“It is in the national interest to promote clean and safe development of our Nation’s vast energy resources, while at the same time avoiding regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production, constrain economic growth, and prevent job creation.”

– President Trump, Executive Order (March 28, 2017)

Do you miss the prior Administration’s record on energy and climate–and push-back against environmental excesses otherwise?

With the Biden Administration scrambling to hoist an anti-consumer energy/climate agenda on Americans on short notice, it is important to keep the opportunity cost of free markets and America-first in mind.

Four years ago, President Trump signed into law one of the most libertarian, free-market executive orders in energy history, easily rivaling that of President Reagan’s oil price and allocation decontrol executive order of early 1981. Titled Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth, Executive Order 13783 began with this paragraph:

Section 1.

“Even though it was once embraced by some environmentalists, ethanol has turned out to be much better at providing common ground for wildly disparate presidents than cutting greenhouse gas emissions.”

“From a greenhouse gas emissions perspective, the renewable fuel standard has been a bust.”

“In 2022, the current renewable fuel standard will lapse, and Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency will have to decide whether to maintain federal support for this hangover of the oil-soaked Bush era.”

– Tom Philpott, “Why Won’t Joe Biden Let Ethanol Die Already?” Mother Jones, February 16, 2021.

Progressives and D.C. environmentalists are very confused about energy. They don’t like nuclear, the only scalable alternative to fossil fuels. They dislike hydro power too, choosing some other priorities for dams other than CO2 reduction.

And on the transportation side, they don’t like the “renewable” alternative to gasoline and diesel, farm crop ethanol.…

“There are far too few heroes and far too many failures in the history of presidential energy politics.”

Who can claim to be a true energy President from a pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, pro-free-market perspective?

Which U.S. heads qualify for an anti-energy label for violating economics 101–and endangering the health and welfare of all of us who rely on the MasterResource?

Of the 30 or so candidates in the Lincoln-to-Biden era (the first commercial oil well dates from 1859), just a few names compete for the best, while many more vie for the worst.

Two Best: Trump and Reagan

The best two from a classical liberal perspective are Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan. A third candidate just does not come to mind, certainly in the modern energy era.…

“Instead of 2-for-1, we eliminated 8 old regulations for every 1 new regulation adopted.”

Yesterday, MasterResource highlighted the energy- and climate-related actions summarized by the Trump Administration itself. Today, we reproduce their highlights regarding deregulation in general.

Make no mistake: there were increasing regulation and restrictions in some areas to counter the deregulation in others, energy included. Note the bullet near the bottom of the list below:

• Placed a moratorium on offshore drilling off the coasts of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.

That was to help win some swing states. Same for ethanol subsidies for the Midwest. Politics is politics; you can’t win them all.

What sank Trump–and Trump policies–was the Pandemic itself, not his interventionist policies as argued here. The Pandemic, in Crisis & Leviathan style, reversed the economic boom and led to panicked policy at different levels of government.…