Ed. Note: Four years ago, Storm Uri caused Texas’s centrally planned wholesale electricity market (ERCOT) to buckle, vindicating warnings about the state’s wind/solar reliance. The mainstream media implicated natural gas instead, failing to explore the why behind the why. Rather than deregulation, Texas has chosen to add wind, solar, and batteries, while subsidizing natural gas plants to counter intermittency. This duplicated grid is now driving rates up in a state that could have relied on surplus natural gas instead.

It was not so much the story of freak weather triggering a market failure writ large. It was a classic application of the political economy of government intervention: the seen and the unseen, expert/regulatory failure, and unintended consequences.

Don Lavoie, a preeminent thinker in the field of market-versus-government planning, once warned:

If the guiding agency is less knowledgeable than the system it is trying to guide—and even worse, if its actions necessarily result in further undesired consequences in the working of that system—then what is going on is not planning at all but, rather, blind interference by some agents with the plans of others.”

“President Trump was right to remove the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement and eliminate the Green New Deal. Now, Alaska must do the same.”

Alaska is synonymous with rugged independence and self-reliance. But this is at risk from the alignment with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), falsely advertised as modernizing and protecting the state’s natural beauty.

Adhering to this globalist construct has left many local communities grappling with the fallout. From an exploding homeless population to rising energy costs and diminished economic opportunities, the promises of the SDGs have often clashed with the realities of life in America’s Last Frontier. 

To understand how these things have wreaked havoc on Alaska, brief summaries are provided to illustrate the direct connection between SDGs and state policies. 

Big Picture Control

The UN’s 17 SDGs are nothing more than the latest iteration of a long-standing agenda to impose centralized control under the guise of “sustainability.”…

“Opponents of oil and gas have increasingly targeted energy projects through misinformation, protests, lawfare and misinformation, hurting a strategic U.S. industry that employs more than 11 million Americans, and negatively impacting our country’s economic stability.” (Energy Transfer, below)

Pragmatic rent-seeking by crony capitalists is a major problem in the United States. Political capitalism allows “the worst of get on top,” while misallocating resources from consumer to governmental ends. Think of Ken Lay of Enron. James E. Rogers of Public Service of Indiana/Duke Energy. John “beyond petroleum” Browne … Ben van Beurden of Royal Dutch Shell… GE’s Jeff Immelt… T. Boone Pickens … John Hofmeister. The wind and solar crowd. Even Kelcy Warren, co-founder and chairman of Energy Transfer, the subject of this post.

As a Houston Chronicle editorial stated on Monday:

A few of Trump’s Texas-based allies and donors stand to make a killing off Biden’s climate law.

“The basic structure of EERE, populated by climate alarmists, is beyond redemption. Eradication appears to be the only thorough remedy.”

As the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) strives to improve government efficiency, we urge them to look carefully at the “target-rich environment” of the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) with respect to both building and appliance energy efficiency standards. To this end we emphasize there are two facets: doing the right thing and doing the thing right. After explaining these codes, we offer historical perspective and expertise to assist DOGE in its endeavors.

Some conservative energy policy pundits believe “Net-Zero” policies are rapidly fading away. We disagree, at least with the “rapid.” A case-in-point is the recent growth and funding of biased building energy efficiency codes and performance standards throughout the US.…