[Editor note: This post was prepared by Mary Hutzler, Dan Simmons, et al. for the Town Hall blog at the Institute for Energy Research, a free-market ‘all-energy-all-the-time’ think tank.]
“The federal government is ultimately responsible for the long-term … consistent [energy] policy…. A clean energy portfolio standard is one example of a potential policy that the administration and Congress should discuss.… In this time of fiscal austerity I propose such a standard.”
–Secretary Steven Chu
With each passing day, the odds of Congress passing a Renewable Electricity Standard grow more and more dim. But Energy Secretary Chu, Senator Graham, and others are now promoting a similar mandate under a new name. Their old vinegar/new bottle effort should be exposed and rejected as the wrong path for energy policy.
Instead of a renewable electricity mandate, Chu, Graham, et al.…
[Editor note: Robert L. Bradley Jr.’s book review of Charles Koch’s The Science of Success (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2007) appeared in the August/September 2008 issue of The New Individualist (Atlas Society). It is reprinted below to better publicize the worldview of the individual who has been behind a number of free-society initiatives across the country for several decades–and is now a target of Al Gore and the anti-free-market Left).
In 1859, the first treatise on “best practices” appeared: Self-Help, With Illustrations of Character, Conduct, and Perseverance, by Samuel Smiles. Motivational self-improvement books were not new, but Smiles’s 400-page opus was persuasive. Profusely illustrated with stories of men-made-good in industry, engineering, the arts, and music, Self-Help combined age-tested wisdom with knowledge of the industrial present.
From Self-Help to Organizational Success
Nearly 150 years later, the most recent addition to the self-help literature is The Science of Success by Charles G.…
Yesterday’s election clearly demonstrates that the American people reject President Obama’s handling of the economy. Just as the 2008 elections were interpreted as a repudiation of President Bush’s agenda (particularly with respect to foreign policy), the 2010 mid-term election shows that America does not support President Obama’s domestic priorities.
Specific to energy and the environment, one clear message from the election is that cap-and-trade, top-down, command-and-control regulations are a losing argument with the voters. Candidates who voted for cap-and-trade, with few exceptions, ran away from that vote. Voters understand that cap-and-trade is a national energy tax.
With respect to energy policy, the election results will likely yield a modest and marginal improvement. While it will certainly not be the “environmental doomsday” that the national environmental lobby claims, unless the Republicans have truly changed their stripes, it will also not be the dramatic improvement that some predict or hope.…