Ed. Note: For posts at MasterResource on the comments of Julian Simon award recipients, see the appendix below.

This past February marked 25 years since my father’s death.  In 2001, CEI began awarding the Julian Simon Memorial Award. My family deeply appreciates not only that CEI established this award, but also that CEI now has continued this award for 23 years.

The first award went to my father’s long-time collaborator, Stephen Moore. Steve, by the way, now leads the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. I hope you all subscribe to the Committee’s excellent and free Hotline.

This year’s award recipients, Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley, began working together a few years ago on a very ambitious project that last year reached an apex with the publication of their book, Superabundance.…

“UKers have been hearing doom for a half century. Citizens want affordable, reliable energy. Many if not most know that UK sacrifice will not have any affect on climate for decades given the global coal, gas, and oil boom. Adaptation yes, but don’t exaggerate.”

It began with a “Wake Up Rishi Sunak” post from Andrew Griffiths, director of Policy & Partnerships at PlanetMark, a climate activist organization that continually complains that the UK government never does enough to mitigate greenhouse gases. Never mind that the UK accounts for about one percent of such global emissions; its oil and gas industry is mostly shut down; businesses can’t afford climate-policy-inflated bills, and consumers are falling into energy poverty…. And the plants like CO2!

“When government actually tell the general public what the climate crisis will mean for the UK, they demand government action,” Andrew begins.…

“‘People are willing to pay a premium for environmental goods,’ Mr. Dables said. “It’s one thing to buy a box of soap and pay 20 percent more; I don’t know anyone who wants to pay 20 percent more for a car.”

It has taken a basket of mandates and subsidies to get battery-driven vehicles (EVs) on the road in the last decade. Start with a $7,500 per vehicle tax credit. Continue with automobile dealers having to get credits from electrics to meet their corporate average fuel economy standards (CAFE) obligations. Add-in never-ending taxpayer-financed R&D from the US Department of Energy and a lot of jawboning by the Presidents from Clinton to Obama to Biden.

Think back to the 1990s, when natural gas vehicles and methanol-powered vehicles were in play. Electric vehicles had interest too.…

“Color me confused…. Henry Groppe Jr. missed badly with natural gas in the crucial 1980s. I thus invite anyone to challenge my account.”

Last month I visited the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum (highly recommended!) located in Midland, Texas. The exhibits and educational features–in room after room–were exemplary. I learned much and will continue to learn with each visit.

To my surprise, I saw a wall-size tribute to energy consultant Henry Groppe Jr., describing him as a successful, unique seer into the future of oil and gas. This surprised me. In my book Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies (2011), I covered the history of Transco Energy Company, of which Groppe was a board director and consultant with the ear of Transco CEO Jack Bowen. My story was quite different.…