Stay informed and dont let yourself be GRUBERED by the Obama administration at the Democrats. I hope everyone is enjoying the falling gas prices. Ever wonder why is happening when Democrats are so anti-fossil fuels and pro wealth redistribution with cap and trade and EPA regulations? Ever wonder why terrorist OPEC countries are not lowering production to control the market and increase prices? Heres a hint, you have been GRUBERED by the left wing media and the Democrats. All I have to say is thank GOD for fracking and private land in North Dakota and Texas that are allowed to drill for the HUNDREDS of years of oil and natural gas reserves below their feet. Stay informed and dont let yourself be GRUBERED!!!! Reducing the government’s involvement in the energy economy will both create more opportunities for truly competitive technologies and remove favoritism toward specific technologies and companies. Allowing price signals to drive innovation, investment, and decision making will spur economic growth, create jobs, and save money for the taxpayer. When risks and rewards are properly aligned, economically viable ideas will flourish. To this end, Congress should: ◾Not crowd out private investment with direct handouts. Congress should ensure that no taxpayer dollars go directly to energy production, storage, efficiency, infrastructure, or transportation for nongovernment consumers. While this type of spending is important, the private sector should make these investments and is in a better position to make the investments that would meet consumers’ needs. ◾Expedite the sunsetting of targeted tax credits. Special tax treatment serves the same purpose as a subsidy that favors one industry. Congress should not create any new tax credits for energy production, energy infrastructure, transportation (production and consumption), or energy efficiency initiatives. Congress should expedite the sunsetting of existing tax credits and reduce other taxes by the amount of revenue generated by eliminating the tax credits. ◾Open access to domestic and foreign markets. With its wealth of natural resources, the U.S. could offer even more opportunities to reap the economic benefits of domestic production by opening federal lands and federal waters that are currently off-limits to exploration and development. Furthermore, the recent growth in domestic energy production has positioned the United States to export more energy. Free trade is imperative to a free society because it fosters economic growth and improves human well-being. Policymakers should treat energy like any other good or service that is traded freely around the world by allowing U.S. producers to export more energy by lifting restrictions on liquefied natural gas and crude oil.[25] ◾Repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). By requiring fuel blenders to use biofuels regardless of the cost, the RFS has made most Americans worse off through higher food and fuel expenses. The higher costs paid by American families benefit a select group of special interests that produce renewable fuels. Tinkering around the edges will not rescue this unworkable policy. Moreover, the federal government should not mandate which type of fuel drivers use in the first place. Congress should repeal the RFS. ◾Prevent new efficiency mandates and restructure existing ones. Washington should realize that the economy does not need government mandates, rebate programs, or spending initiatives to make businesses and homeowners more energy efficient. Consumers will make those choices by themselves and the government should not override their choices by nudging them toward the government’s preferred outcome. Ultimately, Congress should eliminate existing efficiency mandates or restructure them as voluntary standards in which businesses and consumers can choose their level of participation.[26] ◾Prohibit any new loan guarantees or other capital subsidy programs. The Department of Energy should not play banker. Its capital subsidy programs distort normal market forces and encourage dependence on government because the government subsidizes a portion of the actual cost of a project, diverting capital away from more competitive projects. ◾Restructure public power. Federal utilities known as Power Marketing Administrations were set up to provide cheap electricity to rural areas. They can sell electricity at below-market rates because of their favorable financing terms, such as federal tax exemptions and loans at below-market interest rates. Their construction, rehabilitation, operation, and maintenance costs are financed through the main Department of Energy budget, offset collections, alternative financing, and a reimbursable agreement with the Bureau of Reclamation. Furthermore, rural electric cooperatives are private organizations, in many cases nonprofit, that provide about 12 percent of the nation’s electricity sales. RECs receive special tax exemptions and low-interest loans from the government. Congress should remove privileges for federal utilities, municipal power companies, and electricity cooperatives, and ultimately sell the Power Marketing Administrations to private buyers.[27] ◾Restructure insurance and risk mitigation. Several government programs offer liability insurance schemes for specific industries. Proponents usually argue that these programs support industries that are vital to the national interest, but so high-risk that they would be unprofitable without subsidies. Two examples are the $75 million liability cap for offshore oil and gas operations and the Price–Anderson Act of 1957, which provides a liability regime for the nuclear industry that extends through 2025. The free-market solution is generally to eliminate these subsidies, but given the broken tort system and increasingly onerous federal regulation, these subsidies often offset government-created risks. Any discussion of removing liability insurance subsidies should include proposals to ease the regulatory burden on the affected industry.[28] ◾Repeal the Jones Act. Enacted nearly a century ago, the Jones Act mandates that any goods shipped by water between two points in the United States must be transported on a U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, and at least 75 percent U.S.-crewed vessel. By preventing foreign competition, the Jones Act significantly increases domestic maritime shipping prices to the benefit of the American shipping industry, driving up costs for American businesses and consumers.[29] ◾End Export–Import Bank funding. The U.S. Export–Import Bank provides government-backed loans, loan guarantees, and capital and credit insurance to foreign firms to buy U.S. exports. Producers of energy technologies and equipment have been significant beneficiaries of the bank, accounting for 30 percent of the loans and guarantees in the past year. While the bank was designed to promote exports, it is corporate welfare that benefits politically connected companies, distorts markets, and saddles taxpayers with risk.[30] ◾Eliminate government attempts to commercialize technologies. For far too long, the Department of Energy has attempted to use taxpayer money to drive technologies to the market, crippling the role of entrepreneurs and wasting billions of taxpayer dollars in the process. The rationale for these initiatives is that a gap exists between basic research and economic viability and that spending more taxpayer money will attract private investment for commercialization. When the government attempts to drive technological commercialization, it circumvents the competitive process that properly assigns risks and rewards in an open market. By removing capital from the private sector to support government-supported projects, this intervention also creates a dependency on the taxpayer that can hinder innovation over the long term. Basic research that has promising commercial application will attract private investment. Some investments will succeed, and others will fail. Other research will not ultimately spin off into market successes. Using taxpayer dollars to force commercialization is wasteful and disregards how markets and private investment efficiently determine how best to allocate investments. ◾Allow all energy projects to form master limited partnerships. Master limited partnerships (MLPs) are taxed as limited partnerships, but are publicly traded on the stock market. In the energy sector, the ability to form MLPs is available for mineral extraction, natural gas, oil, pipelines, geothermal, and the transportation and storage of ethanol, biodiesel, and other alternative fuels. Other renewable energy generation and commercial nuclear activities do not qualify. Congress should allow all energy project investors to form MLPs. Congress should also eliminate the tax credits for conventional and renewable energy sources and technologies while lowering the corporate tax rate to encourage investment.[31] ◾Prohibit regulations that drive out energy sources for little to no environmental benefit. The federal government has implemented stringent regulations that disproportionately affect certain energy sources or technologies. For instance, the Environmental Protection Agency’s New Source Performance Standards for new power plants set greenhouse gas emission regulations so stringent that they effectively prohibit construction of new coal-fired power plants.[32] By significantly reducing the use of coal, the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations will drive up energy costs for American families for no meaningful benefit.[33] Pollution should not go unchecked, but the EPA continually misrepresents costs, exaggerates benefits, and uses unsound science to justify unreasonable regulations that have little to do with the costs and benefits and much to do with targeting particular energy sources.[34] ◾Finish the permit application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear materials repository. Any sustainable, long-term solution for nuclear waste management requires geologic storage. Taxpayers and electricity rate payers have spent more than $15 billion on the Yucca Mountain site, and no technical or scientific evidence has yet disqualified it as a viable option. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should complete its review of the permit application.[35] ◾Remove the responsibility for nuclear waste management from the federal government. Like other commercial for-profit endeavors, nuclear power companies, not the government, should be responsible for the waste they produce. This has been the key to success in other countries. At the very least, private companies should be allowed to compete with a government-operated waste management service. Market-based pricing would allow the true costs of nuclear power to be known, spur innovation in waste management, and enable nuclear power companies to choose services that make the most sense for their customers.[36]
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 14:22:49 +0000
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