“Despite all the scare tactics and dire warnings, decontrol was a success.”
– Ronald Reagan, “Radio Address to the National on Oil Prices.” April 19, 1986.
My fellow Americans:
With summer coming, a lot of Americans will be driving more than ever, going on “See America First” vacations and driving everywhere from New Jersey to California in everything from vans to buses to motorbikes. This is a good time for it because gas prices continue to fall. In fact, they are falling as never before. The oil price decline of the 1980’s has been a triumph not of government, but of the free market; and not of political leaders, but of freedom itself.
When I first came into office in January of 1981, the price of gas was just about $1.25 a gallon.…
“With a new political outlook in Washington, DC with climate and energy policy, Exxon Mobil should formally reject both cap-and-trade and a carbon tax.”
Rex Tillerson, whose confirmation hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, presided over a major public policy change while CEO of Exxon Mobil, reversing the prior policy of the principled realist Lee Raymond. Political forces, as well as a doomed attempt at appeasing its enemies (ending up in the state State Attorney General investigative war), led Exxon Mobil to reluctantly embrace a tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
My interpretation of Rex Tillerson et al.’s (failed) policy shift finds support for “it was just PR” rather than a fundamental belief in climate peril. As such, this shift is easily reversible by Exxon Mobil’s new CEO, Darren Woods.…
The Institute for Energy Research (IER) and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), are in the news.
As reported last month in the Los Angeles Times, and more recently in Bloomberg Politics, IER/AEA are involved in the free-market directions that the president-elect and his team have followed to date.
One account described the founding of IER as follows:
The Institute for Energy Research was founded to be a clearinghouse for energy information in 1989 in Houston by Robert L. Bradley Jr., a speechwriter for Enron chief executive Kenneth Lay, who was later convicted of securities fraud.
Given that this association is part of the political conversation (Joe Romm started it in 2009: see below), and the continuing attention that is ahead for IER/AEA, I wish to revisit the historical record about my time at Enron that overlapped with IER.…