By Robert Bradley Jr.
“Will the Trump Administration challenge against climate alarm and forced energy transformation reach its logical end? Can commercial nuclear power be privatized away from DOE for this to happen? Can ‘carbon management’ be demoted as part of this? Free market, classical liberal proponents can only hope so.”
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) was a mistake on Day 1. It continues to be a harem of government intervention on the supply and demand sides. It should be abolished as an easy budget cut, with the military side moved back to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Remember President Reagan’s campaign pledge to abolish DOE? He continued the promise into his first term, with his energy secretary, James Edwards, promising to work himself out of a job and “spread salt on the earth to make sure [DOE] never rose again.”
Here is the Reagan’s “Statement About the Plan Selected To Dismantle the Department of Energy” (December 17, 1981).
Last September in my economic message I announced that we would develop a plan for dismantling the Department of Energy. In the intervening months, a group led by the Secretary of Energy developed a number of proposals to carry out that commitment.
I have selected a plan that will divide the current responsibilities of the Department of Energy between the Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce. This would fulfill my campaign promise to make government more efficient and reduce the cost of government to the taxpayers.
Under the plan I have approved, the Interior Department will take on those functions of DOE that bear on the management of natural resources, such as supervision of the national petroleum reserves and the hydroelectric dams operated by the power marketing administrations.
The Commerce Department will be responsible for ensuring that energy is given full consideration in national economic policy; for developing plans for responding to energy supply emergencies, including our relations with international energy organizations; and for the collection of statistical data on energy.
In addition, we will establish an agency to carry out the important research programs now operated by DOE. This agency will report to me through the Secretary of Commerce and will also have responsibility for operating the atomic energy defense program that develops and produces nuclear weapons for our strategic forces.
I believe that this plan will result in a strong Federal effort in basic research in energy that avoids the excessive regulation that led me to call for dismantling DOE. Under this plan, we will limit the role of the Federal Government in energy. The government will no longer try to manage every aspect of energy supply and consumption.
I have directed that a task force composed of representatives from the White House Office of Policy Development, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Departments of Energy, Commerce, and Interior get to work immediately on the detailed legislation and plans needed to carry out the decision I made yesterday.
We will of course be consulting with the Congress on the detailed plan, which I anticipate submitting to the Congress with the fiscal year 1983 budget.
By dismantling a bureaucracy while keeping intact its essential functions, we are moving ahead with our promise to make government serve the people — and do it more efficiently. This is a big step, but there is more to be done, and we are pledged to do it.
These 400 words suggested intent and verve. But what Milton Friedman called the tyranny of the status quo intervened. “There is enormous inertia—a tyranny of the status quo—in private and especially governmental arrangements,” he stated more than 60 years ago. “Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change.”
When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.
Will the Trump Administration challenge against climate alarm and forced energy transformation reach its logical end? Can commercial nuclear power be privatized away from DOE for this to happen? Can ‘carbon management’ be demoted as part of this? Free market, classical liberal proponents can only hope so.
A good start it would be, followed hopefully by more agencies to be abolished and irreWOKEably burned to the ground. The only way to MAGA is to elimimate the breeding and feeding ground of useless left and ecotards in the US
You know it. I know it. Moldbug knew it 17 years ago:
We can reasonably assume Trump (or any experienced CEO) knows this all too well.
But how his project to reboot NASA as “Space Force” went? His people are allowed to close that one department? Uh…
Keep in mind: the real war is against the bureaucratic deep state. We’ve won some significant battles since Trump 2.0 took over in January but there’s still a long way to go (abolish the Fed anyone?). But this administration is certainly the best chance for a victory, not only since Reagan, but probably ever.
Abolish it.
Sorry, but there were good reasons for establishing DOE, and there are still many reasons for retaining, including keeping nuclear power reins away from the military. Congress will not go along with dismantling, and it likely cannot happen without that approval. Dream on. Although thanks to R. Bradley Jr. for promoting better thinking on energy issues.
This function can be rebooted in a small oversight agency with a single clear purpose. No troll booths, no BS. That’s not a problem at all.
But then, Trump was moving to reboot NASA, and where is his “Space Force” project now?
The United States Space Force was created out of the USAF. What has that got to do with NASA?
Abolishing DOE is not a responsible answer. The DOE exists to enforce energy laws enacted by Congress and signed into law by the President. Change the law as necessary to provide effective policies.
Also, DOE is not responsible for suppressing nuclear energy production – DOE has no regulatory authority over civilian nuclear energy – it is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that regulates nuclear energy on the civil side.
As for military uses of nuclear materials, I don’t trust the military to act without oversight from a safety and security focused outside agency. Like everything else in our Constitution, checks and balances are absolutely necessary to preserving our freedoms. Unchecked powers are without exception abusive powers.
Again, focus on the laws, because our laws set policy. Whatever Trump is doing now is only momentary and will evaporate as soon as he is out of office in 3 1/2 years. Just as easily as Trump issued his executive orders to reverse Biden’s policies, the next President can and probably will do just the same. What endures are the laws, and our courts’ authority to enforce the laws on rogue agencies.
“Can commercial nuclear power be privatized away from DOE for this to happen?”
Not until the industry learns how to pour concrete, and not as long as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission operates the way it does. It has been less than ten years since Westinghouse had to declare bankruptcy. The NRC kneecapped them by changing the rules after the company had gone through the paperwork to get their design approved. You can’t have a viable industry when you have an incompetent regulator that provides no regulatory certainty.
The failures to do competent civil engineering work is a symptom of the larger problem of the decline of American industry — we just don’t do big projects anymore. The US’s industrial might has atrophied. China can build these plants on time and on budget, but then again everything in China is controlled by the CCP. There is no Chinese “Union of Concerned Scientists.”
The last guy who proposed getting rid of the DOE was Rick Perry, who ended up being the Secretary of Energy.
Once again, this implies that such thing as «Trump Administration» can possibly exist. Observations don’t support this bold leap of imagination.
I mean, how did that NASA reboot go? The backseat drivers allowed Trump to clean those Augean stables… but he can only use a little shovel and disturb no more than 10% of rats in hay loft.
This will probably turn into similar nonsense. Because why not?
“Will the Trump Administration challenge against climate alarm and forced energy transformation “
Same typo twice.
I’m with Reagan.
In order to stop adding to the debt, the federal government must decrease annual spending by almost two trillion dollars. eliminating agencies that we really do not need like the DOE would really help.