“No fracking, no fracking, no fracking. All of a sudden [Biden] gets a nomination, he says, ‘There’s got to be fracking.’ For Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Texas, North Dakota … your energy jobs are gone if they get in. Just remember I said it.”
– Donald Trump, “Donald Trump White House Rally Speech Transcript October 10: First Event Since COVID Diagnosis.”
Consistency applies to Donald Trump and his energy positions unlike his rival. As such, the American Energy Alliance, the advocacy arm of the Institute for Energy Research, has endorsed Trump for reelection.
But there are disappointments and room for improvement with Trump energy policy. Ethanol’s continuing grip on the transportation market continues under his watch. Protectionism that reaches the energy industry (steel pipe for pipelines, for example), should be relaxed.…
“Halloween is coming October 31st; there is no reason to normalize scares for the rest of the year.”
It is good to see David Simon in the climate sustainability debate. The son of Julian Simon (1932–1998), David is a clear voice contrasting hypothetical doom against real statistics. And it comes in the very year that John Holdren, former Obama science advisor and bitter foe of Julian, predicted as many as one billion climate deaths could occur.
MasterResource has previously highlighted David, a Chicago attorney writing as a fellow of the Washington-based Committee to Unleash Prosperity. Simon’s op-ed, “Paul Krugman Is a Global Warming Alarmist. Don’t Be Like Him” (January 16, 2020), had a zinger in the first of his six major points.
…First, the earth’s temperature has been rising at a microscopically slow pace. NASA’s
“While energy is needed to fuel a modern society, government should not be subsidizing any particular form of energy. We oppose all government control of energy pricing, allocation, and production.”
This week, the Green Party’s platform on climate and on energy was presented. Today, the Libertarian Party energy platform is reproduced. Adopted in July 2018, no changes were made at the 2020 Convention.
The LP platform is very brief compared to that of the Green Party. The general principle of private property rights, voluntary exchange, and the rule of law needs just a bit of elaboration. Beware of the prescriptive, in other words. Excerpts follow:
Preamble
As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty: a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and are not forced to sacrifice their values for the benefit of others.…