By Robert Bradley Jr.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 covers federal energy policy in some detail. The agenda is largely free market, and the subtle politicization of means and ends under the Biden/Harris Administration is identified for reform.
This document is congruent with the very brief Republican Party energy platform, “Make America the Dominant Energy Producer in the World, by Far”. But it falls short of true classical liberalism, as exemplified by my general approach to free market energy; the call by the Cato Institute to “zero out” the U.S. Department of Energy (2011); and end all preferential energy taxation (in 2013); and IER’s American Energy Act (2011).
The energy sections of Project 2025 follow verbatim. I offer a final comment on some of the missing initiatives.
A conservative President must be committed to unleashing all of America’s energy resources and making the energy economy serve the American people, not special interests. This means that the next conservative Administration should:
- Promote American energy security by ensuring access to abundant, reliable, and affordable energy.
- Affirm an “all of the above” energy policy through which the best attributes of every resource can be harnessed for the benefit of the American people.
- Support repeal of massive spending bills like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which established new programs and are providing hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to renewable energy developers, their investors, and special interests, and support the rescinding of all funds not already spent by these programs.
- Unleash private-sector energy innovation by ending government interference in energy decisions.
- Stop the war on oil and natural gas.
- Allow individuals, families, and business to use the energy resources they want to use and that will best serve their needs.
- Secure and protect energy infrastructure from cyber and physical attacks.
- Refocus the Department of Energy on energy security, accelerated remediation, and advanced science.
- Promote U.S. energy resources as a means to assist our allies and diminish our strategic adversaries
- Refocus FERC on ensuring that customers have affordable and reliable electricity, natural gas, and oil and no longer allow it to favor special interests and progressive causes.
- Ensure that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission facilitates rather than hampers private-sector nuclear energy innovation and deployment.
Mission Statement for a Reformed Department of Energy
- The Department of Energy should be renamed and refocused as the Department of Energy Security and Advanced Science (DESAS). DESAS would refocus on DOE’s five existing core missions: Providing leadership and coordination on energy security and related national security issues,
- Promoting U.S. energy economic interests abroad,
- Leading the nation and the world in cutting-edge fundamental advanced science,
- Remediating former Manhattan Project and Cold War nuclear material sites, and
- Developing new nuclear weapons and naval nuclear reactors
Eliminate special-interest funding programs. Many DOE energy funding programs are not targeted on fundamental science and technology; instead, they focus more on commercialization and act as subsidies to the Department of Energy and Related Commissions private sector for government-favored resources. The DOE Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED); Office of State and Community Energy
Programs; ARPA-E; Office of Grid Deployment (OGD); and DOE Loan Program should be eliminated or reformed. If they continue to exist, FECM, NE, OE, and EERE should focus on fundamental science and technology issues, particularly in relation to cyber and physical threats to energy security, rather than subsidizing and commercializing energy resources.
Eliminate political and climate-change interference in DOE approvals of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. In addition, Congress should reform the Natural Gas Act to expand required approvals from
merely nations with free trade agreements to all of our allies, such as NATO countries.
Focus the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) on ensuring that government buildings and operations have reliable and cost-effective energy. FEMP should stop using taxpayer dollars to force the
purchase of more expensive and less reliable energy resources in the name of combating climate change.
Ensure that information provided by the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), a data and statistical organization, is data-neutral.
Focus FERC on its statutory obligation to ensure access to reliable energy at just, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory rates. FERC is a five-member commission created under the DOE Organization Act that
regulates the wholesale sales and transmission of electricity, promotes electric reliability through standards, permits natural gas pipelines and LNG export facilities, sets natural gas pipeline shipping rates, and sets oil pipeline shipping rates. It is an economic regulator and should not make itself a climate regulator.
Streamline the nuclear regulatory requirements and licensing process. Such changes would help to lower costs and accelerate the development and deployment of civilian nuclear, such as advanced nuclear reactors (including small modular nuclear reactors). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is commission tasked with the licensing of civilian nuclear reactors and power plants and regulating other uses of nuclear materials, such as nuclear medicine. Although it is not a DOE agency, its jurisdiction over nuclear reactor, fuel, safety, and trade issues often relates to or impinges on DOE’s jurisdiction.
Focus on energy and science issues, not politicized social programs.
The next Administration should stop using energy policy to advance politicized social agendas. Programs that sound innocuous, such as “energy justice,” Justice40, and DEI, can be transformed to promote politicized agendas. DOE should focus on providing all Americans with access to abundant, affordable, reliable, and secure energy, and DOE should manage its employees so that everyone is treated fairly based on his or her talent, skills, and hard work.
Analysis
A better, more thorough-going free market energy agenda would correct or add the following:
- Replace “‘all of the above’ energy policy” with consumer-driven, taxpayer-neutral “energy policy, through which the best attributes of every resource can be harnessed for the benefit of the American people.”
- Eliminate the civilian programs of the U.S. Department of Energy rather than “Refocus [DOE] … on energy security, accelerated remediation, and advanced science.”
- End all government subsidies to nuclear power.
- Abolish the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rather than reform it, which would require repealing enabling legislation such as the Federal Power Act of 1935 and Natural Gas Act of 1938.
- Privatize the energy assets of the Department of Energy, the Department of Interior, and other energy agencies,
Numerous other federal laws should be repealed, including the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, Public Utility Regulatory Practices Act of 1978, and the Energy Policy Act (various years).
———–
[1] The Cato Institute’s Handbook for Policymakers does not include a chapter on energy, and it ducks the whole issue of climate change in the environmental chapter. Peter van Doren is the culprit here.
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I think a new administration should take bold executive action to withdraw the 2009 EPA “Endangerment Finding” on GHGs.
That would be gigantic.
Glenn Beck on project 2025
Unfortunately, the endangerment finding would only come back again with the next Democratic administration, which is coming again sooner or later, they always come back. The best solution is for SCOTUS to rule, as they almost certainly will do some day, that there was no intent in Congress’s 1990 Clear Air Act Amendments to regulate a non-polluting substance as a pollutant, by naming it specifically as a pollutant. Congress is never going to make such a law, and that would end it once and for all. SCOTUS has done this repeatedly in cases over the last several years.
True, but perhaps Trump will be able to mess with them so much it would be difficult to bring it back- like, firing everyone involved. I dislike the finding- which was triggered by my state- the bastar*s- who are now trying to end all forestry, which was my profession for exactly 50 years.
I agree with the changes you would make, except for this one:
“End all government subsidies to nuclear power.”
Why should that be done? Shouldn’t we be encouraging nuclear energy production in some way? What happens if we don’t? Is the nuclear industry vigourous enough to stand on its own?
I’m not advocating, I’m asking.
Energy is not a level playing field. Level it first and then nuclear should survive or fail on its own merits. Also – Advantage and disadvantage via the government comes in many forms besides “subsidy.”
What are the “subsidies” given to nuclear power? The Price Anderson Act is an insurance plan, including a liability limitation and funded so far by annual nuclear owner premiums that add up to many $billions in the “bank” while insurance payments thus far add up to some $millions leaving nearly all of the premiums still in the bank. The limitation has never been approached.
Banks wins
Well it’s like this-
Australia suffering from a ‘wind drought’ (msn.com)
There aint no level playing field anymore as the insurers were expected to pay the insured.(a rather novel approach to insurance) State sponsored dumping is all very well for the anointed suppliers but the pesky consumers require dispatchable power at the correct voltage and frequency all the time. Ipso facto dumping by the anointed fickles driving the insurers to the wall is not in the consumer’s long term interests.
Are there not sections saying the feds should support research on advanced technology? That should cover establishing how nuclear can best be used. Considering that there is already much evidence that nuclear generating can be made significantly less expensive, and that nuclear fuels have the potential to provide power for thousands of years, a free market would almost certainly use nuclear fission, eventually if not immediately.
That would, again, be the government picking winners and losers (where the biggest loser winds up being the taxpayers/consumers). The “insurance” requirement alone raises the cost of energy produced by nuclear by a significant amount. Why not get the government completely out of the way? Or at least reduce the oversight to a single review/permitting that must be completed within 90 days of receipt of the request? The fact that nuclear is the safest form of energy production I believe is entirely unrelated to government oversight and permitting, I believe it will remain the safest form even if permits are completely eliminated. How much will that level the playing field with regard to what must be charged for the finished product?
To level the playing field, all NEW regulations instituted over the last 40 years must be PROVEN to be necessary.
Like all things government, run by leftist bureaucrats, they just keep adding regulations, always ever more restrictive, causing ever increasing costs.
Repeating myself but, VEPCO, Virginia Electric and Power Company, built 4 reactors at 2 locations in the late 70s, some completed in the early 80s. They are all now licensed to go for 80 years. They have NEVER had a release or other problem.
Equivalent reactors could be built NOW for a reasonable cost if the regulations were the same as they were in 1980. I believe both sites are licensed for 4 reactors.
SO, getting the DOE out of the way of safe reactors would level the playing field for nuclear energy.
Also using highly enriched uranium, outlawed under Carter, the @ss, would make it so that any reactor’s % of time online would go WAY up due to far less frequent refueling. Again increasing the economic viability of any new plant.
The big problem with nuclear is the highly subsidized protests by private billionaire “charities”.they have been a huge force in the global warming scam (Bloomberg funding of state AGs to bring lawsuits against the Oil industry). These anti-American organizations have committed treason, foreign collusion, etc. and have neutralized the voters’ powers. Recind the violators charitable status, fine them and tax all that abusing cash.and if determined they have committed sedition, jail them.
Finally, design and build reactors like cars, get them past the environmental and safety gauntlet and build a bunch. As it is now in US and Europe, every new plant is a prototype! Also, all nuclear plants shouldn’t have to serve double duty for electric power and weaponry. That burden isn’t borne by other types of generators. Buy a Candu reactor module for 300 million– no cost overruns or delays, 3 yrs to build, uses unenriched yellowcake, fuel costs CDN 2.5 cents a kWhr, and no need to shutdown for refueling. Want a big one, buy seven modules and you’ll have the World’s largest! Oh yeah, we have a plant built right in Pickering, a suburb of Toronto. We don’t have accidents
“Buy a Candu reactor module for 300 million– no cost overruns or delays, 3 yrs to build, uses unenriched yellowcake, fuel costs CDN 2.5 cents a kWhr, and no need to shutdown for refueling.”
That’s exactly what we should be doing.
We have this viable option available to us right now. Start building Candu reactors which will take pressure off supplying the grid and take pressure off the CO2-phobes, and use Candu reactors as a bridge to more modern nuclear designs.
We have a reliable Candu reactor that can be built at a known cost and can be done quickly.
The solution to our problems is staring us right in the face.
There is a discussion to be had about government subsidies to pay for compliance to government regulations. There are no doubt some regulations that are sane, so this would focus on the unsettled regulations only, however that might be defined. Again, a discussion addressing details.
Energy ” security, reliability, and remediation” are valid “interstate commerce” functions of Congress. National security demands that Government address them in as efficient a manner as government can. Likewise, nuclear weapons and Naval reactors require that Government at least be up-to-date on the science, although its leadership in this area has not been evident.
At this time the Navy operates 99 nuclear reactors aboard ships and land facilities. The Navy has never had a nuclear accident. Just where is the Navy’s “leadership in this area” lacking?
Government, not Navy, leadership.
Easy to answer. Navy “leadership” would have destroyers, frigates and much smaller H/K subs testing and using molten reactors instead of just the big boats and ships. As always, government equipment is always a generation or two behind technology..
Easy to answer. Navy “leadership” would have destroyers, frigates and much smaller H/K subs testing and using molten reactors instead of just the big boats and ships. As always, government equipment is always a generation or two behind technology..
Interstate Commerce would only apply to energy sold across state lines and, likewise fuel.
Many people will have suggestions for what is best going forward. I see these as very valuable.
Coal should be considered a legitimate energy resource. Establish real pollution standards based on current best technology standards for all new coal powered generating plants. Real pollution means emissions of materials for which there exists genuine negative health results, evidenced by real world results. Force EPA to release all their secret material on pm 2.5 and have it evaluated out of existence by real world data.
Let current coal plants run as is as long as they are in compliance with current real pollution standards; new standards not to be applied to existing coal generating facilities unless they make a major upgrade to new technology.
Force a real and unbiased investigation into the linear, no threshold standard for ionizing radiation and set allowed radiation levels based on real world evidence, which should greatly reduce the cost of construction and maintenance for nuclear generating plants.
“Force EPA to release all their secret material on pm 2.5 and have it evaluated out of existence by real world data.”
I’m for that- here in Wokeachusetts, the enviros use that issue all the time to kill ff projects- and wood burners.
I’m offended when government funded reports or data are available but not shared. If nobody has got a patent or started production or published their story in 3 years then they probably are not going to ever – publish it on you-probably-wont-look-at-this-data-dot-com.
For others not knowing what pm 2.5 was:
“National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for PM pollution specify a maximum amount of PM to be present in outdoor air. There are different standards for PM10 and PM2.5 (see Particulate Matter (PM) Basics to learn about particle types). Limiting PM pollution in the air protects human health and the environment.”
Gonna have a fun time eliminating Saharan Dust in the atmosphere which is also in the PM 2.5 range size.
Oh, I forgot, those particles are natural so they have no effect on human health.
Increase CO2 ==> decrease ‘dust’
End all government subsidies to nuclear power.
Only after:
Nuclear power is severely hamstrung by these limitations and does not enjoy a “level playing field.” I agree that we should stop subsidies because of their adverse effect on the free market but decades of regulatory encroachment and litigious attacks by leftists have hobbled the industry and driven up costs. And the simplistic “drill, baby, drill” mantra is a short-sighted, nihilistic policy because coal, oil, and gas reserves don’t replenish once they’re depleted. We should free up the “fossil fuel” industry AND incentivize a plan for future energy decades into the future to assure long-term energy indpendence. Nuclear fission is one of the best options, if not THE best, but it has been handicapped.
Careers were made. Have to wait until they “age out”. It should be happening soon.
How about scrapping the CO2 endangerment finding?
I think that the Democrats’ recent demonizing of Project 2025 had an unintended “Streisand Effect”. It encouraged people to look up the contents of the Heritage Foundation’s plan and they found they agreed with its small government, free market principles.
You assume people learned for themselves. In the last several years I’ve noticed a large number of Americans who just repeat what the “experts” say. They have no curiosity. They are too lazy to go to the source. I think it’s very tribal.
That’s why he had to distance himself from it. Because people like it. Sure.
Because people like it is the reason the Left seeks to demonize it
That and the simple fact it removes government power’s that the left put in place to maintain control over government and the people
There’s no distancing. It’s not Trump’s plan. It never was.
Distancing is deliberately misleading. Project 2025 was created independently of Trump & the Trump campaign.
How does anyone distance oneself from something they were never associated with?
Once again, I ask, is English your native language?
Try again, Luser.
Trump has nothing to do with Project 25… period.
There are however several really good parts of Project 25 which Trump has similar policies to, because they would help Make American Great Again.
Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”Looks pretty good to anyone sane. !
Some of the really good detailed aspects are.
Stop all the climate nonsense and all the subsidised wind and solar crap.Stop all the woke and gender nonsense.Stop and reverse all the illegal immigration.Who in their right mind could argue these are a bad thing !
You need to wake up and find the REALITY of Project 25..
Not the panic and misinformation of the leftist self-projection.
There is a video posted further up.
Watch and learn.. if you are capable of either.
Your defn of ‘people’ is deficient … as such your sarcasm doesn’t work.
Real people do like security and efficiency.
Your people don’t like what limits their control.
I think some aspects of the energy policy should recognize that a very large proportion the political establishment is practiced and adroit at use of confusing terminology and language in policymaking that says one wonderful motherhood thing and means something dark and different. The inflation reduction act did not even intend to reduce inflation.
I suggest one include some pointed boilerplate to try to prempt excursions by crafty political illusionists. Actually, I recommend it across the board. The founding fathers assumed goodwill and that the intentions were self evident. Both these understandings endured for about two centuries. Today, the Constitution can be ignored if you belong to the lefty “right thinking” folk. Justices are coached by elite billionaires how to promote lefty prosecutions to serve radical policy. Trump has had the lefty judiciary violate his Constitutional rights a dozen times this year!
Oh! Wait! shouldn’t that be TRANS-motherhood????
Funny, but here in Wokeachusetts, the MSM now warns everyone about Project 2025, as if it’s loaded with terrible things. They seem to fail to notice that many people will like what’s in it.
Yes, provided if they take the time to read it themselves.
Oh and please add this one. “End all subsidies specific to the fossil fuel industry.”
Or maybe to be 100% fair…. “End all subsidies specific to any fuel industry.” Let the free market rule…..
There are no subsidies of Fossil Fuels in the USA, just allowable tax deductions.
Fossil fuels contribute large amounts of taxes to government coffers.
Wind and solar are massively subsidised, and contribute absolutely NOTHING.
They are a parasite.. like you. !
You sir are a useful idiot. I mean that nicely.
There are subsidies specific to the fossil fuel industry. If you have mastered reading yet…. you can read all about it.
“In 2022, fossil fuel subsidies in the United States totaled $757 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund. This includes $3 billion in explicit subsidies “
https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-proposals-to-reduce-fossil-fuel-subsidies-january-2024#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20fossil%20fuel%20subsidies,to%20the%20International%20Monetary%20Fund.
ROFLMAO.. Did you even look at what they try to pass off as “subsidies”
Fantasies more like it. !
You are a CLUELESS MORON.
FFS, learn what a “subsidy” actually is.
A “subsidy is NOT either of the following
1… FAKE negative externalities (FAKE $754 billion out of $757 billion)
2… A reduction in tax payable (the remaining 3 $Billion)
Coal and Oil… PAY, PAY, PAY
Wind and solar… TAKE, TAKE, TAKE.
What do wind and solar contribute to anything (except grid instability and electricity costs wherever they are implemented)
Subsidy
“What Is a Subsidy? A subsidy is a benefit given to an individual, business, or institution, usually by the government. It can be direct (such as cash payments) or indirect (such as tax breaks).”
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/subsidy.asp#:~:text=Error%20Code%3A%20100013)-,What%20Is%20a%20Subsidy%3F,(such%20as%20tax%20breaks).
You sir are a useful idiot. You once again prove you are a silly old man yelling at the wind, wanting the world to revolve his way. Back to your basement with you.
WRONG.
A subsidy is an up-front payment to allow wind and solar to even exist !
Nothing is “given” to the coal and oil industry that hasn’t already been paid many times over.
What you count as a subsidy for oil, gas, coal, is just “tax that shouldn’t have been paid in the first place”.
Coal, oil and gas “give” an enormous benefit.
Even to you… in fact, your whole life depends on them.
Wind and solar “give” absolutely NOTHING back to society.
Once again you are proving you are mindless, ignorant simpleton.
You never left your basement, the padding is well worn and stinks of your BS.
Actually I change my description of you. You are not useful. You are just a 5 star idiot. You can argue with me all you like. I’m not the one who decides what a subsidy is. I just relay the information. Now if you can find a credible source that backs up what you say “specific tax breaks are not subsidies” bollocks then we can talk. But you want, because you can’t, because you are wrong. Bit like your “El Nino done it” sillyness which you have never found a single credible source for. So now you will resort to childish insults. So predictable……
And by the way here come the sexist comments from the right. You know the ones you say the left does…..
And like you have ever been able to back up anything
Investopedia.. A leftist group of journalist.
Editor Caleb Silver.. CNN, Bloomberg, heavily into ESG nonsense etc etc..
Change definition of “subsidy” so they they can pretend tax rebates are a subsidy. Hilarious
And you, being a gormless idiot, fall for it EVERY time.
Subsidy: a sum of money granted by the state or a public body to help an industry or business keep the price of a commodity or service low.
In the case of wind and solar..
They WOULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT UP-FRONT SUBSIDIES AND MANDATES
A tax rebate is NOT money paid.. It is money not taken.
Sorry if you are too dumb to understand the difference.
—-
re: El Nino.
Can you show any warming in the UAH data that isn’t from El Nino events ?
Or are you just flapping your lower lip pretending to know something?
Yet never being able to produce any evidence.
You are a low-level simpleton, with basically ZERO understanding of anything to do with science or climate.
Live with it.
And seriously. Who or what is a “Luke Beasley”.
Another woke far-leftist/marxist sophomore failure making a living by making mindless gibbering comments to low-minded fools like you ??
What a JOKE !!
Comment by Fox was totally correct.
Harsh…. but the truth often is…
And of course absolutely nothing compared to what the left have tried, and failed, to slime Trump with.
Oh, and we know who will be playing the sexist and racist card for all its worth..
… in a vain attempt to cover up Kamala’s mental deficiencies.
That would be the Democrats and the far-left media.
Those mental deficiencies are not because she has coloured ancestors,
… nor are they because she is a women.
They are because she is Kamala.
‘Cringe’: Kamala Harris’s ‘bumbling incompetence’ exposed (youtube.com)
How could anyone with a functional brain vote for that mindless twit..
nb… “functional brain” doesn’t include simpletons, of course. !
Noted you were unable to answer a simple question.
What do wind and solar contribute to anything (except grid instability and higher electricity costs wherever they are implemented). ?
Your empty mindless answer shows they contribute absolutely NOTHING. !
And if you are going to count FAKE externalities, you have to count REAL BENEFITS.
The BENEFIT to society from FOSSIL FUELS outweighs the imaginary “externalities” by several magnitude
You could not live without them.
Every tiny minute of even your putrid, execrable and mindless existence is there BECAUSE OF FOSSIL FUELS.
And you would never even think of stopping using them and everything that relies on them.
Stop being such an empty-minded, puerile simpleton and such a slimy hypocrite.
The International Monetary Fund is, if not UN based, then in cahoots with the UN.
Do you really want to trust organizations pushing the One World Order?
Yes, he does
One world order? And off you go down a conspiracy theory hole.
Conspiracy??
No, and absolutely stated agenda of the UN and WEF. !
Wind and solar would never exist in a free market..
I’m sure you are well aware of that.
You are just making your usual mindless simpleton comments…
… without even the most basic understanding what you are talking about.
Correction: Wind and solar on a massive scale would never exist in a free market.
They are niche technologies and have been around for decades.
Promoting them to grid scale applications would only happen in a free market if they were economically viable, which is your real point.
Our government has become so convoluted and chaotic that I doubt anybody knows what is going on in their own departments much less all the other departments. We could hassle back and forth forever how best to fix it but the point is our government is too big, too powerful and has its useless tentacles wrapped around everything. It needs to be made way smaller and less intrusive.
I had a friend who worked for the Forest Service when Reagan was trying to make cuts. I wanted the Forest Service whittled down but I was concerned for my friend. I asked him if the cuts would affect him. He said yes his job was eliminated. I said oh man what are you going to do now. He said don’t worry about me they just created a new job for me doing the same thing. Technically they made the cuts required of them but in reality nothing changed.
The only way to achieve change is to withhold funds and severely punish all department heads who spend more than their budget,
Not according to K.Harris. According to her, the election is a choice between Democracy (never defined) and chaos.
I submit for debate, that chaos has reigned during the Biden era including the recent protests, actually riots, in DC.
Have to beat the Shiftyshaper unburdened by the past first-
‘Shapeshifter’: Kamala Harris viewed as a ‘canny player’ by Republicans (msn.com)