Marlo Lewis, Jr. is a fellow you want to meet and spend time with. A Harvard University PhD., he has long been a voice of rationality in the climate debate from his home base of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). He is all around fun and plays swing mandolin in a band, Old Town Tradition.

Lewis recently proposed “Expressing the Sense of Congress on the Paris Agreement” for serious debate now that Net Zero is fantastical. Global-government central climate planning must stop. No target should be set for carbon dioxide for reasons that are scientifically sensible and well articulated. Let the market decide with methane too, a market rich in pipeline capacity and end-user growth to naturally reduce natural gas release/flaring.

Lewis’s draft for Republicans and consumer-and-taxpayer-friendly Democrats follows:

Whereas the Paris Agreement is a global framework for pressuring U.S.…

Ed. Note: MasterResource has profiled the personal stories of defeated or disillusioned activists as climatism flounders 34 years after James Hansen’s testimony in 1988. From disengagement to social withdrawal to raw anger to even suicide, the true believers are in turmoil, while the climate industrial complex reaps the money, power, prestige, and confabs that come with ‘being green.’

“If you are honest and practical, the theory and data are out there to challenge your beliefs and even change your mind–and your life. You do not need to fight depression or withdraw. There is life and optimism in climate- and energy-realism.”

The title of the NYT article is: A Climate Warrior’s Journey From Summit Talks to Street Protests (New York Times: March 29, 2022). It is the story of the despair and resurrection (temporary?)…

“I’m proud to report that the American Gas Association (AGA), the American Public Gas Association (APGA), Spire Inc. (who really led the effort), and a gas appliance manufacturer, Thermo Products LLC (a subsidiary of Burnham holdings), rose to the occasion with a filing that put DOE on notice that the gas industry isn’t giving up.”

“Market conservation, in short, is wholly different from command-and-control government conservationism.”

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is further escalating its electrification strategies using regulatory appliance efficiency standards. But the good news is that resistance continues and is even on the upswing with the global failure of ‘Net Zero’ in light of recent developments.

The entire debate is colored by DOE/EERE ignoring the intent of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (EPCA) to balance varied consumer interests and energy choices, rather than providing the agency with carte blanche permission to squeeze out every possible BTU without regard to consumer cost, convenience, and fuel preferences.…

“This letter to Biden is a very mixed bag of legalize and subsidize. It is hardly free market; it is a testament about how some Republicans and conservative Democrats are playing the government welfare game in a time of political defensiveness.”

Classical liberalism explains and justifies voluntary transactions between consenting adults. The framework is private property rights, the rule of law, and government abstinence, or neutrality.

Applied to civilian energy, the government should not research, commercialize, subsidize, or penalize. Government should buy energy for its usage, not requisition it. Market transactions should not be subject to price controls, allocation controls, or differential taxation. Jawboning by government officials toward non-market ends should be avoided too.

This background is necessary to parse a March 10, 2022, letter to Joe Biden from two Republicans, one (Trumpian) Democrat, and one Independent.…