Elections have consequences, and the upcoming one promises to have dramatic impacts for our energy-driven economic future.
Consider what each major contender has said regarding these key issues, with the incumbent promoting an “all of the above, but not too much fossil fuel” policy, and the major challenger promoting more of an “all of the best” energy policy.
Oil and Gas
The energy industry begins from the ground. The two candidates’ drilling policies are markedly different.
Obama: Last May, President Obama seemed to be expressing a drilling epiphany when he said: “we should increase safe and responsible oil production here at home.” There was his oil moment in Cushing, Oklahoma. Yet nearly two-thirds of federal lands are currently off-limits to drilling and mining, and leasing has slowed in recent years.
Oil production has been declining on federal lands, while booming on private and state lands.…
Continue Reading“Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue … the prospects of freedom are indeed dark.”
– F. A. Hayek (1949), Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (1967).
MasterResource is a free market energy blog covering green jobs, climate-change policies, mineral-resource availability, and other political economy issues. Much of our analysis gets back to a realistic view of consumer-driven markets versus government intervention (and business cronyism behind much government intervention). And that gets to critical thinkers whose timeless contributions have shaped modern arguments about freedom versus coercion.
World views and critical thinking skills are formed early. Thus it is incumbent upon our high schools–public and private–to fairly present competing ideas so that students can appreciate contrast and better understand the “middle” of the debate.…
Continue Reading“There is a vast difference between doing the right thing and doing the thing right. In this case, CARB is implementing AB32 in ways that ignore current realities and that likely make matters worse…. It is time for a major reset of the underlying law and its regulatory implementation.” – T. Tanton
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is all-in, damn-the-torpedoes relating to AB 32, the state’s 2006 anti-global warming law, even while acknowledging that it will drive up the cost of energy. CARB chair Mary Nichols confirmed the start of a statewide cap-and-trade auction system November 14 under which industrial firms will buy and sell emission rights for pollutants–despite receiving unrebutted testimony from manufacturers and business owners about the very onerous, and even devastating, impact of moving forward with the auction.…
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