CFCs or f gasses from the atmosphere ended up, I believe, repairing the hole in the ozone layered. So Durwood is part of the Methane Emergency Brake Campaign. What are some of the lessons from the Montreal protocol that can carry over to lead the methane project? What kind of template can you work from to achieve your goals? 

DW | 18:00 – What we’ve learned from the Montreal protocol is that it is possible to action on an urgent basis when people understand, you know, including Reagan. Um, and Thatcher were the, the, the people that fully understood the nature of the ozone, um, ozone depletion situation and what it potentially meant for, for human health in the environment. They were the ones who said, okay, we’ve gotta get going on a, an agreement to, to address these, uh, ozone destroying chemicals. And it was put in place in a matter of years. Um, and we are now seeing the recovery of the ozone layer as a result of that. Um, similarly, we believe that a, some sort of, whether it’s, again, the nature of the agreement has yet to be determined whether it would be along the lines of, uh, a protocol like the Montreal Protocol or whether it would be part of the UN F triple C, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or whether it would be, uh, something like what I’ve discussed so far about, uh, you know, some sort of border adjustment for methane. Um, there are a variety of approaches that could be undertaken, but really what we need is for people to do everything they can about their own methane footprint. And that means everything from switching away from gas, heat, and, uh, gas stoves, which are also bad for your, your health and, uh, can cause serious indoor air pollution. Um, but also, uh, composting, uh, taking food waste and making sure that it doesn’t end up in the landfill. Um, working on, um, ways of, uh, you know, ensuring that your diet is, is less meat intensive. So there are, there are small steps that can be taken at the local level. Um, but ultimately what we need is to hold the biggest emitters right now accountable for their emissions, which are, you know, big ag and, um, the fossil fuel industry and move towards restrictions on those methane emissions.

Music Break | 20:23

AW | 21:30 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Daphne Wysham. She’s the CEO of Methane Action. So Daphne, in your experience interfacing with these big emitters, where do you see the most traction generally? Is it with the corporate world or with governments or NGOs or partnering with like-minded organizations like Methane Action? 

DW | 21:55 – There are a variety of actors that are very powerful, of course. Uh, grassroots movements, social movements are very powerful, and we’re in the process, it’s just three organizations right now that are leading, but we are in the process of getting, um, signatures and, and endorsements and partnerships with groups all over the world. Um, and, uh, we’re, you know, our goal is not to be, uh, three organizations running this campaign, but a, um, horizontal movement of people globally who are engaged and share a common, uh, goal of, of working towards a binding global methane agreement. There are a variety of tactics to be utilized, whether it’s looking at, uh, the investment portfolio of different socially responsible investors or working at the local level, passing resolutions for community composting, or there are a variety of different strategies, but there is a real urgency to getting this underway in the next few years because we’re out of time and we need to be pulling the methane emergency break as quickly as possible. 

AW | 23:08 – And which governments and which companies are leaders on this issue in your mind? Which, which are the, the companies and the governments that you feel closely aligned with as you, you try to reach these goals. 

DW | 23:22 – Within the EU, there is one country that has gone further than what the EU has required of countries, and that’s Denmark. They have a $100 a ton fee that they’re imposing on livestock, um, uh, as an, as a sort of a carrot in a stick to try to get, um, the, the meat and dairy industry to contain their methane emissions. Um, we’ll see if that goes beyond Denmark. Right now, that’s the only country I know of that has tried to, uh, impose any sort of fees on agricultural sources of, of methane. I, I can’t single out a particular company, but I would say that there are sustainable agricultural practices that generally are abided by, by smaller farmers, by organic farmers, by farmers that are really trying to work with nature, not work against it. And that’s, you know, so I think we will find a lot of partnerships in regenerative agricultural practices and businesses that are focused on regenerative and organic practices. You know, one of the reasons why CAFOs, the concentrated animal feed operations are such massive sources of methane is because there is, there’s a connection between size and sustainability. And the feed that is given to cattle that accelerates their production of fat is also also tends to make them belch methane more so there, there are all of these intertwined connections between what is good for us and what is good for the planet and what is good for the soil and what is good for the animals. Um, that I, I think, you know, we’re, we’re seeing a lot of animal rights groups that are championing this, this work, uh, because it is about, um, much more humane practices with regard to animals, um, that, uh, eventually does result in, in less methane emissions. You know, as we move toward toward more sustainable management of our waste, we’re also moving away from what has become too commonplace in the global north, which is to just incinerate it or dump it. And when you dump it, of course it produces a lot of methane.

AW | 25:51 – Coming back from your European trip, what takeaways did you have in terms of the way the European Union countries are viewing the United States now versus last time you were there?

DW | 26:06 – This was the first Bonn conference that I had been to, and I think it’s the first ever where the US was not present. Um, and in some ways that was a good thing because what the US has done in the past is both obstruct progress and provide sort of a, uh, uh, an obstructionist force that other countries can hide behind and they can also avoid taking action. So without the US there, um, trying to weaken regulations, you really saw, you know, a different dynamic. Now, was enough done in bond? No. Um, there’s, there’s a lot to be done before COP 30 in Beam in Brazil. Um, there’s some question about whether or not the goals owill actually be realized. One of the priorities for NGOs is, uh, a focus on a just transition away from unsustainable, um, industries, including the fossil fuel industry. But we now have the, the president of Brazil Lula, um, selling off oil and gas leases in the Gulf of the Amazon, uh, which he claims he needs to do in order to, in order to finance a just transition, which is of course totally absurd. Um, but that is, you know, that’s, that’s what we’re up against as we look at Cop 30 is the, the hypocrisy of not just Brazil, but of course, you know, most of the countries are not acting quickly enough on, on the climate targets that we’ve all set for ourselves.

AW | 27:53 – Daphne Wysham is the CEO of Methane Action. Daphne, thanks so much for being my guest on Sea Change Radio.

DW | 28:00 – My pleasure. Thanks, Alex.

Narrator | 28:16 – You’ve been listening to Sea Change Radio. Our intro music is by Sanford Lewis, and our outro music is by Alex Wise, additional music by Ripple Beck and The Beatles. Check out our website at Sea Change Radio dot com. That’s SEA change radio.com to stream or download the show or subscribe to our podcast, visit our archives there to hear from Bill McKibbin, van Jones, Paul Hawkin, and many others, and tune in to Sea Change Radio next week as we continue making connections for sustainability for Sea Change Radio. I’m Alex Wise.

Proponents of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 often point to the relatively low prices in the industry today as proof that deregulation was a success. But this week‘s guest on Sea Change Radio, Bill McGee believes that the connection is specious at best, and that advocates are making the mistake of confusing cause and effect. McGee, a consumer advocate in the aviation sector and a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, shares his perspective about the long-term problems created by airline deregulation, explains why it often gets credited for saving the industry when it shouldn’t, and looks at how sustainability is not a big enough factor in the way that airline prices are determined.

Bill McGee | 00:18 – So if you just look at a chart and say, oh, since 1978 airline safety has improved. Well, statistically, it absolutely has. But it was improving long before that. And the, and in fact, the improvements before 1978 were much greater. 

Narrator | 00:34 – Proponents of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, often point to the relatively low prices in the industry today as proof that deregulation was a success. But this week’s guest on Sea Change Radio, bill McGee believes that the connection is specious at best, and that advocates are making the mistake of confusing cause and effect. McGee, a consumer advocate in the aviation sector and a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, shares his perspective about the long-term problems created by airline deregulation explains why it often gets credited for saving the industry when it shouldn’t, and looks at how sustainability is not a big enough factor in the way that airline prices are determined. I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by Bill McGee. He is a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project. Bill, welcome to Sea Change Radio. 

Bill McGee | 01:44 – Thanks very much, Alex. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:47 – So the American Economic Liberties Project, AELP, what is its mission? Why don’t you give us a brief snapshot of the organization, if you can? 

Bill McGee | 01:55 – Sure. AELP is about five years old. It’s a Washington based nonprofit think tank. And, uh, the mission is really simple. We fight monopoly power where wherever it occurs. So I have colleagues that are fighting monopoly power in financial services, healthcare, uh, Ticketmaster, when you’re getting your Taylor Swift tickets and, uh, you know, the market is too consolidated to get a better price. And of course, I handle, um, airlines and travel and airlines, which consumes overwhelmingly most of my time is an industry that is, as you know, uh, overly consolidated. It’s basically an oligopoly at this point with four major carriers controlling 80% of the market. So we fight that power, and we’re always trying to find ways to increase competition and make life better for consumers. 

AW | 02:43 – So I was surprised as I dug into the history of deregulation. I always thought it was a Reagan era initiative, but it preceded Ronald Reagan. It was a Carter administration policy from 1978. Why was I confused about that? That’s not an uncommon mistake to make, is it? 

Bill McGee | 03:03 – Not at all. Alex, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written about deregulation. And in the comments below, people will write, thanks, Reagan. The fact is Reagan wasn’t even in office, as you pointed out in 1978, Jimmy Carter was president, a Democratic president, and both the House and the Senate were controlled by Democrats. That’s where deregulation came from. It actually was spurred by the left, not the right people. Like Ralph Nader testified in favor of it. Senator Ted Kennedy introduced the bill in the Senate. To just step back a moment, the industry was regulated from 1938 to 1978. And I think there’s a lot of confusion over that too. What does that mean? I mean, all industries are regulated in some ways, but what it was was that for 40 years from before World War II until 1978, uh, the Civil Aeronautics Board determined where US airlines could fly. How many passengers they could carry on flights, how, how many flight frequencies in a day to a given destination, and the prices, the fares. And so, uh, the thinking in the seventies from the right as well, of course, ’cause there was a lot of support among Republicans and, and, and, uh, the business community for deregulating the early industry. But the thinking from the left was that this was going to sort of, um, open up the free market and good things were gonna happen. We’re gonna see more competition, more carriers, lower fares, better service. They would be competing more. Um, if you read the actual act, you know, it’s funny how often we have discussions in this country about documents, the Constitution, for example. But in this case, the Airline Deregulation Act and people don’t read it, which is, is always kind of shocking to me. If you read the act, the very first sentence, which is a very long sentence. ’cause it’s a preamble to the act. It speaks all about the promises that were made to us in 1978. And if you read those promises, I don’t see how any reasonable person can’t conclude in 2025 that deregulation was a failure because what they promised us in 1978, we were gonna see more competition, more airlines. We have seen the opposite since then. We are now at the most consolidated, uh, in, in air travel in this country that we have been since the first tickets were sold before World War I, the first airline flight operated in 1914, we have now 11 scheduled passenger airlines in the United States. For context, we had about 75 in the mid eighties. We have four airlines at the top, American, Delta, Southwest, and United that control 80% of the market. It’s an oligopoly, especially among the big three American, Delta and United. And we have never had that much concentration of power at the top. And furthermore, we have just gone 18 years since 2007 with only two new entrant scheduled passenger airlines, Avello and Breeze. That again, is a broken promise of deregulation. We were supposed to see all these new entrants, all this competition we did for a while in the eighties through consolidation, through bankruptcies. Overwhelmingly, most of them are gone. And so now we’re left with 11. But again, those four at the top, they really, they really steer how things go. 

AW | 06:12 – And there’s a lot of arguments made out there that deregulation was a good thing. You spend a lot of your time trying to par those arguments. Most notably, I’ve read a piece that you wrote, refuting Clifford Winston, who had written a piece about this as well as Matthew Iglesias, who they tend to point to the relatively low prices we still enjoy in airline travel as the reason why deregulation worked, but still emerging technology in 1978, we still were building airports and airplanes. There was no direct flight from San Francisco to London, let’s say in 1978. There this technology was still in its, um, infancy in many ways. So the idea that prices have kind of stayed the same or gone down, and as you point out, not necessarily gone down because of all the hidden fees, it’s really a case of confusing cause and effect in many ways, isn’t it? 

Bill McGee | 07:13 – Yes, I think that’s accurate, and that’s, that’s the point I made in the AELP substack, uh, responding to, uh, Matthew Glace recently. And the point that my colleague Lee Hepner and I made in response to Winston, the fact is that there are proponents of deregulation, including airline lobbyists who will act as if the Wright brothers invented the airplane in 1978. What I mean by that is they show you charts and graphs. What has happened since 1978? We say, let’s go back and look before that. If you look at the history of the industry, and these are statistics that are irrefutable from, from the Department of Transportation, from the airline lobbyists themselves, from, from sources that no one questions from Boeing. You see that the major sea change have come from technology, from advancements aircraft long before deregulation, 20 years before in 1958. It’s generally accepted that that was the beginning of what is called the jet age. That’s where the first successful commercial jets, there were a few unsuccessful attempts before that, um, Boeing 7 0 7 and, and Douglas DC eight premiered in 58. They did many things at once. One, they became much safer. The safety record of fatal accidents plummeted, thankfully in 19 59, 19 60, and continued plummeting throughout the, the decade since that’s due to technology. It had nothing to do with the market. The fares, as you mentioned, started dropping them. Why? Because jet aircraft were more efficient. And they were not only safer, but they had larger, uh, passenger loads. They were able to, for the airlines perspective, the cost was lower to carry more people further distances. That then was compounded in, in a good way, a decade later, 19 69, 19 70, 71, we started seeing the first wide body aircraft. Definition of a wide body is simply two aisles instead of one. The 7 47 from Boeing, the dc 10 from McDonald Douglas, the L 10 11 from Lockheed. And again, more people going further distances, costs went down. These trend lines were in effect well before 1978. So if you just look at a chart and say, oh, since 1978, airline safety has improved, well, statistically, it absolutely has. But it was improving long before that. And the, and in fact, the improvements before 1978 were much greater. 

AW | 09:40 – And the price drops were as well. You, you mark in that piece, you said like from 72 to 78, you see this pretty steep price drop, right? 

Bill McGee | 09:48 – Airfares in the United States were falling more quickly prior to 1978 than after 1978. Now, as far as you know, this, this argument that we hear all the time, and, and you’re correct to bring it up because you hear it constantly. This is the standard line for airline lobbyists when adjusted for inflation, average fares have stayed steady. Well, the fact is, there’s a couple things with that, with that, uh, sentence. One of the key problems there is the word average. I mean, we should talk, I think, a little bit about pricing in the regulated era, because this is the part that a lot of people don’t understand. Look, it’s been 47 years. So what we need to understand is that there’s a lot of criticism of the civil analytics board. Some of it, uh, may be justified to a lesser extent, but overall, what they did was they aggregated costs and the fares were based on the cost of operating a flight. Now, just let that sink in a moment, Alex, imagine that for 47 years, cost and fare have never been alarmed. And this is why I had an economist at the University of Chicago tell me, when I was writing my book Attention All Passengers, about 12 years ago, I asked about, you know, pricing. And I said, is there anything more complex on the open market for consumers than buying an airfare? It’s so complicated as a whole cottage industry of folks telling you when to buy, where to buy, how to buy Tuesday morning at 4:00 AM all this stuff. 

AW | 11:12 – Stay over a Saturday night.  

Bill McGee | 11:14 – Yeah, and look, I’m a part of it too. I’m in no way disparaging them. They’re serving a purpose. I, you know, I’ve, I’ve worked for Consumer Reports for 22 years. I had a column for USA today for 14 years. I was always, you know, offering tips on how to, how to game the system. But it’s kind of crazy that we have to game the system. You know, my colleagues at Consumer Reports who worked in other areas, they would say, well, here’s the best price for, you know, a given car. Well, here’s the best price for a, uh, stereo or for a refrigerator. But they’d say to me, what’s a, what’s a good fare? And I would just laugh, are you kidding me? What time of day? You know, five minutes from now, it could be different. I could be sitting in seat 14 A, you could be in 14 B, and a stranger could be in 14 C, and all three of us paid a differential of maybe $200 up or down, right? 

AW | 11:57 – And then in 1985, those tickets would be one thing. But today, if you actually wanna be sitting next to your friend in 14 A and you were in 14 B, you might have to pay a sizable premium for that, right? 

Bill McGee | 12:10 – So, so basically, you know what they did, the civil economic sport, the government, they would say to an airline, you know, an airline would put in a petition and say, well, we wanna start flying from Chicago to Portland, Oregon. We don’t, we don’t fly that route. And they would look at the market to try and study, you know, how much origin and destination traffic there was, et cetera. And then they would say to the airline, okay, you can do that four times a day with an aircraft that carries, you know, 150 people and tell us the cost. So the airline would go back all costs, and they’d come back and say, well, this is what we think, you know, this is what the cost is not what we think, but this is what the cost is. And then the CAB would say, okay, that’s the fair plus a profit for you. So it was virtually you. You never wanna say something’s absolute, but it was virtually impossible to go bankrupt in those years. We didn’t have airline bankruptcies for 40 years. We had some mergers, very few that the government approved very carefully, but we didn’t have the volatility that we’ve had for 47 years now with this industry, with mergers, with consolidations, with acquisitions, with bankruptcies, with people being stranded at the airport because the airplane, the airline just filed for chapter seven. So there’s that. Now since then, I mean, let’s talk about pricing. It, it is based on whatever the market will bear on that flight at that hour. I mean, and so you wonder why people are confused. And that is why I think there’s a lot of anger. I I encounter it all the time. I get, I get letters all the time from people and emails and texts saying, I feel like I got ripped off. Because you’re sitting there in that seat and you’re thinking, the person next, next to you paid a hundred dollars less. And what did they do that I didn’t do? Right? The global distribution systems that, that, that have all the airline inventory they accept somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 billion, that’s billion with a B – billion faresworldwide every week. So it is impossible to monitor all this. It’s all done, you know, agro with algorithms, you know, online computers. It used to be people that were, you know, setting fares. It’s, it’s impossible now. And they will fluctuate based on how many, if you just bought two seats on a given flight, they may say, okay, well the other seats just went up a little bit. Or if maybe nobody’s bought a seat today, it went down and, you know, seat by seat. And so when they talk about average fair, staying steady, what we have seen is tremendous inequality nationwide. I have the benefit of living in the greater New York area. So I’ve got a bunch of airports, virtually every airline in the country, you know, I, I’m, I’m lucky in that way. And unfortunately, a lot of media are based in places like New York or Los Angeles or Washington. So they don’t see this. I’m not criticizing people, it’s just, you know, you know what, you see much of the country when you talk about average fares, and they’ll always use that word average. If you look at it as a seesaw, it’s never been broader. In other words, the disparity between the lowest fares and the highest fares is, is incredible. And this is what it boils down to. I’ll make it very simple. If you live in a place that is only served on that route by American and or Delta and or United, any combination of the big three, one or two or three of them, you are paying the highest fares in the country. If you live in a place where you’re lucky enough on that route to have low-fare airlines, spirit frontier allegiance of low breeze, you are paying the lowest fares in the country. That is not Bill McGee’s opinion. That’s not ALEPs opinion. Every three months, the Department of Transportation puts out something called the Quarterly Airfare Report, and it’s all right there in black and white. And that’s what we’re talking about. And then on top of it, as you accurately pointed out, we have all these fees. So you cannot compare an airline Ticket in Economy class in 2025 to 2005. First of all, the product itself has been degraded. What do I mean by that? The seats are tighter. Um, the, you know, the amenities that you would’ve gotten a hot meal, a snack, whatever it was, that’s, that’s out the window now. And then there are the fees, fees for everything, even check, even, uh, carry-on bags in some cases. Now, every airline in the United States, now, the Southwest has joined in recently. Uh, every airline United States charges you for your first two check bags. So you can’t compare a fair from 20 years ago or 40 years ago to a fair. Now you can adjust for inflation all you want, but you’re not including everything that people are paying.

AW | 17:18 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Bill McGee from the American Economic Liberties Project. So Bill, we were talking about the pricing models and the algorithms that go into it and all the vagaries of it. And you have to be pretty savvy to get the best prices if you’re a consumer out there from a sustainability standpoint, however, it seems archaic in terms of its model. It’s built on trying to make sure that all the planes are full based on filling seats. But as a consumer, then you can see that you would get a cheaper flight, let’s say, going from Chicago to New York through Atlanta or Miami, because that’s where the, the market is pulling the consumer. And so the Air Airline is willing to give you a price break if you’re willing to spend, you know, 20 hours on this two hour flight. From a sustainability standpoint, that seems crazy because of the amount of fuel that it caused for that one person to fly from Chicago to Miami to New York versus the other way. I know we’re pretty deeply rooted in this system, as you said, we’ve been doing this for a long time. Is there a better way? 

Bill McGee | 18:26 – Right. No, it’s, it’s an excellent question. And, and there are, there are several things that you brought up just in the one single question there that we should, we should, uh, dive into. First of all, last year in, uh, January of 2024, uh, American Economic Liberties Project put out a paper called How to Fix Flying. And we offered some solutions for this very issue. And, um, we put out this paper, and I think it’s really the first serious detailed proposal to look at regulating the industry. Again, in years, we didn’t say like, let’s go back identical to 1978 and do the system then, but let’s modify it. And we understand that since then, the major airlines have built these hubs and spokes that you’re talking about, these big hub airports in Chicago and Atlanta and Dallas, et cetera. But what we are saying is, there are haves and have nots in this country. And you know, again, if you’re lucky enough to live in Chicago or New York or Washington, then yeah, you have options and you have Lofa Airlines and you have hubs and that what do hubs mean? They mean a lot of flight frequencies and a lot of nonstop flights. And if you have a corporate headquarters somewhere and you lose a hub, as happened in big cities, we’re not talking about remote places. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland, St. Louis, they all have major league baseball teams. They don’t have hubs. What happens is corporations pick up and move away. ’cause they’re not about to send their sales staff out four flights a day when they could do two hubs mean nonstop, you know, destinations and more flight frequencies. Well, much of the country doesn’t have low-fare service, doesn’t have hubs, they have fewer flight frequencies. And basically they’re beholden, you know, to getting on a plane, going to a hub somewhere, and then getting where they want to go, maybe in one stop, maybe in two, depending on where they’re going. And so we were saying, let’s look at it. And we’re not saying dismantle their hubs, but the airlines would have like a, a draft pick, uh, like, like, uh, college football teams have. And they would pick from the, in order from the smaller destinations and they would be required to serve them. 

AW | 20:22 – Look at the history of the Japanese rail system in, in the late 19th century. It was an entrepreneurial market based economy where department stores built the lines. It was a lost leader to bring customers to their department stores. So if you went to Tokyo, like I did living there in the early nineties, you’d have six or seven different rail lines all interconnected in a vast spaghetti map, which was very hard for any sane person to navigate, irrespective of the ticketing. But then there was separate tickets. Oh, you needed to go on the kako line, you needed to get a different ticket from the Marucci line or the, the, the JR or wherever. But since then there’s been regulation, I guess this is a long way of saying this was an entrepreneurial loss leader transportation project, which took most of the 20th century for Japan to realize that that was not a tenable situation. You shouldn’t have people having to buy seven different tickets to get across the Tokyo metropolitan area. So now we see like a, a unified ticketing system that takes regulation. You mentioned the history of the airline industry. It was a profitable business or, or it was glamorous, you know, Howard Hughes, all these people were trying to make money on it. Trump Airways right there. Everybody had a piece of this thing. But then when we realized that it really is a public good and that is a, it’s a utility, then we could maybe go back and, and look at how we regulate it just like we would a utility.

Bill McGee | 21:56 – We are having deja vu as a nation right now. None of us were alive then. But if you look at the late 19th century, what went on with railroads at that time is exactly what’s happening with airlines right now. So you had these competing railroads, uh, you know, Pennsylvania line and, and b and o line and, and, uh, you know, central line, all these lines that went out and put a lot of money into infrastructure, but also with, with, um, public funds in many cases. And then when they saw where they made the most money, they started cutting service. Now what does that remind us of? That’s exactly what’s happened in the last 47 years with airlines, right? Let’s look at what President Eisen, I don’t think anybody would say President Eisenhower was, uh, you know, a a left wing socialist. But let’s look at what he did in the 1950s for multiple reasons. It was due to the Cold War. It was due to the economy, it was due to a lot of reasons. He built the interstate highway system, right? And that’s sort of what you were just talking about with Japan, because in, in those days, prior to the fifties, you would take a state road and then you switched to another road, and maybe it was a two lane, it became a one lane, and then it had traffic, you know, and he said, no, we need to be able to move, you know, trucks to, it wasn’t just about people move goods and services and everything else across the country, and that’s what the interstates did. But what he didn’t do, now imagine if private sector, imagine if airline executives were in charge of the interstates, right? They’d say, Hmm, we need an interstate between New York and Washington. ’cause that’s a big center, but we don’t need it so much, you know, between Kansas and Nebraska or Idaho and Montana, right? And no, it’s, it’s, it’s a network, right? And we, we, I don’t know anybody that would criticize the interstate highway system is saying that it’s not, it hasn’t been a, a, a net good for the country. We don’t have an efficient and, uh, ubiquitous rail system in this country, right? If you look at Amtrak, if you take out the Northeast and a couple of other corridors in Florida and California, other places, there’s not much to it.

AW | 23:50 – It costs a lot more to take a, a train across the country than it does to flying a lot more.

Bill McGee | 23:55 -We as a country, we hitched our wagon to the, to the internal combusted engine a hundred years ago. And we used fuel for both cars and trucks on the highways and for airplanes in the sky. And now we’re paying the consequences. Um, you know, I, as an airline advocate, I’m always trying to make airlines, you know, uh, advocate for safety, advocate for competition, advocate for passenger rights. But then people say to me, well, I don’t wanna fly. I’d rather take rail. Well, I’m with you. We should, I mean, you know, we’re trying to, we’re trying to have a big enough discussion just fixing the airlines, but we have never, as a nation had an overriding, you know, uh, big picture discussion about, well, what’s the best mode of transportation? Right? Why? Because, well, we have, like, let’s be blunt about it. We have this powerful air, uh, oil lobby in this country, and their, you know, their influence in Washington can be seen in, in every vote that has to do with things like this. Uh, Amtrak is constantly getting beaten up in Congress. There are people in Congress that elect, they don’t wanna fund it, that that’s how much they hate the idea that there’s gonna be competition for, you know, for, for cars and for uh, airplanes. And so, you know, as a nation, we have to address those big picture things before we can fix some of the smaller things. But it’s a, it’s a, that’s a tough hill to climb.

AW | 25:13 – You were talking about the pricing and the incongruity that exists in terms of this deregulated market. While in the same breath, we have all of these bailouts every 10 years or so, it seems people also are not aware of the vast amounts of money that go into supporting these private, rural airports, which you had mentioned, I think 550 commercial airports. I forget what the percentage of the aviation budget is, but it’s much higher than I expected. It was like really off the charts. And it goes to mostly private jets and corporate jets, and they’re the ones who are really sponging off of the federal government subsidies.

Bill McGee | 26:02 – Right? Right. You know, the standard answer to someone who wants to quote Ann Rand and, and have government get out out of everything, it’s like, well, did you ride, did you drive on an interstate in the last week? And, and chances are, you probably did. The, the fact is that, you know, that applies in aviation infrastructure as well. So if you are a one percenter or close to a one percenter or a 10 percenter, and you’re lucky enough to have a private plane, first of all, there’s no question that it has a higher carbon footprint, right? Because, you know, even, yes, we understand it’s a smaller plane, and the fuel burn is not the same as commercial plane, just the same as if you get in a car as opposed to getting in a bus. Buses are actually quite efficient. They may not seem like it with all that smoke coming out the back, but, uh, it actually, the carbon footprint is much smaller than having 20 cars go. One bus is better. Well, it’s the same here. So all those five planes, they’re using infrastructure, the faas air traffic control network, the, you know, the, the, all the infrastructure at the airports, all the navigation equipment at those airports that is paid for by taxpayers, you know, by all of us through the federal government. So to me, it’s very fair. We have said at a LP that, um, those fees should be equivalent to what, you know, what airline passengers pay to fly on airlines. In other words, you know, they should be paying more to use those facilities because very few people are benefiting from it, as you say. But the question is, you know, what is the proportion of the benefit here? Right? And I think that, you know, that’s something we should examine. There hasn’t been enough research done on that, and it’s, it’s a good, it’s a good issue to raise to say like, is it fair that a private jet is using facilities and the cost, the overhead cost for the, for the taxpayer is considerable to keep that airport open? Are they paying their fair share? And, and that’s something that, you know, Congress could look at or the government accountability office could look at. 

AW | 27:52 – Bill McGee is a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, A ELP bill, thanks so much for being my guest on Sea Change Radio. 

Bill McGee | 28:01 – Alex, it’s a real pleasure. Thanks for having me on. 

Narrator | 28:17 – You’ve been listening to See Change Radio. Our intro music is by Sanford Lewis. And our outro music is by Alex Wise, additional music by Fred Wesley and Paul Pena. Check out our [email protected]. That’s SEA change radio.com to stream or download the show or subscribe to our podcast, visit our archives there to hear from Bill McKibben, Van Jones, Paul Hawken, and many others, and tune in to Sea Change Radio next week as we continue making connections for sustainability for Sea Change Radio. I’m Alex Wise.

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