“Flush with your cash, utilities tried to build plants with unproven technology; they launched projects with unfinished designs and unrealistic budgets; they misled regulators and the public with schedules that promised bogus completion dates; they hid damning reports from investors and the public; they tried to silence critics and whistleblowers.”

“In the mid-2000s, power companies across the South, including SCANA, NextEra, Duke Energy and Southern Company, had their robust lobbying machines running at full throttle. An energy gold rush had begun…. (- Tony Bartelme, below)

Tony Bartelme, senior projects reporter for the Charleston, South Carolina Post and Courier wrote an interesting exposé that should be revisited for its relevancy to the problem of utility ratebase economics: “Power Failure: How utilities across the U.S. changed the rules to make big bets with your money” (December 10, 2017; updated December 28, 2022).…

H.R. 1 can be characterized as pro-free market and deregulatory. But it is only a start. Free market reforms will ultimately require repealing dusty old federal laws from the New Deal (Public Utility Holding Company Act; Federal Power Act; Natural Gas Act) and laws before and after…. At the same time, numerous states should implement free market reforms by repealing and amending laws.

The Lower Energy Costs Act just passed the U.S. House of Representatives with bipartisan support. Senate confirmation is not expected to pass it, and the Biden Administration has promised a veto. But it is a start, a placeholder, for pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, pro-freedom policy reform to come.

H.R. 1, in the words of its sponsors, “restores American energy independence by:

• Increasing domestic energy production
• Reforming the permitting process for all industries
• Reversing anti-energy policies advanced by the Biden Administration
• Streamlining energy infrastructure and exports
• Boosting the production and processing of critical minerals

A summary of the Bill follows:

H.R.

Ed. note: The loss of impartial intellectual inquiry and scholarship at Harvard University continues, as indicated by an upcoming article in Harvard Environmental Law Review, Vol. 48, No. 1, 2024, “Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths.” Given this trend, the contributions of a pioneering Harvard business historian, who also broke through the ranks of a male-only faculty, are worth revisiting.

“What we have done is … to put business in its broader political and cultural setting…. We are not out to defend business, but to try to do an impartial, scholarly investigation of an important American institution.”

 – Henrietta Larson (1894–1983), Harvard business historian

For many decades, corporate histories were dominated by simplistic notions of big-is-bad and capitalist exploitation. Ida Tarbell documented many innovations and economies from John D.…

“Last year, every offshore wind equipment manufacturer reported substantial financial losses as raw material costs, order delays, labor problems, and antiquated manufacturing plants overwhelmed their revenue gains. Correcting these problems necessitates higher equipment prices, reduced manufacturing capacity, and/or relocating to lower-cost countries. These steps can set back delivery times and delay project start-up dates. Developers are also finding that building Jones Act-compliant installation and support vessels are taking longer and costing more, further challenging their projects’ economics.”

On Day One, Joe Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline construction permit issued by the Trump administration, costing union jobs. He rejoined the Paris Agreement on Climate Change so John Kerry could have a job.  It was no secret where this administration was heading. 

Days later, Biden issued an Executive Order calling for the nation to build “a new American infrastructure and clean energy economy that will create millions of new jobs.”…