[Editor Note: This continues our series on Kathleen Harnett White, distinguished senior fellow and director, Armstrong Center for Energy and the Environment (Texas Public Policy Foundation). White’s nomination to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) was recently withdrawn due to extreme opposition from climate activists and allied politicians (see Part I of this series). Part III tomorrow will review White’s views on energy consumerism, a major part of the ‘social justice’ movement.]
“A grasp of a few hard facts, a little arithmetic, and some basic physics are necessary to avoid calamitous blunders in energy policy.”
“Public discourse about global warming and climate policies ignores fundamental physical realities about energy and overlooks the profound benefits of carbon-rich energy.”
– Stephen Moore and Kathleen Hartnett White, Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2016).…
“If the private sector won’t build wind turbines without the credit, it’s time for America to rethink its approach to wind power and renewable energy in general…. Congress should abandon the idea of reviving the federal Wind Production Tax Credit, because it actually undermines efforts to make wind competitive.”
– George David Banks, R Street Institute (2014)
Back in October 2014, R Street Institute senior fellow George David Banks wrote a piece, ‘How the Wind Production Tax Credit Undermines Wind Power.” Banks, who is no longer with R Street, also wrote free-market blogs/op-ed’s against EPA’s ethanol mandate and Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
Given R Street’s recent seminar/lovefest with wind power (see MR’s post from last week, Energy Statism: R Street Hits New Low), Banks’s op-ed has new relevance.…
“A new ethic is needed for corporate America, one where cronyism, obvious or subtle, is uncovered, reported, and criticized by the media and the public. Corporations will do the right thing under the new norms of a free, civil society.”
Corporations can practice Principled Entrepreneurship™ wherein “good profits” are derived from private property rights and voluntary exchange. Common ethical standards are respected in this quest as well.
Or corporations can practice contra-capitalism, mixing rent-seeking (cronyism) with philosophic fraud and imprudence.
A major corporation, ExxonMobil, and a major trade association, the Edison Electric Institute, used their financial and membership powers at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to go contra-capitalist on the issue of a resolution challenging the science behind Obama’s 2009 Clean Power Plan.
As described by Sterling Burnett at Climate News:
A resolution calling on the U.S.…