“Price controls cause shortages, and government allocation exacerbates it. This was learned the hard way during the 1970s, particularly with oil, thanks to Republican President Richard Nixon.”

George Melloan’s review of Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2016) criticized her foray into energy and energy policy:

Ms. Mayer might herself benefit from an economics course. She writes that Richard Nixon imposed economic controls on oil and gas in 1971 to “address the energy crisis.” The Nixon price controls helped to cause the energy crisis.

Intrigued, I bought Dark Money to see exactly what she said.  Here is the passage from Mayer (p. 91) referenced by Melloan:

The fossil fuel industry’s fondest wishes were also fulfilled.

“The renaissance has gone bad. Nuclear power is repeating the construction cost disaster of the previous round of such building in the 1970s and 1980s.”

“The advanced designs and refined techniques [at Plant Vogtle] resulted in a mess of continuing cost overruns and schedule delays.  Now Georgia Power says all the problems are to be expected in a first-of-kind project.”

Buzz Miller, executive vice president for nuclear development at Georgia Power, wrote in the Atlanta Journal Constitution back in 2010 (September 16) in regards to his company’s Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion:

“The lessons learned at home and abroad have paved the way for a new generation of U.S. nuclear power plants that feature advanced designs, refined construction techniques, early engagement by state public service commissions, and licensing process geared to a mature technology.”

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

― Milton Friedman

New York State Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, claims that President Obama’s so-called Clean Power Plan is making a difference here in New York State. It certainly is, but negatively so!

Rural communities in New York State, and across the country, are being ecologically compromised by politicians, such as New York’s Schneiderman and Governor Andrew Cuomo, who continue to push industrial wind energy as a fantasy-cure for the alleged problem of climate change.

Trillions of dollars have been spent on ‘renewables’ worldwide, yet carbon dioxide has not been significantly reduced, while rural America is paying the ultimate price. Our countrysides, wildlife, and Constitutional private property rights are being sacrificed on the altar of “green” energy … for no net benefit.…

In 1979, Robert L. Bradley Jr. contracted with the Cato Institute to write a history of U.S. oil and gas regulation. Cato did not have an energy position yet in Washington, D.C. (that came a decade later) but was very interested in the subject. Indeed, with debilitating natural gas shortages in the winters of 1971/72 and 1976/77, and oil shortages during 1974 and 1979, the policy landscape was ripe for free-market energy analysis.

What began as an 18-month project turned into a four-year, six-months relentless research-and-writing effort. Finding a publisher for what would be a two volume, 2,000-page treatise proved difficult. Bradley revised the manuscript during the decade delay, although leaving the cut-off year at 1984. Rowman & Littlefield published the work in 1996 as Oil, Gas, and Government: The U.S.…