“The third part of my plan is to reform the bureaucracy, in particular the EPA, so that it focuses on regional and cross-state issues, providing scientific research, as well as environmental analysis and cost-comparison studies to support state environmental organizations. We will return greater regulatory authority to the states to manage air and water quality rather than imposing one-size-fits-all federal rules.”
– Gov. Rick Perry, Energizing American Jobs and Security, October 14, 2011.
Part I yesterday described Governor Rick Perry’s call for greater oil and gas resource access to government land to help create economic and job growth–and open-ended opportunity given technological developments.
Indeed, ‘peak oil’ and ‘peak gas’ concerns have been waylaid by reality. At a recent conference of the U.S. Association for Energy Economics in Washington, D.C., it was clear that energy economists believe that demand for petroleum will not fall around the globe for many years, decades, and possibly centuries to come.…
Continue ReadingTexas Gov. Rick Perry is swimming upstream in his quest for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, primarily from his weak performances during several debates. To improve his odds, last Friday he gave his first policy speech, titled Energizing American Jobs and Security.
Energy is that important. And it is a breath of fresh air that Perry’s analysis and prescription is 180 degrees from President Obama’s government-knows-best approach to energy and energy/environment.
Four Objectives
The Governor’s plan focused on four objectives that promise economic growth and numerous jobs in America. In Perry’s words:
A recent opinion-page editorial by a Ray Hankamer Jr. in the Houston Chronicle, Government as Referee for Society, espoused big government to promote basic protection in a modern society.
Such is the romantic view of government; the Good Government and We the People view of democracy where the body politic is all of us (not us versus them). But the real world is different from this all-to-common textbook view.
Romantic Government
Hankamer begins:
… Continue Reading“Leave the market alone and it will self-regulate just fine.” “Stop taxing the people and let them spend their own money instead of letting the government take it and waste it on ‘meddlesome bureaucrats and business-stifling regulators.'” This is the viewpoint of the tea party and many Republicans. But wait a minute: How would such a philosophy really work if implemented?