“The golden era of American energy is now underway.” (President Donald Trump, The White House, May 14, 2019)
… under the Green New Deal, they don’t like clean, beautiful natural gas. They don’t like anything. (President Donald Trump, “Remarks on Promoting Energy Infrastructure and Economic Growth,” Hackberry, LA, May 14, 2019)
Who has been the most free-market energy President in U.S. history? In modern times, Ronald Reagan comes to mind. He decontrolled crude oil and petroleum products in his first week of office (January 1981), although Jimmy Carter’s phase-out of such regulation had just six months to go. Reagan did some other things to undo a decade of energy statism but fell short of his election goal of abolishing the US Department of Energy. [1]
Enter Donald Trump.…
“Jerry Taylor, in effect, faked his intellectual death to collect the insurance money. He founded a ‘libertarian’ think tank advocating open-ended climate/energy statism…. For his deceit, Taylor has gained power, attention, and pecuniary reward. And he has exacted his revenge on the Kochs (really classical liberalism) for their reform effort at Cato.”
[NOTE: This completes my two-part series on the fake conversion of Jerry Taylor. Part I was yesterday.]
Despite decades in the intellectual trenches, he is the author of no books and few scholarly articles. He holds no academic degree, having left college after some controversy, never to return. [1] He did his analysis on the fly (board game design was a competing passion, unlike the off-the-clock policy wonk).
But with beaucoup smarts, fire, superior articulation (written and verbal), a reliable worldview, and access to top thinkers and researchers, he became a first-rate public-policy intellectual and a sort of a Mr.…
For anyone worried about climate change, Jerry Taylor is an intriguing figure. He “spent years as a professional climate denier at the Cato Institute, arguing against climate science, regulations, and treaties in op-eds, speeches, and media appearances”… But then Taylor began to change his mind…. [David Leonhardt (New York Times), “Conservatives for the Climate.” April 25, 2019]
[NOTE: This begins my two-part series on the fake conversion of Jerry Taylor. Part II is tomorrow.]
Yesterday’s post described two columnists at the New York Times, Bret Stephens and Ross Douthat, who have editorialized against climate alarmism. In a debate/discussion with Douthat, fellow columnist David Leonhardt highlighted the conversion experience of Jerry Taylor, founder and head of the Niskanen Center, which advertises itself as “Improving Policy, Advancing Liberty.”…