MasterResource focuses on the political economy of the energy industries. But there is also the unheralded, underappreciated progress of market entrepreneurship in free societies to make modern energies affordable and available for myriad uses.
The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS), under the direction of Bruce Wells, is dedicated to the preservation of such history. With permission, a number of data points for September are reproduced below (see here, here, and here).
September 1, 1862: Union Taxes Manufactured Gas
To help fund the Civil War, a new federal tax was placed on manufactured gas, a popular fuel for street and residential lighting. Manufactured gas companies provided street and residential lighting.
Manufactured gas (produced by heating coal) was taxed up to 15 cents per thousand cubic feet. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle quickly accused the local gas company of passing on the tax, which “shifts from its shoulders its share of the burdens the war imposes and places it directly on their customers.”…
“Despite the relatively small size of the … Global Warming Policy Foundation, Institute of Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), as well as the German Europäisches Institut für Klima und Energie (EIKE), the Austrian Economics Centre (AEC), Institut Économique Molinari (IEM) in France, Instituto Juan de Mariana (IJM) in Spain and the Liberales Institut (LI) in Switzerland…. [they] nevertheless have a ‘remarkable’ level of political influence.”
“The study found that groups on both sides of the Atlantic consistently use the same rhetoric, drawing heavily on libertarian, free-market ideology… and their influence is ‘still growing’.”
Desmog blog has a peculiar methodology of stating a number of facts about disliked individuals and organizations as if this record is prima facie evidence of wrongness and duplicity.
In fact, the same record can be (and is by me) used to make just the opposite point–guilty as charged and proud of it.…
“Jimmy Carter was right in exhorting Americans to turn down their thermostats, even if he did look nerdy in a cardigan while urging us to do so.”
“An energy crisis is again upon us. Soaring gasoline prices and oil imports are daggers aimed at the heart of our stumbling economy.”
– Joseph Wheelan, “Is it Safe Now to Admit Jimmy Carter Was Right?” (July 2008).
It’s back to Jimmy Carter with the Biden/Harris (or Harris/Biden) ticket. The Democrats might not admit as much, but the “soft energy path” of the 1970s is back in vogue with climate change replacing fears of oil and gas depletion and of oil imports.
Consider this piece by Joseph Wheelan, “Is it Safe Now to Admit Jimmy Carter Was Right?” (July 2008) that with some updating on the villains could pass for an op-ed today.…