The Regulatory Personality in Energy Markets

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 15, 2013

[Editor note: Six regulatory personalities related to government intervention in the U.S. oil and gas market (through the mid-1980s) are identified by the author. The reader is invited to add categories or examples of regulators to this list.]

The classical tyrant that has frequented other countries has not been a factor in the U.S. oil and gas experience (or the U.S. economy). [1] The existence of private property and democratic institutions is the major reason; the moderating influence of the industry over intervention is another reason. Huey Long of Louisiana, who as governor and U.S. Senator, left a controversial mark on oil and gas politics, probably is the closest to being an exception.

Instead of tyrants, hundreds of legislators and regulators have shaped oil and gas intervention at all levels of government.…

Wartime Energy Planning: Not Good for Veterans (or civilians either)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 11, 2013

[Editor Note: This discussion is taken from chapter 5 of the author’s Oil, Gas, and Government: The U.S. Experience (Cato Institute: 1996).]

“Allocation regulation, in turn, sought to cure the problems created by price regulation. Government intervention during wartime encounters many examples of regulation begetting other regulation, a major theme of peacetime intervention as well.”

Government direction of economic activities, rare in U.S. history, has typically accompanied wartime situations. In particular, government petroleum planning has occurred during World War I, World War II, and the Korean Conflict. Standby oil and gas planning also followed the Korean Conflict.

General Theory

Economic understanding reaches the conclusion that consumers are best served when entrepreneurs are not subsidized or penalized by government involvement. Conceived abstractly, consumers could be a private individual or even a government agency.…

Halloween Thoughts from Obama’s Science Advisor

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 31, 2013

“Some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the [twentieth] century.”

– John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich[1]

Doom and gloom—and falsity—hallmarks the long career of John P. Holdren, neo-Malthusian and now President Obama’s initial and still science advisor.

What else has the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy said? And can we assume that he still holds and trumpets these views to Obama?

It’s Halloween, a good time to refresh memories of the man who just might be the scariest presidential advisor in U.S. history!

Read—but don’t be frightened. The sky-is-falling gloom of Holdren, his mentor Paul Ehrlich, and others is in intellectual and empirical trouble. From Julian Simon to Bjorn Lomborg to Indur Goklany to Matt Ridley, the technological optimists have the upper hand in a debate that continues to be one-sided.…