A Free-Market Energy Blog

Energy Policy in California: Turning Gold into Lead

By Robert Peltier -- June 23, 2011

Despite the state’s deep economic wounds, California’s Governor Jerry Brown last month signed SB 2X that increased the state’s already ambitious renewable portfolio standard (RPS) goal from 20% to 33% by 2020. Together with the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32), which requires caps on greenhouse gas emissions starting next year, the new law will push up the price of electricity and further delay the Golden State’s economic recovery by permanently driving away businesses and manufacturing jobs.

Worst-Run State: Kentucky, then ….

Last October, 24/7 Wall St., a financial news and opinion electronic newsletter, ranked the best- and worst-managed states in America. The best-run state was Wyoming, which received high marks in just about every category. Wyoming is also the least-populous state, perhaps hinting at one reason for its success.…

Continue Reading

Rollins College Profile: Bradley ('77) on Enron, Life, and Real-Deal Capitalism

By administrator -- June 22, 2011

“Greedy capitalism got the blame for Enron, but Enron was anything but a free-market corporation…. They were gaming the system, using politics for their own interests. That’s not free-market capitalism. That’s political capitalism.”

– Robert L. Bradley, Jr. Quoted in Leigh Brown Perkins, “Energy Surge: Robert Bradley ’77 Profile, Rollins College Magazine, Fall 2009.

The end of Enron was an unlikely new beginning for Robert Bradley ’77.

After 16 years at the energy giant, the last seven as a public policy analyst and speechwriter for CEO Ken Lay, Bradley found himself stranded when the company imploded in a firestorm of shady dealings. Like most people at Enron, he never saw it coming. “As with most Enron employees, my equity was in company stocks,” he said. “So I not only lost my job, I lost my financial cushion.…

Continue Reading

The Great Resource Debate (Part III: Pessimists get Optimistic!)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 21, 2011

[Editor note: The posts in this series are The Great Energy Resource Debate (Part I: Peak Oil was … is here!) and The Great Energy Resource Debate (Part II: Neo-Malthusian Alarmism). Part IV will look at the theoretical case for resource expansionism in light of the preceding posts.]

Julian Simon has commented that the logic of expanding oil supply is a hard case to make–not because it is incorrect but because it flies in the face of the deeply ingrained physical-science concept of fixity and depletion. But there is no question that for too many minerals and for too many long periods of time, supply has been expanding rather than depleting in a business/economic sense. And far too many of us have ‘jumped off a tall building and reported everything was nice and breezy on the way down’ but haven’t hit bottom.

Continue Reading

Appreciating the Master Resource (Part II: Energy Foes Agree!)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 20, 2011
Continue Reading

Appreciating the Master Resource (Part I: Energy Friends)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 17, 2011
Continue Reading

Eagle Ford Oil: 'Resources are Not, Resources Become' (and new jobs galore without government subsidy, President Obama)

By Greg Rehmke -- June 16, 2011
Continue Reading

Federal Energy Policy for America (Part III: Cato's priorities–and a few more)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 15, 2011
Continue Reading

The 'Economic Means' vs. the 'Political Means': Franz Oppenheimer Makes a Key Political-Capitalism Distinction

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 14, 2011
Continue Reading

Court Challenges to the EPA's Endangerment Finding: A Summary

By Chip Knappenberger -- June 13, 2011
Continue Reading

In Denial: Thomas Friedman's (Self) Limits to (Intellectual) Growth

By -- June 10, 2011
Continue Reading