H.R. 1 can be characterized as pro-free market and deregulatory. But it is only a start. Free market reforms will ultimately require repealing dusty old federal laws from the New Deal (Public Utility Holding Company Act; Federal Power Act; Natural Gas Act) and laws before and after…. At the same time, numerous states should implement free market reforms by repealing and amending laws.
The Lower Energy Costs Act just passed the U.S. House of Representatives with bipartisan support. Senate confirmation is not expected to pass it, and the Biden Administration has promised a veto. But it is a start, a placeholder, for pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, pro-freedom policy reform to come.
H.R. 1, in the words of its sponsors, “restores American energy independence by:
A summary of the Bill follows:
… Continue ReadingH.R.
Ed. note: The loss of impartial intellectual inquiry and scholarship at Harvard University continues, as indicated by an upcoming article in Harvard Environmental Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2024, “Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths.” Given this trend, the contributions of a pioneering Harvard business historian, who also broke through the ranks of a male-only faculty, are worth revisiting.
“What we have done is … to put business in its broader political and cultural setting…. We are not out to defend business, but to try to do an impartial, scholarly investigation of an important American institution.”
– Henrietta Larson (1894–1983), Harvard business historian
For many decades, corporate histories were dominated by simplistic notions of big-is-bad and capitalist exploitation. Ida Tarbell documented many innovations and economies from John D.…
Continue Reading“… costs for Plant Vogtle have ballooned past $34 billion, the equivalent of $15,000/kW, making it the most expensive power plant ever built on earth.”
“… no, it’s not ‘litigation’ ‘anti-nuke greenies’ or ‘overburdened regulations’ that’s behind Plant Vogtle’s failures. It’s incompetence. Or let’s be charitable: Is this thing just too hard to build?” (Patty Durand, below)
Patty Durand, candidate for the Georgia Public Service Commission (GPSC) in a special election this year, is running on a platform, “let’s regulate utilities better.” I would prefer her tag line to also be, ‘let’s remove franchise protection from Georgia Power and the rest of the Southern Company utilities for competition.’ But take whatever is available in a crony business/regulator state, long exposed by Jim Clarkson (here).
Candidate Durand is focused on the Plant Vogtle #3 and #4 boondoggle, long chronicled at MasterResource.…
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