This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete Newsletter for this post can be found here.

Greed Energy Economics:
*** Fact Check Team: Inflation Reduction Act may cost taxpayers trillions by 2050
*** Real Property Tax Law § 575-b Held Unconstitutional by New York Trial Court: What This Means for Assessment of Renewable Energy Projects
28 energy leaders call for eliminating IRA subsidies—even ones they benefit from
NY Gov Pushes New Energy Tax Past Next Election

Unreliables (General):
*** The Battery Backlash Is Real, It’s Global, And It’s Growing
*** Ireland’s Renewable Energy Targets for 2030 — A Reality Check
More Wind & Solar Projects Spiked.…

Editor note: The wealth of free-market capitalism creates a robust civil society, where nonprofits and foundations can support the causes of their choosing, many of which might not be viable otherwise. The problem is where philanthropy goes political against the free society and human betterment. Jane Shaw Stroup at her blog Jane Takes on History takes a look at good money going in negative directions, even violating original intent.

You’ve probably heard that Henry Ford II resigned from the board of the Ford Foundation because it had veered far away from its donor’s intent.  In his 1976 resignation letter, Ford (grandson of Henry Ford Sr.) wrote:

In effect, the foundation is a creature of capitalism—a statement that, I’m sure, would be shocking to many professional staff people in the field of philanthropy.

“To tackle the climate crisis, lower energy costs, and secure energy independence….” (General Preamble)

Kamala “climate light” Harris, as a campaigner, will not say that climate change is an “existential crisis” (much less yell it as the alarmists want). Harris rebuffs the notion that she would ban hydraulic fractionation with natural gas, reversing her previous pronouncements. She also states that electric cars (EVs) will not be mandated for drivers, backing away from a Biden Administration goal. Finally, Harris speaks little about the Green New Deal in general.

She is trying to get elected in the face of energy exceptionalism, which is the opposite of the Green New Deal. But her vagueness allows the major themes of ’24 Democratic Party Platform to be controlling.

The energy/climate narrative in the 91-page document does not include energy in Chapter Three: Lowering Costs.…

“A free market in electricity would terminate the current provisions of landmark federal statutes, such as the Power Act of 1935, Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, Energy Policy Act of 1992, Energy Policy Act of 1995, and Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.”

My new AIER primer defines and applies the free-market classical liberal worldview to electricity. This is particularly important because this sound perspective has been both forgotten and misapplied.

Forgotten regarding the criticisms of traditional public utility regulation that emerged in the 1960s; misapplied regarding the current mandatory open access era involving central planning at the wholesale level with ISOs/RTOs.

My major points with quotations follow:

1. Electricity is a free-market product with a clear free market, classical liberal meaning: the separation of government and electricity in all phases and in the whole.…