“Bad economics required the DOE furnace mandate in the first place: replacing gas furnaces are much cheaper than a new electric heating refit even with a longer-term, back-end savings. Why? Because consumers, given the choice, chose gas.”
The mandatory energy efficiency movement (conservationism vs. market conservation) arose alongside oil and natural gas shortages in the 1970s. It began prior to the Arab Embargo as President Nixon’s price control order of August 1971 was having its predictable, undesirable effect.
In March 1973, wholesale oil shortages and dire resource predictions led Congress to hold a full-fledged energy conservation hearing. The first fuel conservation hearing in decades, a new movement was begun not seen since World War II’s fuel rationing program.
What began with the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act of 1973 continued apace in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 and with the creation of the U.S.…
“It hasn’t been that long ago we had a train derailment that was carrying [heavy Canadian oil] through West Virginia and had a horrible explosion, so I know it’s much more dangerous to move it by rail or by road.” [ – Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), January 21, 2021]
“From a safety perspective, we should be encouraging the transport of energy via our vast network of pipelines and facilitate the responsible expansion of that network.” (Sen. Manchin, February 9, 2021)
Joe Biden’s executive order to deny an international permit to complete the well-along northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline has brought climate-related economic destruction to a new high. Noted one report on the project’s hitherto progress:
…There are now more than 90 miles of Keystone XL pipe in the ground, a string of temporary work camps under construction, and roughly 48,000 tons of pipe sitting in yards all along the route.
“… to a significant extent man commands as well the very destiny of this planet where he lives, and the destiny of all life upon it.”
“In order to have both environmental quality and an improving standard of living, we will need to develop new clean energy sources and to learn to use energy more efficiently.”
– President Richard Nixon (February 8, 1972)
Government grows with emergencies, real or imagined. There have been wartime emergencies, such as World War II. And there have been Malthusian ’emergencies’–as in resource exhaustion in the 1970s and climate change today.
Forty-nine years ago today, amid a natural gas shortage (from long-standing price controls), and with tightening oil markets (from his price controls), President Nixon gave a “Special Message to Congress Outlining the 1972 Environmental Program.”…