“Mr. Sherman knew that Alger was interested in the Diamond Match company to a large degree, and the purpose of the original anti-trust bill introduced by the Ohio financier, as I am positively informed by a senator who was then close to Mr. Sherman, was to punish Alger for his action in the national convention a few months before.”
Antitrust law has been more active in the petroleum industry than for any other area of the US economy, both before and after the passage of the federal Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Chapter 26 of my Oil, Gas, and Government: The US Experience (Cato Institute: 1996) described the legislative history of state and federal antitrust law in the U.S., before examining case law in oil and gas.
In my research, the libertarian economist and historian Murray Rothbard alerted me to a peculiarity in the origin of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.…
“‘There are a lot of special interests in [Sacramento], and a lot of them came to play,’ said Brent Newell, general counsel with the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, which pushed for policies to help people who live near sources of pollution, like refineries. ‘Utilities, agriculture, oil and gas, they all influenced significantly the contours of this [cap-and-trade] bill.'”-
– Brent Newell, Center for Race, Poverty, and the Environment. Quoted in Anne C. Mulkern, “Businesses Spent Millions Lobbying Before Cap-and-Trade Vote,” Climatewire,
“Cap-and-trade is what governments and the people in alligator shoes (the lobbyists for special interests) are trying to foist on you.”
– James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren (2009), p. 211.
An argument for the free market is that imperfect markets can be and often are better than government attempts to make things better. …
“History shows that private property rights, market exchange, and the rule of law have resulted in affordable energy, improved living standards, and a healthier environment.”
“Government policies should be transparent, predictable, simple, and impartial toward all citizens and businesses. Such an approach will spur capital formation in the energy industry and promote optimal technological innovation.”
Some of us have been working on updating the existing mission statement of the Institute for Energy Research (IER).
Here is the latest draft. Thoughts and comments are welcome!
The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is a not-for-profit organization that studies and evaluates the function, operation, and government regulation of energy markets. IER maintains that freely functioning energy markets provide the most efficient and effective solutions to today’s energy and environmental challenges and, as such, are critical to the well-being of individuals and society.…