[Editor note: Tom Stacy of Save Western Ohio is a critic of the industrial wind lobby “using incomplete and misleading claims of energy, economic and environmental benefit … to attract public funding far beyond the free market value of their product.” This is his first post at MasterResource.]
It takes more than anger to fight against the political “green tide” of windpower. It requires courage backed by effective argumentation.
Many people throughout history have taken an unpopular stand. Most have been censored, or worse, but some have been responsible for breakthroughs in our grasp of natural science and other realms of human understanding. Galileo, Columbus, Paine, Lincoln, Edison, Wright, and Deming come to mind.
One historical figure named Reagan even went so far as to tear the solar panels off of the White House roof when he learned how much they cost and how little they produced. …
“Local environmental regulators say they will press ahead in their battle against global warming whether or not Congress strips U.S. EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gasses. State and local officials from New York and New Jersey also predicted that new greenhouse gas-curbing rules regulating industries would continue even if Congress approves federal climate legislation.”
– Nathanial Gronewold, “States Refuse to Back Down on Climate Policy,” E&E News, May 24, 2010 (reprinted below).
Affordable energy is under assault at all levels of government. But while much attention has focused on federal efforts that are certain to increase the cost of energy (e.g. Waxman-Markey, Kerry-Graham-Lieberman) far less scrutiny been paid to the concerted efforts at the state level to achieve similar goals. The Institute for Energy Research’s report Energy Regulations in the States: A Wake-up Call fills the void and highlights the programs anti-energy activists are promoting in the states.…
[Editor note: Some important facts are emphasized in this post: the Gulf oil spill occurred on property owned and managed by the federal government, and the operator-at-fault (BP) has been the most politically active in its industry. Sheldon Richman is editor of The Freeman magazine and www.thefreemanonline.org, where this article first appeared.]
With some 7,000 barrels of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico each day from BP’s exploded Deepwater Horizon well, offshore drilling and oil-industry regulation have returned to the front pages.
The familiar old trap is set: Do you want unfettered markets and oil spills or government regulation and safety? The implied premise is that the oil industry operates in a free market. So, the argument goes, the only alternative is government regulation.
On first glance that story is plausible.…