Ed. Note: Today’s post concludes a three-part lookback at Lee R. Raymond (1938–2026), the no-nonsense value-creator at Exxon Mobil (also see Part I and Part II).

The large, ever-growing list of climate “deniers” at DeSmog Blog documents a growing consensus against climate exaggeration and “green” energy inferiority. MasterResource has long documented this “backfire” at this Progressive Left, anti-fossil-fuel UK website.

The energy and climate views of Lee R. Raymond are presented by DeSmog below. Read and decide for yourself; was Exxon/Exxon-Mobil’s leader (1993–2005) correct in his time and today? Many scientific, economic, and political trends, in fact, are moving in the direction that his thinking would support.

Credentials

• Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of Minnesota (May 16, 2011).¹
• PhD, chemical engineering, University of Minnesota (1963).²
• BSc, chemical engineering, University of Wisconsin–Madison (1960).

Ed. Note: Lee R. Raymond died last week at age 87. The top integrated oil leader of his era is featured in three posts this week at MasterResource (Part II; Part III). Past posts on Raymond can be found here.

“[Lee Raymond] is a leader among leaders. He’s always encouraged and considered a range of views and opinions on a multitude of issues … including climate change.” – Jamie Dimon, CEO, JPMorgan.

If the bottom line of business is winning for consumers and stockholders, few have matched the accomplishments of Lee Raymond (1938–2026), whose 42 years at Exxon/Exxon-Mobil culminated as CEO from 1993 through 2005. His is a classic case of creating sustainable economic value through talent, focus, and perseverance. Forget what those with termite aspirations toward fossil fuels think.…

“Robert L. Bradley Jr. has never chased trends or grants. He has followed the evidence—market signals, engineering realities, and the record of human progress under freedom. In doing so, he has educated generations of policymakers, students, and citizens about why energy abundance matters and how free markets deliver it best.”

In the often polarized world of energy policy and climate debate, few voices have offered such consistent, evidence-based clarity as Robert L. Bradley Jr. A Houston native, prolific author, founder of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), and creator of the influential free-market energy blog MasterResource.org, Bradley has spent more than four decades illuminating the interplay of markets, regulation, technology, and human ingenuity in powering modern civilization.

As we mark the ongoing relevance of his work in 2026, a tribute to Bradley is not merely a look back at a remarkable career but a celebration of his enduring intellectual leadership—particularly in the last five years, when his analyses have proven prescient amid the unraveling of aggressive “energy transition” mandates.…

Ed. Note: Five years ago, Storm Uri caused Texas’s centrally planned wholesale electricity market (ERCOT) to buckle, vindicating warnings about the state’s wind/solar reliance. The mainstream media implicated natural gas instead, failing to explore the why behind the why. Rather than deregulation, Texas post-Uri has chosen to add wind, solar, and batteries, while subsidizing natural gas plants to counter intermittency. This duplicated grid is now driving rates up in a state that could have relied on surplus natural gas instead.

It was not so much the story of freak weather triggering a market failure writ large. It was a classic application of the political economy of government intervention: the seen and the unseen, expert/regulatory failure, and unintended consequences. Don Lavoie, a preeminent thinker in the field of market-versus-government planning, once warned:

If the guiding agency is less knowledgeable than the system it is trying to guide—and even worse, if its actions necessarily result in further undesired consequences in the working of that system—then what is going on is not planning at all but, rather, blind interference by some agents with the plans of others.”