[Editor Note: This piece was orginally published by the Institute for Energy Research and is reprinted with permission]
There are two futures for energy, depending on which socioeconomic system we adopt. The free-market promises a bright energy future, while the opposite path of political energy is dark. In that sense energy differs little from other goods and services (such as health care): its supply will depend on whether economic laws are allowed to work or are hampered by political intervention.
Free-Market Energy
As the late Julian Simon explained, the future for free-market energy is positive. “It’s reasonable to expect the supply of energy to continue becoming more available and less scarce, forever.”[1] So Simon said in his most influential book, The Ultimate Resource. This prediction riled his Malthusian critics, who labeled Simon a naïve romantic.…
Continue Reading“The Republicans are right — it’s a cap-and-tax bill. That’s what it is because they are raising revenue to do all sorts of things, especially to take care of the coal industry, and it makes no sense.”
– Tim Wirth, “Climate Bill ‘Out of Control,’ Former Senator Says,” Bloomberg, August 18, 2009.
“Trading of rights to pollute … introduces speculation and makes millionaires on Wall Street. I hope cap and trade doesn’t pass, because we need a much more effective approach.”
– Remarks of James Hansen, 350 Climate Conference, Columbia University, May 4, 2009 [Speech writeup in Appendix below]
Left commentators are interpreting what has gone wrong with the Obama healthcare plan. One explanation is the sheer complexity of the legislation. “[Obama] had a near-Depression to deal with, and a banking crisis of mammoth proportions,” stated MSNBC’s Howard Fineman.…
Continue ReadingThe Wall Street Journal recently ran an interesting story explaining that the two economists who invented the “cap-and-trade” approach to regulating pollution do not think it is an effective mechanism for dealing with manmade climate change. As with so many other economists (including those at the CBO [.pdf]), the creators of cap-and-trade think that an explicit tax is a much more efficient way for the government to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
To avoid confusion, let me stress that I am not endorsing a carbon tax myself–indeed I have a forthcoming article [.pdf] in The Independent Review that critiques the standard mainstream case for government pricing of carbon emissions. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see just how tepid the academic support for Waxman-Markey is becoming. It’s not simply “shills for Big Oil and Big Coal” who oppose it, as many activists would have us believe.…
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