A Free-Market Energy Blog

Cato Institute: Zeroing Out the Department of Energy

By Jerry Taylor -- July 7, 2011

“All Americans are involved in making energy policy. When individual choices are made with a maximum of personal understanding and a minimum of government restraints, the result is the most appropriate energy policy.”

– Reagan Administration Energy Plan (1981)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) oversees nuclear weapons sites and subsidizes conventional and alternative fuels. The department has a history of fiscal and environmental mismanagement. Further, misguided energy regulations have caused large loses to consumers and the economy over the decades.

DOE will spend about $45 billion in 2011, or about $380 per U.S. household. It employs about 17,000 workers directly and oversees 100,000 contract workers at 21 national laboratories and other facilities across the nation. The department operates 37 different subsidy programs.

Spending Cuts

Department of Energy research activities should be terminated.…

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Wind Energy: A Review of Human Health & Safety Concerns

By -- July 6, 2011

This is a more detailed examination of the wind energy situation in North Carolina that I previously outlined, which is part of an ongoing investigation of the state’s process of getting wind energy permits. All this came about as North Carolina’s first industrial wind project (Desert Wind) is now in the pipeline.

As a part of my research, I had a productive conversation with North Carolina’s Health Director. My question to him was: what state agency will be assuring that NC citizens are protected regarding health and safety matters resulting from this industrial development?

He agreed that there should be such an assessment, but concurred with other North Carolina agency people that I had already contacted: there currently is no provision in the state’s rules and regulations that requires a comprehensive human health assessment for such a project.…

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Is Al Gore Bad for Big Environmentalism? (A shriller gone sour)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 5, 2011

“‘I think Al Gore’s done more to hurt this cause than he has to help it…. There are a lot of Democrats who don’t want to get within 10 miles of Al Gore on climate policy, because he’s seen by a lot of Americans as being on a crusade, and he doesn’t mind turning the economy upside-down because of sort of a religious zeal he has.”

– Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted in Jean Chemnick, “Graham says Gore to Blame, not Obama, for Congress’ Antipathy toward Climate Bill,” E&E News (sub. req.) June 23, 2011.

Al Gore in his most recent pronouncements on the climate-change issue (“Climate of Denial,” Rolling Stone, June 22, 2011) went so far as to pin blame on President Obama for the failure to excite the electorate on energy sacrifice in the name of averting catastrophic climate change.…

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Craig Biddle: "What to Celebrate on the Fourth of July"

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 4, 2011
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Oil Exceptionalism … Houston Exceptionalism … Texas Exceptionalism … U.S. Exceptionalism: Private Oil and Gas for the Social Good (Joe Pratt's soulful message to the world)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 1, 2011
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Open-Ended Resourceship

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 30, 2011
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Shale Gas and the New York Times: The Challenge from Energy In Depth (A 'Dewey-Defeats-Truman' Energy Moment?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 29, 2011
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Shale Gas Neo-Malthusianism: Poor Journalism at the 'Newspaper of Record'

By -- June 28, 2011
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North Carolina Onshore Wind Development: Look Before You Leap (Part II)

By -- June 27, 2011
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New England's Renewable Energy Mandate: Reality Anyone?

By -- June 24, 2011
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