The American Energy Renaissance Act of 2014: Cruz/Bridenstine Revisited

“[This legislation] will prevent federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing, facilitate the expansion of domestic refining capacity, improve processes to develop energy infrastructure, stop EPA overreach and its war on coal, force Congress and the President to approve any new EPA regulations that kill jobs, broaden energy development on federal land, open offshore exploration, expand U.S. energy exports, and dedicate additional revenues to debt reduction.”

“Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change,” wrote Milton Friedman in the 40th anniversary edition of his classic Capitalism & Freedom (1962, 2002). The revered free-market economist continued:

When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable” (p.

Happy Holidays from MasterResource

MasterResource, a free-market energy blog, turns six years old on December 26th. We thanks our contributors, readers, and parent (Institute for Energy Research) for their continual support. We will resume publication on Monday January 5th.

“Peak Oil Has Arrived:” Paul Krugman on Mineral Scarcity (2010 prediction from Dr. Errant)

“What the commodity markets are telling us is that we’re living in a finite world, in which the rapid growth of emerging economies is placing pressure on limited supplies of raw materials, pushing up their prices…. [P]eak oil has arrived.”

“[R]esource constraints are becoming increasingly binding. This won’t bring an end to economic growth [but] … will require that we gradually change the way we live, adapting our economy and our lifestyles to the reality of more expensive resources.”

– Paul Krugman, “A Finite World,” New York Times, December 26, 2010.

Finiteness … fixity … depletion … rising cost … rising price.

The Hotelling Principle … The Limits to Growth … Jimmy Carter and James Schlesinger … Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren …

And a role for peak government to manage peaked commodities.…

“Stop These Things” (Australian website challenges a crony, anti-environmental industry)

December 13, 1989: The NYT Got It Right on Global Warming

“Doubling Down on Climate Alarmism” (an editorial gets read)

Holiday Bummer! Neo-Malthusianism (consumption, climate-free conversation decried)

“End Wind Welfare!” Let Me Count the Reasons

Thanksgiving Remembrance: Don’t Take Liberty for Granted

Worldwatch Institute’s Case Against the PTC (1984 vs. 2014)