Reblogged:Not Even a Good First Half-Step

[Gus Van Horn blog]

The Washington Examiner makes a couple of good points about President Trump's energy policy as it pertains to recent pronouncements concerning the coal industry:

Image via Pixabay.

Where Obama wanted to obliterate coal, Trump's response has often been no better. He has actually proposed bailing out the coal industry, whose chief advantage as a fuel until now had been its economy. His idea is to somehow use national security as an excuse for mandating above-market prices for coal.

This is every bit as bad as similar schemes for so-called green energy, by which ratepayers are fleeced so that politically correct but unfeasible sources of energy are used. Coal, like all other fuel sources, must be allowed to sink or swim on its own economic strength. If it cannot survive in the market, it deserves to be replaced, just like anything else. [bold added]

Well said, although I wish the folks at the Examiner would have mentioned why products should sink or swim on their own merits. That would be because the millions of individuals in our semi-free market have the inalienable right to evaluate and use (or not) any given source of energy. Government measures to promote or discourage any product can only be effective when it forces us to act against whatever verdict our own minds reach -- the exact opposite of the proper purpose of government.

Having said that, my problems with the next passage might be clearer. The Examiner continues:

There are still ways to help the coal industry today and yet respect this basic principle. That begins with the repeal of unreasonable regulations that Obama created in order to kill the industry as fast as possible.

The abandonment of the Clean Power Plan is a good start in this regard. Trump announces today from West Virginia his intention to let states make their own decisions about carbon regulation... [bold added]

This might have been a good start were there evidence that Trump understood all such regulation to be wrong, at whatever level of government -- and Trump expressed an intention to rein in those states that regulated (i.e., forcibly interfered with) the energy decisions of those within their borders. None of this is the case and, although there will be economic benefits to the loosening of regulations Trump has promised, the principle that government can meddle remains completely unchallenged. And the regulatory apparatus remains firmly in place for the next Obama to start a new vendetta against whatever fashionable target he wishes.

On those occasions I have the chance to mention that I left my ballot for President unmarked, I also state that I didn't see a dime's worth of difference among Trump, Clinton, or Sanders; and that no other candidate did a decent job of differentiating himself from them. This is a good example: Trump thinks his job is to run the economy -- just like his predecessor and his two major opponents.

-- CAV

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