Category — American Energy Act (IER)

Editor note: The first post in in this three-part series was titled A Free Market Energy Vision (Part I: Worldview); the third is“Federal Energy Policy for America (Part III: Cato’s priorities–and a few more).”

The Obama Administration has been implementing an anti-energy agenda since coming to Washington. From day one, Obama and his “dream ‘green’ team” have worked to increase the cost of traditional energy to reduce usage and try to make uneconomic consumer-rejected energy (wind, solar, ethanol, electric vehicles) more economic.

The effects of these policies are now playing out in front of the American people: rising energy prices, tens of thousands of jobs destroyed, and increasing dependence on foreign state-owned energy companies. In response, the free market community has been playing defense.

But even before Obama, multiple-hundred-page interventionist legislation has been signed time and again by Republican presidents. (And it was Republican Richard Nixon who began the era of energy politicization with his wage-and-price-control program despite being elected on a platform to roll back government.)

What would actual free-market energy legislation look like? To start this process, the Institute for Energy Research recently offered model legislation –The American Energy Act. This bill would get rid of unnecessary regulations, increase domestic energy production, create millions of jobs, and lower the price of energy for all Americans.

Unlike the president’s approach of subsidizing politically-favored industries with billions of taxpayer dollars, the American Energy Act would not cost taxpayers one dime. In fact, it would increase the federal government’s tax revenues by increasing domestic economic activity.

Here are ten ways in which the American Energy Act will correct the mistakes made by President Obama’s anti-energy administration: [Read more →]