Governments are losers at picking winners

Thom2 on Thursday, March 9, 2017 – 01:40 pm

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The best role of government is to create a stable environment through the rule of law and then get out of the way.

When Government Picks Winners, It Mostly Chooses Losers

In an article for Cato mocking the Obama Administration for creating energy technology forecasts that run to the year 2300, Pat Michaels wrote:

Consider the case of domestic natural gas. In 2001, everyone knew that we were running out. A person who opined that we actually would soon be able to exploit hundreds of years’ worth, simply by smashing rocks underlying vast areas of the country, would have been laughed out of polite company.

Energy statists on the Left today are trying to get rid of coal-fired electricity generation in this country (due to climate concerns). But one thing that few people remember is that a significant reason we have so much coal-fired electricity generation in this country is that energy statists on the Left in the 1970's mandated it. I kid you not:

The Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act (FUA) was passed in 1978 in response to concerns over national energy security. The 1973 oil crisis and the natural gas curtailments of the mid 1970s contributed to concerns about U.S. supplies of oil and natural gas. The FUA restricted construction of power plants using oil or natural gas as a primary fuel and encouraged the use of coal, nuclear energy and other alternative fuels. It also restricted the industrial use of oil and natural gas in large boilers.

As a further irony, and absolutely typical of government regulation, this regulation banning oil and gas fired plants because oil and gas seemed to be running out was really trying to fix a problem caused by another regulation. The government had caps on oil and gas prices through the 1970's that artificially reduced supplies. Once these price regulations were removed, we suddenly had an oil and gas glut in the 1980's and the FUA was eliminated in 1987. Watching regulators chase their tails in energy policy over the last 40 years would be comical if the effects of their repeated mistakes were not so dire.

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2017/03/when-government-picks-winn...

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Saban McSabear

Nuclear_ned on Thursday, March 9, 2017 – 03:41 pm

Totes... remember when our

Totes... remember when our government picked a winner during WWII.. total losers.. yuge losers... sad

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Johnny D

skudebro on Thursday, March 9, 2017 – 05:44 pm

I was just a kid back then,

I was just a kid back then, but I was under the impression that we didn't want to be overly dependent on OPEC. Kind of like many people do not want to be dependent on Middle East oil today. That seems to be an understandable stand for America First.

Isn't that why fracing has increased dramatically under the Obama administration? Isn't this related to Keystone Pipeline? Offshore drilling? Energy efficiency and renewable energy?

I suppose I'm presenting more questions than answers, but I don't see a whole bunch of harm spending more time, money, and energy towards looking for more sustainable, less destructive means of obtaining the energy we want to supply us with the services that we enjoy. I personally feel that it is potentially less harmful than drilling/digging/clearing in National Parks, Oceans, dumping coal and other pollutants without considerations, etc...

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Sideshow Bob

drkstrjry on Thursday, March 9, 2017 – 06:53 pm

In the early 1900's the

In the early 1900's the Government subsidized & encouraged the oil industry to fuel the at-the-time new fleet of Dreadnought battleships fueled by oil, since they could travel so much further & faster on oil than coal.

& of course the Gov't was behind the domestic Nuclear industry as it provided raw materials for bomb making . . .

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Oaksterdam Dan

Nugstradamus on Sunday, March 19, 2017 – 08:15 pm