Listen hard if you want to know what politicians who want to establish residency in the White House in 2017 think about energy. You won't hear much. Energy, so far, is no headline issue.
This is strange. The incumbent administration has been testing the limits of constitutional authority to restructure energy use, promote nonfossil fuels, and suppress development of hydrocarbon resources. Its energy initiatives are controversial. Those that survive judicial review will be very expensive. From an increasingly crowded field of Republicans seeking nomination and the dominant Democratic candidate, though, pronouncements on the subject are scarce.
The Iowa influence
Part of the reason must be distorted influence of the Iowan caucuses. Because they open the political parties' respective contests for presidential nomination, the caucuses wield enormous influence. Presidential aspirants must tread lightly on energy. Serious treatment of the subject would call attention to problems of the Renewable Fuel Standard, a legislative catastrophe that wins uncompromising favor in Iowa because it expands demand for corn. After the caucuses, candidates might become more vocal.
What then?
The energy platform of former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton is predictable. She'll reinforce the formulaic raising of taxes on oil, gas, and coal along with subsidization of renewable fuels. During the race to win nomination as the Democratic candidate in the 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton-not Obama-campaigned for higher levies on fossil energy coupled with governmental sponsorship of costlier alternatives. Once in office, of course, Obama embraced the wealth-transfer strategy enthusiastically in service to his zeal for mitigation of climate change.
Republicans should find plenty of ideological ammunition in the prospect for continuation of Obama's state-centered energy policies. They should begin formulating arguments now. Environmental pressure groups will try to hijack the issue by turning everything related to energy into a fact-resistant morality test involving climate change. Even Republicans determined to tiptoe around energy until Iowa should be able to espouse principles that at least show they're not Democrats.
On climate change, for example, Republicans can uphold the value of civil discourse. Politics and science are now indistinguishable in the issue. One side demands costly change in energy use, argues with sparse elaboration that "science" demonstrates a forget-the-cost need, and responds to doubt by demonizing doubters. A powerful reason NOT to act on climate change is the intolerantly moralistic importunity driving the agenda. Republicans can make that case constructively and still disagree among themselves about what should or shouldn't be done about growing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Republicans also should feel comfortable arguing for the priority of markets in energy decision-making. That priority has subsided in recent years. Government officials have insinuated themselves into decisions Americans make about energy. When that happens, healthy competition in the market inevitably yields to unhealthy competition among suppliers of uneconomic energy seeking political favors.
Yet Republicans need not and should not let their native preference for market freedom become general disparagement of government. A call to get government out of energy might satisfy the political urges of some. But it's unrealistic. It also nurtures an unflattering stereotype that yields no political benefit. Republicans should advocate a proper role for government in energy. That role should include enforcing rather than proscribing market freedom. It should include supporting energy innovation across all forms through basic research rather than choosing which energy forms to promote and which to suppress.
Room to disagree
Principles like these, based on market freedom and a preference for governmental restraint, should come naturally to Republicans. Within them, individual candidates have plenty of room to disagree, when the time is right, over specific policies.
Energy principles, however, need attention now. After 6 years of Obama activism, energy policy motivated by fabricated righteousness has momentum not likely to subside once Clinton starts talking about the subject. Republicans should claim high intellectual ground soon or risk finding their positions on important policy issues condemned, like those vile climate skeptics, without a hearing.
