The U.S. Senate Energy Committee has recently issued a white paper about a proposed Clean Energy Standard (CES). If enacted, the CES would profoundly affect the future of all energy matters in the U.S. The committee is having a short public comment period, which ends on Monday April 11th.
They are looking for inputs on six aspects of this proposed measure. Reading over the white paper (see Appendix below), I am encouraged that they are at least asking some good questions. As such I am hopeful that they get intelligent responses to balance out those that will inevitably come from rent-seekers.
Since I am advocating the Big Picture approach, my strategy is going to respond to the Executive Summary part only (and then elaborate a bit on an Additional document).…
Continue Reading[Editor note: The original title of the post of Dr. Brätland (bio at end) was “Institutions and Policies that Impede Capital Maintenance for Extractive Firms.” Resourceship is a term used by the late economist Stephen McDonald (1924–2006) to describe entrepreneurship applied to mineral resources.
Dr. Brätland’s post below complements a series of entries at MasterResource under the terms resourceship, peak oil (fixity-depletion), and ultimate resource, as well as subsoil privatization.]
Although capital maintenance by extractive firms refutes the exhaustion myth of minerals, this refutation hinges on access to lands, entrepreneurial latitude in managing resources, and secure private-property rights.
In particular, certain institutions of governmental control and jurisprudence hinder entrepreneurial actions of extractive firms striving to maintain capital (defined as the asset value of to-be-extracted minerals).
These hindrances include:
… Continue Reading(a) Foreclosure of land access by government ownership of mineral lands;
(b) Foreclosure of entrepreneurial latitude by court imposed covenants enforcing obligations to surface owners; and
(c) In the case of petroleum, the extractive firm’s inability to acquire full control and ownership of reservoirs it has discovered.
The American Tradition Institute (ATI) and the American Tradition Partnership (ATP) have filed suit in Federal District Court in Colorado to have Colorado’s renewable energy standard (RES) declared unconstitutional. The plaintiffs find that the Colorado RES discriminates on its face against legal, safer, less costly, less polluting and more reliable in-state and out-of-state generators of electricity sold in interstate commerce, and thus violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Given 29 states with either a RES or a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) of varying strength, the outcome of this case will likely have far reaching implications. The suit was filed yesterday, April 4, 2011.
Part of the suit is a “declaration” of technical aspects and the costs and benefits of how the RES is implemented; I am the author of that declaration.…
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