“America deserves an international trade policy that is based on free-market mechanisms, not paying foreign companies to buy exports from large corporations with political connections. We, the undersigned organizations, urge you to oppose reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank.”

– Christine Harbin Hanson (Americans for Prosperity), “Growing Coalition To Congress: End The Export-Import Bank,”  April 21, 2015.

“Enron was a political colossus with a unique range of rent-seeking and subsidy-receiving operations. Ken Lay’s announced visions for the company—to become the world’s first natural-gas major, then the world’s leading energy company, and, finally, the world’s leading company—relied on more than free-market entrepreneurship. They were premised on employing political means to catch up with, and outdistance, far larger and more-established corporations.

– Robert Bradley, “Enron: The Perils of Interventionism,” EconLib, September 3, 2012.

“Export-Import loans have been particularly controversial because of prior expropriations of U.S. oil company property by beneficiary governments. Mexico’s nationalization of U.S. oil properties in 1938 was followed by a loan of $30 million for roads in 1941, a $10 million refinery loan in 1943, and a $150 million loan for general development in 1950. A 1946 loan of $5.5 million to Bolivia for production, refining, and pipeline expenditure followed nationalization a decade before.”

The Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) was created by Executive Order 658l (February 2, 1934) to “facilitate exports and imports and the exchange of commodities between the United States and other nations or the agencies or nationals thereof.”  The bank could borrow, lend, guarantee debt, and “do a general banking business” with its $700 million budget. (See Appendix below for a description of the agency today.)…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org. for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

—————————

Some very good articles in this issue are:

What’s the cost of CO2 emissions abatement with wind turbines?

The Poor Need Affordable Energy

Study: Globally Coal Growing Faster than any other Energy Source

The Difficulties Of Powering The Modern World With Renewables

Lessons from Europe: Recipe for a high-cost energy system

Is the European Renewable Energy Bubble About To Burst?…

In 1979, Robert L. Bradley Jr. contracted with the Cato Institute to write a history of U.S. oil and gas regulation. Cato did not have an energy position yet in Washington, D.C. (that came a decade later) but was very interested in the subject. Indeed, with debilitating natural gas shortages in the winters of 1971/72 and 1976/77, and oil shortages during 1974 and 1979, the policy landscape was ripe for free-market energy analysis.

What began as an 18-month project turned into a four-year, six-months relentless research-and-writing effort. Finding a publisher for what would be a two volume, 2,000-page treatise proved difficult. Bradley revised the manuscript during the decade delay, although leaving the cut-off year at 1984. Rowman & Littlefield published the work in 1996 as Oil, Gas, and Government: The U.S.…