Beginning with the holiday season, American consumers have received an unexpected gift.

Mine came this morning when I filled up my car with gas. I paid $2.13 per gallon. This felt like luxury. It seems surprising, implausible, even wonderful. I asked around. Some people are paying even less, even $2. All the pressure is down. Down — despite everything.

Looking at the history, I found the following chart from the U.S. Energy Administration, already a bit out of date — the forecast doesn’t anticipate the extent of the fall– but it shows that gas prices are settling back to 1990’s levels and lower today in real terms than they were 40 years ago. Have a look.

That’s just amazing. Why? If all you followed were the policies and the headlines, you would think prices would be ten times what they are.…

Editor note: Yesterday’s post summarized The American Energy Renaissance Act of 2014, introduced by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx) and Representative  Jim Bridenstine (R-Ok) last year. Today’s post summarizes a model bill authored by the Institute for Energy Research/American Energy Alliance several years ago. The logic of free-market policy does not change but becomes stronger with time and change. But judge for yourself–and add (in comments) any suggestions you might have.

The Obama Administration has been implementing an anti-energy agenda since becoming President. For the last six years, Obama’s “dream ‘green’ team” has worked to increase the cost of traditional energy to reduce usage and try to make uneconomic consumer-rejected energy (wind, solar, ethanol, electric vehicles) more economic.

Even before Obama, multiple-hundred-page interventionist legislation has been signed time and again by Republican presidents.…

“What the commodity markets are telling us is that we’re living in a finite world, in which the rapid growth of emerging economies is placing pressure on limited supplies of raw materials, pushing up their prices…. [P]eak oil has arrived.”

“[R]esource constraints are becoming increasingly binding. This won’t bring an end to economic growth [but] … will require that we gradually change the way we live, adapting our economy and our lifestyles to the reality of more expensive resources.”

– Paul Krugman, “A Finite World,” New York Times, December 26, 2010.

Finiteness … fixity … depletion … rising cost … rising price.

The Hotelling Principle … The Limits to Growth … Jimmy Carter and James Schlesinger … Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren …

And a role for peak government to manage peaked commodities.…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science. It’s all spelled out at WiseEnergy.org, which is a wealth of energy and environmental resources.

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every 3 weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

—————————

Greed Energy Economics:

Wind energy development and perceived real estate values in Ontario

Wind Power is Intermittent, but Subsidies are Eternal

A rate design that recovers costs fairly from customers with rooftop solar

Where Will You Be When the Lights Go Out?…