“1) Do you support ending all energy subsidies, including cleaning up the tax code to treat all types of energy the same?
A: Yes, I support a true all-of-the-above approach to energy, ending all energy subsidies and mandates so that all energy sources compete on an even playing field.”
Back in 2014, the new Texas Senator Ted Cruz [with Jim Bridenstine (R-Ok)] introduced the American Energy Renaissance Act of 2014, which I reviewed at MasterResource under the title, “Going on Offense: The American Energy Renaissance Act of 2014 (Cruz, Bridenstine set tone for post-Obama world).” This bill was easily the most free market, libertarian proposal I have seen in many decades, and perhaps ever. Not that it was/is perfect, but it is plenty good.
What does the presidential candidate have to say in 2016?…
“8). Do you support a carbon tax? Do you support the Obama administration’s use of the social cost of carbon in rulemakings?
A. No and No.
9). Do you think federal agencies have abused the cost-benefit process to suit their political agenda? Would your administration end the process of underestimating costs and inflating benefits of agency regulations?
A. Yes and Yes.”
President candidate Donald Trump responded to ten questions submitted by the free-market energy advocacy group, American Energy Alliance (the advocacy arm of the Institute for Energy Research, of which I am founder and CEO). Overall, there is great promise of market-oriented reform, reinforcing Trump’s earlier statements about reigning in the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Trump is weak on ethanol mandates and pretty good on most other issues. A particularly weak sentence is: “Until this nation sets its sights on total energy independence, we must support all energy sources.”…
“Pauses as long as 15 years are rare in the simulations, and ‘we expect that [real-world] warming will resume in the next few years,’ the Hadley Centre group writes…. Researchers … agree that no sort of natural variability can hold off greenhouse warming much longer.”
– Richard Kerr. What Happened to Global Warming? Scientists Say Just Wait a Bit.” Science, October 1, 2009.
Debates over the ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ of global warming since its El Nino-driven peak back in 1998 should not forget the false confidence of leading alarmist scientists were saying less than a decade ago about how the warming slowdown was surely coming to an end. After all, model-predicted warming was the best indication of reality if the models had the right physics in them (a Big if).…