Federal Energy Policy for America (Part III: Cato's priorities–and a few more)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 15, 2011

Editor note: This three-part series began with A Free Market Energy Vision (Part I: Worldview) and continued with Energy for a Free Society: The ‘American Energy Act’ (Part II: Real World Reform).

In their essay on energy policy for the 111th Congress, Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren of the libertarian Cato Institute offered nine priorities to move the United States from energy statism to free energy markets.

But there are more areas of pro-private pro-market exchange reform on the federal level. I offer four–perhaps readers can add more in comments.

Nine Policy Recommendations (Cato)

Congress should:

Open up public lands currently off limits to the oil and gas industry in the outer continental shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for exploration and drilling,
Repeal Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards along with all other energy conservation mandates,
Repeal subsidies for all energy industries including oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and renewable energies of all kinds,
Repeal fuel consumption mandates for ethanol and resist prospective consumption mandates for other renewable energies,
Eliminate all targeted public energy research and development programs and replace them with a generalized tax credit for private research and development undertakings,
Transfer the maintenance of the nuclear weapons stockpile from the Department of Energy to the Department of Defense and privatize the national laboratories,
Sell the oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and shut the program down,
Eliminate the Department of Energy and all its programs, and
Refuse appeals to impose new taxes and/or regulations on energy producers and manufacturers.

The 'Economic Means' vs. the 'Political Means': Franz Oppenheimer Makes a Key Political-Capitalism Distinction

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 14, 2011

[Editor Note: With T. Boone Pickens (et al.) trying to get natural gas vehicles off the ground with a $80,000 per vehicle special tax break, it is worth examining the origins of the political means versus the economic means to business (profit/loss) success. All roads lead to Franz Oppenheimer (1864–1943), a German sociologist/political scientist who saw capitalism’s business leaders at work.]

“I propose in the following discussion to call one’s own labor, and the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others, the ‘economic means’ for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the ‘political means’.”

– Franz Oppenheimer, The State. New York: Free Life Editions, 1908 (1975), pp. 24-25 (full quotation at end of blog).

MasterResource sharply distinguishes between enterprise that is motivated by and dependent upon consumer demand in a free market, and profit-seeking that is abetted by special government favor (SGF).…

Court Challenges to the EPA's Endangerment Finding: A Summary

By Chip Knappenberger -- June 13, 2011

One big difference between Congressional mandates and regulations by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is that if you don’t like what the EPA is doing, as they say on The People’s Court, “you can take ‘em to court.” (The other big difference, of course, is that if Congress takes action the members must explain their votes to their constituency).

In the case of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the Clean Air Act (the authority under which EPA is acting to restrict such emission) explicitly states that the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals has exclusive jurisdiction over final action taken by the EPA’s Administrator.

And since the EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has issued her final action on the matter—finding that greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare and therefore should be regulated—multiple challenges to that action have been made by parties unhappy with that decision.…