Energy policy helps explain why real estate mogul Donald Trump dominates competition to become the Republican Party's candidate in the 2016 presidential election. It's a subject on which the Grand Old Party abandoned its principles. Apparently, many Republicans think their party has done that too much.
Voters are angry. What other explanation can there be for Trump's early-campaign success? The outsize field of Republicans seeking nomination exhibits no absence of talent, articulation, ambition, diversity, or accomplishment. With one exception, the candidates discuss issues clearly and state positions emphatically.
Always emphatic
Trump, the obvious exception, is always emphatic but articulate mainly when berating other candidates, incumbent officials, or reporters with questions he can't answer. He promises to restore American greatness but doesn't say how. He promises to win but doesn't say what. He's bombastic. He doesn't compromise. He becomes nasty when criticized.
And according to polls he's leading the field, trouncing other candidates-except for one.
Pulling even with Trump, according to a Sept. 9-13 CBS News/New York Times survey of 376 likely Republican primary voters, is retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Trump's support was 27%; Carson's was 23%. The difference was within the margin of error. No other Republican hopeful scored in double digits.
Soft-spoken and willing to joke about himself, Carson differs from Trump in nearly every way, including his humble origins. While both candidates profess to be conservative, Carson has described his positions on issues more thoughtfully than Trump as done. Unlike Trump, Carson seems to be someone who could meet with world leaders without making them cringe.
Trump and Carson are prominently alike, however, in having no professional experience in Washington, DC, or the Republican Party apparatus. They lead the nomination race so far for that reason.
Although months remain in the nomination contest, the GOP can't ignore the comprehensive disaffection now resetting the political compass. If the party doesn't respond effectively, the US could face 4 more years of liberal activism from the White House-a prospect the oil and gas industry can see only as ominous.
Energy issues could help Republicans recover lost ideological footing. The GOP went astray with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT). Dazzled by the hope of making history with bipartisan, comprehensive legislation, the party of free markets and limited government accepted federal mandates for sales of biofuels and a byzantine system of subsidies for politically favored energy forms. Energy policy-making since then has been horrid.
When Democrats won control of Congress in 2006, bipartisanship went overboard. In 2007, lawmakers passed-and Republican President George W. Bush signed-the Energy Independence and Security Act, which raised the biofuel requirement from EPACT's 7.5 billion bbl in 2012 to 32 billion bbl in 2020. Because politicians foresee energy markets and technological development no more clearly than anyone else, and because the Environmental Protection Agency hasn't wanted to alienate renewable-fuel promoters, compliance with the mandates is impossible. The renewable fuel standard represents governmental malpractice.
This might not have happened if Republicans had defended intellectual territory traditionally theirs, if they had argued that governments can't dictate energy choices without creating more problems than they solve. History supports that position. US energy welfare improved immeasurably after Reagan-era deregulation of oil and gas markets. Had Republicans adhered to their historic preference for governmental restraint in 2005 they could have prevented the renewable fuel fiasco and recommitted to principles from which to defend Americans against the costs of President Barack Obama's "clean-energy" revolution. Alas, Republicans considered 2 years' worth of bipartisan self-congratulation more important than their party's foundations.
Competition for favors
Energy policy thus has become a competition for political favors. The importance of markets barely receives lip service. Republican voters should be angry.
Neither Trump nor Carson has said much about energy. The subject remains a rich opportunity for them or for any candidate able to relate it to market freedom and individual choice. Angry GOP voters obviously think principles still matter.