“[P]ermanence and stability are the cardinal virtues of the legal rules that make private innovation and public progress possible. To my mind there is no doubt that a legal regime that embraced private property and freedom of contract is the only one that in practice can offer that permanence and stability.”

– Richard Epstein. Simple Rules for a Complex World,  Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 2004, p. x1.

In U.S. Energy Policy and the Pursuit of Failure–and in a recent blog post at MasterResource–I have argued that for government energy policy to be effective it has to be modest—modest especially in what policy can be expected to accomplish.

But for modest policy to be effective, there must be some basic understandings about what energy policy should or should not entail.…

[This MasterResource post from February 2011 is reprinted for its relevance with the start of ObamaCare today. An uncomfortable question must be asked: what will happen in the health waiting rooms given what happened in the 1970s gasoline lines?]

For decades I have enjoyed the opinion-page editorials of the Wall Street Journal, both the unsigned editorials and the guest opinions. During the 1970s energy crisis, and today amid climate alarmism and the futile crusade to regulate carbon dioxide, the Journal has been a bastion of sound economic thought.

I was recently reminded of perhaps my favorite WSJ energy editorial of all, “Buffer of Civility,” published during the dark days of energy rioting in summer 1979 (yes, the U.S. experienced fuel riots from federal price controls that caused energy shortages).

What brought this to mind was another WSJ editorial, “Sebelius’s Price Controls,” which reported on a 136-page price-regulating rule under ObamaCare–and this message to state governors from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

urging them “to prevent unjustified and excessive health insurance premium growth.”

“The real climate change ‘deniers’ are the alarmists who deny that natural forces still dominate weather and climate events, and refuse to acknowledge that thousands of scientists do not agree with IPCC proclamations and prescriptions.”

The old saws of climate alarmism getting increasingly desperate and intolerant in the face of contrary theoretical evidence and empirical anomalies.

The ad hominem attacks seem strange. Shouldn’t all good citizens of the earth be buoyed by the fact that yet another Malthusian-like alarm is becoming more and more implausible?

Shrilling, If Not Shilling

Al Gore is in full attack model, employing his “Climate Reality Project” to “Draw the Line on Denial,” even as he laid off 90% of the staff at his “Alliance for Climate Protection.” Greenpeace has joined the fray, launching a “Dealing in Doubt” campaign that blames ExxonMobil for funding the “global warming denial machine.”…

[Ed. note: George P. Shultz has long been an errant voice on energy and climate issues. A leading Republican climate alarmist, Shultz’s energy views from decades ago, still held, are the subject of the post below.]

“Shultz writes: ‘The president requested service stations to voluntarily suspend the sale of gasoline on Saturdays and Sundays. The 90 percent compliance with his request resulted in long lines at gas stations on weekdays.’

Hogwash! The ‘long gas lines’ were the result U.S. government central planning with respect to oil. Notice how often those long gas lines have returned since controls ended in the 1980s.”

When it comes to energy policy, President Obama seems to have learned nothing from the past. His ideas closely resemble the grandiose, failed policies of the 1970s.

But such historical ignorance knows no party. …