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).…

Presidential candidate Barack Obama promised that his policies would cause electricity rates to “skyrocket” and “bankrupt” any company trying to build a coal-fired generating plant. This is one promise he and his über-regulators are keeping.

President Obama energetically promotes wind and solar projects that require millions of acres of land and billions of dollars in subsidies to generate expensive, intermittent electricity and create (really centrally plan) jobs that cost taxpayers upwards of $220,000 apiece – most of them in China.

His Interior Department is locking up more coal and petroleum prospects, via “wild lands” and other designations, and dragging its feet on issuing leases and drilling permits.

Meanwhile, his Environmental Protection Agency is challenging shale gas drilling and fracking, and imposing draconian carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rules, now that Congress and voters have rejected cap-tax-and-trade.…

March Hare (to Alice): Have some wine.

(Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea.)

Alice: I don’t see any wine.

March Hare: There isn’t any.

Alice: Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it.

March Hare: It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited.

— From Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland

Energy journalist Robert Bryce in Power Hungry foretells an electricity future anchored by natural gas that will bridge the transition to nuclear power. With his third book in less than a decade, Bryce is now a leading light of the energy policy debate, appearing regularly on op-ed pages and on news shows.

Bryce recently participated in two debates. In one hosted by The Economist, he argued for the proposition that “natural gas will do more than renewables to limit the world’s carbon emissions.”…

“But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.  It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government.”

— Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837.

President Obama’s proposed FY2012 Federal Budget has come under heavy fire for its modest reach in real reform. With deficits projected to be in the trillions for the foreseeable future, the amount of budget cutting proposed is certainly underwhelming. Lost in the battle over $6 billion cuts offered by the President and the Democrats, and the $61 billion of cuts the Republicans want, is the use of another powerful tool to help get the economy moving – reining in regulation.…