Yesterday I promised to provide excerpts of the speech on energy
policy given by Louisiana then-Gov. Dave Treen to the Republican
National Convention on his 52nd birthday back on July 16, 1980. The
point is that not much has changed politically in 28 years. Treen
was right then, and he's right now. After complaining that the
Democrats repeatedly had blocked efforts to "lift controls on
domestic oil," Treen went on to say this: "We have the solution to
the energy crisis. It lies not in some new
scheme for production of energy by government. It lies not in some vast bureaucracy allocating and rationing
energy. it lies no other place than in the free market. Yes, the
answer lies in freeing the imagination and initiative of
all Americans to match energy supplies to
energy demands.
"Permitting the law of supply and demand to operate in the
energy field will deter wasteful use of energy; it will provide the
incentive needed for the production of more of our traditional
forms of energy -- oil and gas and coal; it will sput the genius of
American technologists to find ways to convert our vast deposits of
coal into readily usable forms of energy; it will produce other
scientific breakthroughs; it will provide the capital to put into
production new forms of energy made economically feasible by a
pricing system which works in an atmosphere free of restraints.
"And the benefits to Americans will be enormous. We will
eliminate the monumental cost to taxpayers of monstrous regulatory
bureaucracies. We will lessen our dependence on foreign sources
which imperil our national security. We will provide more and
better jobs for people not only in new energy-producing industries,
but all across a revitalized American economy."
Treen was outlining some pretty simple concepts, and concepts
that proved abundantly true through the 1980s and 1990s. For the
congressional Democratic leadership to still be arguing in the
alternative is just mind-boggling. They are largely responsible for
the high energy prices today, and the American people are surely
smart enough to hold them accountable.
topics:
Law, Energy, Oil
