Center for Business & Public Policy
Collaborative blog exploring the relationship between market forces and public policy.

With crude oil prices hovering near $100 per barrel, the issue of energy independence is sure to be a frequent topic in the upcoming presidential election. Don Fullerton, a finance professor and energy policy expert at Illinois, spoke with News Bureau Business and Law editor Phil Ciciora about whether the goal of energy independence is a viable one or just another pipe dream.

Is energy independence a realistic goal for the U.S.?

It seems like it’s mostly senators from oil-rich states who want to talk about oil and energy independence, because they want subsidies for the oil industry. So it’s really only for political reasons that energy independence has been hyped as an important or worthwhile goal.

If we really are concerned about reducing our dependence on foreign oil, then the implication is to tax oil, not to subsidize it! A tax on oil would discourage its use, which would have three good effects. First, it would discourage imports. Second, it would reduce drilling in the U.S., and thus help keep more oil in the ground for future contingencies. Third, it would encourage the development of other energy technologies such as biofuel, solar power, wind power and better battery technology. Those other technologies are the only realistic route to true energy independence.

Plus, there’s absolutely no way we’re going to achieve energy independence through oil because we’ve basically used up most of our oil. For all practical purposes, we don’t have much more oil. That’s why we either have to rely on other countries or switch to new technologies.

An attempt to achieve energy independence would also be a bad move for energy security, because it just says, “Let’s drain America first.” If so, we’ll be in an even worse situation later. Whatever we still have in reserve should be left there for its option value. If we did have another serious war where we really needed oil that we couldn’t import, those reserves might be good to have.

Do the new sources of domestic energy in the Dakotas and the Gulf of Mexico hold much promise for solving our energy problems?

Sure, there are some new sources of energy in the U.S. – really, natural gas and shale oil – but however much we have won’t bring us any closer to energy independence. Even if we do discover a few new fields of crude oil, it’s not going to make much of a difference.

As the price of crude rises even higher, the oil companies can go back to old and existing fields and drill a little deeper. That extraction is expensive, but it’s worthwhile if the price of oil is back near $100 per barrel. It wasn’t worthwhile earlier because the extra drilling cost was more than the oil was worth. But now that the price of crude is high enough, they can make money if they drill deeper on these old wells.

What happens to energy prices if the European economy continues to sputter?

If Europe experienced, say, a 10- to 20-percent drop in gross national product, then you might actually notice a dip in the price of oil in the U.S. But economic growth in the U.S. would also slow. So just because the price of oil might fall a little bit doesn’t make their troubles good for us, since we would be affected, too. We certainly don’t want to hope for a recession in Europe to make oil cheaper. First of all, the price wouldn’t fall that much. Second, there would be a whole host of negative implications for the U.S.

What (if anything) will bring the price of oil down again?

The only ways to get a significant change in the price of oil would be through a major recession, a major technological breakthrough, or huge policy changes. If the whole world got together and agreed to a new, stringent version of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon emissions, that would have an impact. If the whole world were to reduce the burning of fossil fuels by 20 percent – that would also have an effect. But we don’t want another recession, nor will all nations agree to such a treaty.

My green choice is to get about 12 miles to the gallon.  Here is why it’s so green.

Some people think it’s obvious that I ought to buy a hybrid or other fuel-efficient vehicle.  But that’s just wrong.  Certainly some drivers should have a hybrid car to reduce emissions and energy use, namely somebody like my brother who has an hour commute each day, driving 20,000 or more miles per year.   But not everybody.   Take for example a person like me who lives near work, rides a bicycle, and doesn’t like spending hours in the car – even for a road trip to the Grand Canyon or Yosemite.  I use the car once a week for the grocery store, or a restaurant, driving less than 5,000 miles per year.

Let’s suppose a hybrid gets 50 miles per gallon, so my 5,000 miles per year would cost about 100 gallons ($300 per year).   The standard non-hybrid gets 25 miles per gallon, which would cost twice as much ($600 per year).  I’d save $300 per year in the hybrid.  But that doesn’t mean I should buy a hybrid.  A new hybrid like a Toyota Prius costs about $6,000 extra to get that great fuel-efficiency (about $26,000 instead of $20,000).    In other words, it would take twenty years for my $300-per-year savings to make up for the extra $6,000.  It’s not worthwhile for me.  If my brother drives four times as much, however, he could break even in just five years.

So far, that means I should not buy a hybrid.  Does that mean I buy the normal new car with 25 mpg for $20,000?  No!  I should buy a beaten old 8-cylinder Bonneville, which looks like a tank and gets only half the mileage!  That Bonneville may be headed for the junk heap, so it’s certainly cheaper, even if I have to pay more for gas.

But even ignoring the price of the Bonneville, I claim that the fuel-use of the Bonneville is less than the fuel use of the normal new car!  Why?  Consider the emissions from fuel used in production.  The fuel used to make the Bonneville back in 1980 is a “sunk cost”, a done deal that does not change whether that car gets junked now or later.  In other words, keeping that Bonneville off the junk heap requires no extra fuel and emissions to produce it.  But buying a new car does involve more fuel and emissions just to produce it.  Think about all the emissions from the steel mill, the tire factory, the glass furnace, and the electric generating plant that provides power for the tools and machinery to make the new car.

In other words, I can reduce total fuel use and emissions much more if I purchase the 1980 Bonneville and drive it 5,000 miles per year, than if I buy a new car with twice the mpg.  Now all I need is a bumper sticker for my 1980 Bonneville to say how green I really am!

If one town’s water pollution flows into another town, the two towns can negotiate a solution with no need for the state to intervene.  But if all towns are polluting all neighboring towns, the lines of communication are too complex to negotiate – requiring the state to pass a law to solve the problem.

If one state’s water pollution flows into another state, the two states can negotiate a solution with no need for Federal intervention.  But if all states are polluting all neighboring states, the lines of communication are too complex to negotiate – and it takes a national government to solve the problem.

In other words, those problems have solutions.  If one nation’s water pollution flows into another nation, then (potentially, at least) the two nations can negotiate a solution with no need for a global government to intervene.  But if all nations are polluting all neighboring nations, the lines of communication are too complex to negotiate – and no global government exists to solve the problem.

I’m currently pessimistic about two of the worst problems the world has faced: global climate change, and global financial contagion.  Both are “externalities” in the classic sense.  Each nation’s greenhouse gas emissions pollute the whole world, and the only really effective solution is a worldwide global agreement to reduce emissions.  In fact, we don’t really “need” all nations to reduce emissions; all we really need is an agreement among all nations saying that if SOME countries reduce emissions then the other countries won’t increase emissions to steal their business.  But the lines of communication are too complex to negotiate – and no global government exists to solve the problem.

Environmental policy is my usual bailiwick.  At the moment, however, I’m even more worried about global financial contagion.  It seems that one small country can have lax financial regulations that allow banks or investment companies to take on too much risk.  Or a small country can overspend, taking on too much debt.  In the olden days, that country could go down in flames, with no big problem for the rest of the world.  With tremendously increased globalization, however, all financial markets are highly integrated.  One country’s borrowing may come from any or all other countries of the world, and one nation’s problem become the world’s problem.  If banks in other countries loan to that small country, then a financial crisis in that small country may create fear about the financial well-being of the banks that lent to them, causing a run on the banks in all those other countries.  Moreover, globalization means much more trade in commodities.  If one small country faces severe financial difficulties and must cut back all spending, that reduces aggregate demand worldwide, and can spread a recession worldwide.

A strong global government could rein in the poorly managed countries by requiring larger capital requirements, careful financial scrutiny, and only tax-financed spending.  But we don’t have any such global government.  As a result, even a small country like Greece can over-spend for years without oversight.  The situation in Greece may be made worse when banks in other countries raise the rate at which Greece can turn over its debt and borrow again, making the financial situation in Greece even worse.

The problem may be caused by Greece or not.  Regardless of “fault”, if Greece any small country were to go into default in years past, then the cost would be primarily on that small country.  Now Greece could go bankrupt and impose horrible costs on the entire World?!?

Carbon Dioxide Causes Global Warming of Climatologists

Dateline: August 6, 2011, Champaign, Illinois

Researchers at the University of Illinois have discovered new environmental damages from the burning of fossil fuel with resulting emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other Greenhouse Gases (GHG).  In particular, when these anthropogenic emissions accumulate in the atmosphere and react with sunlight, they may cause climatologists to become hotter and hotter.  So far, this effect has only been observed experimentally in the laboratory, but these experiments confirm the theory among atmospheric chemists that continuation of such emissions for several decades is bound to result not only in global warming of these climatologists and other environmentalists, but also extreme behavioral events similar to hurricanes, floods, and droughts.  

The next key step of this research program, at the University, is to increase data collection quickly, in order to try to ascertain whether the recent aberrations in climatologists’  behavior is within the normal statistical variations or may in fact already by caused by the existing increases in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases.  The stronger hypothesis, yet to be tested, is that the increased concentrations of these gasses in the atmosphere is not just predicted globally to cause agitation and warming of these environmental scientists, but that it is already having such effects.  Already, certain climatologists have experienced high blood pressure, increased internal temperatures above 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and occasional apoplectic seizures.  These extreme behavioral events could be occurring naturally, however, so the hypothesis is not yet proven that these events can be attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.  More research is required, and researchers at the University of Illinois are applying to the National Science Foundation for that research funding, which may require millions of dollars.

In early January 2011, the State of Illinois enacted legislation to raise the personal income tax rate from 3% to 5% and to increase the corporate income rate from 4.8% to 7%.  Along with a cap on spending growth, these tax increases reduce the state’s projected budget deficit in 2011 by $3.8 billion (from $10.9 to $7.1 billion), according to the University of Illinois and their Institute of Government and Public Affairs (IGPA Fiscal Fallout #5).  The governor justified the tax increases on the grounds that the State’s “fiscal house was burning” (Chicago Tribune, January 12, 2011).  Dan Karney and I wrote a recent piece for the IGPA Forum, but we don’t debate the reasons for the underlying fiscal crisis in the State of Illinois, nor argue the merits of cutting spending versus raising revenue to balance the budget.  Instead, we just stipulate that politicians decided to raise revenue as part of the solution to the State’s deficit.  Then we analyze the use of “green taxes” as an alternate means of raising revenue that could mitigate or eliminate the need for increasing income taxes.

In general, green taxes are taxes either directly on pollution emissions or on goods whose use causes pollution.  In the revenue-raising context however, the basic argument for green taxes can be summarized by the adage: “tax waste, not work”.  That is, taxes on labor income discourages workers from engaging in productive activities and thus hurts society, while taxing waste discourages harmful pollution and thus benefits society.  In addition, the revenue raised from these green taxes can help the State’s fiscal crisis. 

While many green taxes could be implemented, we focus on four specific examples that have the potential to raise large amounts of revenue: carbon pricing, gasoline taxes, trucking tolls, and garbage fees.  Indeed, as we show, a reasonable set of tax rates on these four items can generate as much revenue as the income tax increase.  That is, imposing green taxes can completely fill the $3.8 billion difference between the projected baseline deficit ($10.9 billion) and the post-tax deficit ($7.1 billion). 

Yet we omit many other potentially high-revenue green taxes.  For example, the State could tax nitrogen-based fertilizers that contribute to nitrogen run-off pollution in streams, rivers, and lakes.  These omissions do not imply that other green taxes could not be implemented.  Also, the simple analysis does not include behavioral responses by consumers and businesses.  Rather, we apply hypothetical green taxes directly to historical quantities of emissions (or polluting products) in order to obtain an approximate level of potential revenue generation.  

In a short series of blogs, one per week, we now discuss each of the four green taxes and their potential for revenue generation.  This week: Carbon Pricing.

In 2008, electricity generators in the State of Illinois emitted almost 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency (EIA).  See the State Historical Tables of their Estimated Emissions by State (EIA-767 and EIA-906).  While the United States has no nationwide price on carbon – neither a tax nor a cap-and-trade (permit) policy – some jurisdictions within the United States have imposed their own carbon policies.  For instance, a coalition of Northeastern states implemented the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to limit CO₂ emissions using a permit policy.  To date, RGGI’s modest effort has already generated close to $1 billion in revenue for the coalition states.

If Illinois were to adopt its own carbon pricing policy, then even a modest tax rate or permit price could raise significant revenue.  For instance, a $5 per metric ton CO₂ price on emissions from electricity producers generates about $500 million in revenue (or 14.4% of the $3.8 billion raised from the state’s income tax hike).  By way of comparison, if the extra $500 million in emission taxes were entirely passed on to consumers in the form of higher electricity bills, then the average consumer’s bill would increase by 3.75%  (where $13.3 billion is spent annually on electricity in Illinois).

Table 1 reports the possible “revenue enhancement” from the $5 per metric ton tax, along with three other pricing scenarios.  Both the $5 and $10 rates are hypothetical prices created by the authors for expositional purposes.  In contrast, the $20 per metric ton price is approximately the carbon price faced by electricity producers in Europe’s Emission Trading System (ETS).  At the $20 rate, a carbon tax in Illinois generates almost $2 billion – over half of the tax revenue from the income tax increases.  Finally, the $40 tax rate (or carbon price) is from Richard S. J. Tol (2009), “The Economic Effects of Climate Change,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 23(2): 29-51.  It is an estimate of the optimal carbon price that accounts for all of the negative effects from carbon emissions.  At this “optimal” price, the revenue from pricing carbon in Illinois by itself could replace the needed tax revenue from the State’s income tax increase.

I just read the new blog by my colleague Nolan Miller, called “Gas prices on the rise. If you can’t beat ‘em, fine ‘em.”  I have a reaction, which I would have uploaded as a “comment”, except I could not figure out how to do that!  He writes about the fact that one gas station near the Orlando airport charges $5.69 per gallon, and he points out that we should not be surprised, since the station will charge whatever they can get folks to pay!  I’ve also been late for my plane, with an empty rental car tank that needs to be filled before I can return it.  Anyway, the point that my good friend Nolan never addresses is: Why doesn’t competition bring the gas price down?  It seems like somebody could open a station across the street, and charge “only” $5.60 per gallon and take all their business.  That of course would induce the station in question to charge $5.50 per gallon, with further responses until they  both settle on a price somewhere lower than $5.69.  Why does that not happen?  First of all, it must take time for that to happen.  I hope somebody is working on it!  Second, however, the land right across the street from that station is probably very expensive, because whoever owns that land has a great business opportunity!  But if somebody has to pay a high price for that land, then they have to charge a high price for gasoline just to break even.  Markets are complicated, and interesting, and that’s why many of us are so fascinated by the study of economics!

Per gallon of gasoline, are we paying more in taxes over the years, or less?   In my last post, I examined the Federal gas tax and inflation adjustments.  As it turns out, the overall price of gasoline adjusted for inflation just hasn’t changed that much over the past fifty years!  Regarding the Federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon as a tool to collect revenue, however, the impact is significantly weakened by inflation.  It is a “unit tax” (fixed over time per unit of gasoline), and so it becomes a smaller fraction of price as the gas price rises.  In contrast, any “ad valorem” tax would be a fixed percentage of price (like an 8% sales tax).  When inflation increases the price, an ad valorem tax rises with it.

State and local gas taxes in Illinois are a bit more complicated. In 1990, the State of Illinois raised the gas tax from 16 cents to the current 19 cents per gallon – another “unit” tax.  The flat blue line in the figure below looks at that same fixed 19 cents per gallon since 1990.  The orange line shows its “real” value, adjusted for inflation, all in current 2011 dollars.  It shows that the 19 cents today is really the equivalent of 33 cents back in 1990.  So the real value of the state’s unit tax on gasoline has fallen from 33 cents to 19 cents per gallon.

In addition to the 19 cent per gallon state gas tax, we also pay 2 cents per gallon to the city of Urbana.  Furthermore, gasoline is subject to the general sales tax, which in Urbana is 8.75%.  (It is composed of 5% to the state, 2.25% to the city, 0.5% to the county, and another 1% to the school district). 

Here is how it all works.  Suppose the net-of-tax price of gas kept by the service station is exactly 3 dollars.  Then the combined state and local ad valorem sales tax (8.75%) applies to that $3.00 per gallon.  That tax would be $0.2625 (in other words, 26.25 cents).  Then the federal unit tax is 18.4 cents, the state unit gas tax is 19 cents, and the city unit gas tax is 2 cents.  The total of all those taxes is 75.65 cents per gallon.  These four major taxes per gallon are shown in the table.

That total 76-cent tax adds to the $3 per gallon price, and you pay $3.76 per gallon.   (And actually, a few other minor taxes are ignored here, such as the “Underground Storage Tank” fee and other environmental fees!)

 Yet only the ad valorem sales tax can keep up with inflation.  With every year that a unit tax on gasoline is not updated, the tax loses its value and fails to collect as much real revenue.   The State of Illinois revenue from the 19 cent gas tax is falling in real terms with inflation, as all the necessary expenditures by the State are rising.

Yes, I’ve written about the budget before, and perhaps I’m getting repetitive.  But it’s important, and surprising, so I’ll give it another go.  But nevermind President Obama’s recent release of a proposed budget for next year.  That document is already irrelevant!  Let’s start with the current budget. 

Current federal spending now is over  $3 trillion per year.  The deficit is $1.6 trillion.  The U.S. House of Representatives approved a plan to cut spending by $60 billion.  The Republicans chose not to change spending on defense and homeland security, nor entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  The problem is that then other discretionary spending must be cut for some government agencies by as much as 40%.  And yet that total $60 billion cut is only a drop in the bucket.  It cuts the annual deficit only from $1.6 trillion to 1.54 trillion!

My point is that you can’t get there from here.  First of all, it’s not wise to cast such a wide net, without thinking, making cuts of 40% or more to discretionary programs simply because they are called discretionary.  It means cuts to national parks, environmental programs, and federal employees who provide many public services people want.

Second, who says we need to leave defense and entitlements untouched?   Within just a few years, Medicaid will cost about $300 billion per year, Medicare will cost $500 billion, and Social Security will cost $800 billion, and defense $800 billion.  ALL of domestic discretionary spending will be only $400 billion.  By those round numbers, $60 billion from that last category is a 15% cut.   The same $60 billion cut proportionally from all of those categories would be only a 2% cut.  That’s what I mean by a drop in the bucket.

Anyway, that plan would still cut the deficit only from $1.6 trillion to $1.54 trillion.  The ONLY way to make any sizeable dent in the huge $1.6 trillion deficit is to look at all the current spending, not just at $400 billion of domestic discretionary spending, but at the $800 billion of defense spending, $800 billion of social  security, $500 billion of Medicare, and/or $300 billion of Medicaid.

And who says taxes are sacrosanct?  A $1.6 trillion deficit means we are spending more than our income, so one just MIGHT think that problem can be approached from both ends.

The very existence of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long been a point of contention between the two political parties.  What is, and what ought to be the role of the EPA with regard to policy making?  Congress cannot possibly enact laws that contain every detail about subsequent implementation, monitoring, and enforcement.  And they should not put everything in the law anyway, in order to allow enough flexibility to deal with future contingencies.  Besides, those in Congress don’t have the science background necessary to decide all of the details of some technological aspects of pollution prevention.

The law does not say that every electric power plant must reduce emissions of each pollutant to no more than some number, like 37 micrograms per cubic meter.  Instead, the law from Congress just says that EPA should protect human health to an adequate margin of safety.

Yet some would prefer that the EPA disappear, along with every agency having any regulatory power.  This agency, which was conceived in 1970 under Richard Nixon, has analyzed and supported some of the most important pieces of legislation of the last forty years, ranging from the Endangered Species Act to – more recently – the new emissions standards going into effect this year. 

In 2007, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision called “Massachusetts vs. EPA”, that the EPA could in fact regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, on the grounds that such emissions do affect human health.  When combined with the new Republican-dominated Congress, we have set the stage for yet another ideological battle. 

Throughout the past decade, much of the discussion about controlling carbon dioxide emissions has largely centered around the idea of Cap and Trade.  That system would effectively put a price on each unit of pollution emissions.  It would create a market where the need for emissions and the cost of emissions are balanced in a way that can achieve economic efficiency.  However, the most viable attempt at this in recent years, the Waxman-Markey bill of 2009 (H.R.5454), passed the House and not the Senate.  It would not even get past the House in this term.  

The question then becomes, what exactly are the cards that the EPA retains in their deck? 

A recent article is titled “Greenhouse Gas Regulation Under the Clean Air Act” by researchers at Resources for the Future (RFF, by Burtraw, Fraas, and Richardson).  It seeks to explore the options available to the EPA, in-depth.  What they find is that the EPA can implement measures that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly in a measured and cost-effective manner.  For this to happen, however, they argue that the EPA must become bold and decisive in their actions. 

Bold action may be taken as an example of government overreach, and so the EPA must be careful.

Republicans are currently in discussion to introduce the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 .  They recognize that the EPA holds some powerful cards after the Supreme Court ruling in 2007, and they want to take that power away.  This Act would shift the EPA’s ability to regulate from the Agency to the legislative branch.  Yet such an action could take any decision-making ability from the scientists and put it in the hands of the politicians.  As EPA leader Lisa Jackson said, “Politicians overruling scientists on a scientific question – that would become part of this committee’s legacy.’”  Herein lies a problem with democracy.  The people in charge of making the decisions that affect us all, often have little knowledge of the actual issues at hand.  After all, Republicans from oil-rich states like Oklahoma still claim global warming is nothing but a hoax.

On Tuesday night, President Obama gave the State of the Union (SOTU) Address (transcript) before a joint session of Congress.  The speech drew upon imagery from the Cold War past in order to spur action regarding America’s energy policy.  “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment,” the President declared, and thus he will send a budget to Congress that invests “especially [in] clean energy technology, an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.”  To deal with this “Sputnik moment”, the President set forth two goals: (1) become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015; and (2) get 80% of America’s energy from clean sources by 2035. 

(Not quite as inspiring as President Kennedy’s urging on May 21, 1961 that “this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”  On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and Neil Armstrong took his first step on the lunar surface.)

I have three issues with the President’s approach.  First, the wording of the goals in the SOTU Address needs to be parsed carefully in order to understand their meaning or lack of meaning.  For instance, does “electric vehicles” mean all-electric vehicles or do hybrids count towards that goal?  Similarly, what is the definition of “clean sources”?  Fortunately, in this case we have an answer later in the Address.  As the President admits, “Some folks want wind and solar.  Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas.  To meet this goal, we will need them all.”  However, ambiguity still exists because clean coal and natural gas technologies can be deployed with or without carbon capture and sequestration technologies.

Second, the President did not offer details about HOW to achieve these goals.  The Address includes references to investments in clean energy technology, but it specifies neither investment level nor investment horizon required to meet the stated goals.  He did not say, for example, $10 billion annually for 10 years.  If clean energy is really a priority for the President, and given concerns about the fiscal deficit, then clarity about the needed investment level would be helpful so that other programs can be identified for cuts in order to balance the budget.  Also, the President said that “clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they’re selling.”  I agree.  However, an efficient, well functioning market requires a price signal.  This brings me to my last point.

Third, the President did not directly address environmental policy when setting his goals.  If the President really means “low-carbon” or “no carbon” when he says “clean”, then the absence of a carbon policy in the Address becomes conspicuous.  Specifically, the President did not indicate if he would again push for a cap-and-trade bill.  Given the composition of the new Congress, a cap-and-trade bill or any other piece of legislation that puts either an explicit or implicit price on carbon emission seems politically infeasible.  To have a market for these clean energy technologies, where is the price signal going to come from?  

In their forthcoming book called “Accelerating Energy Innovation: Insights from Multiple Sectors”, Rebecca Henderson and Richard G. Newell look at lessons from the histories of innovation in other industries and implications for the energy industry.   The introduction says: “Taken together the histories point to three key factors as critical to accelerating innovation: (1) well funded, carefully managed public research that is tightly linked to the private sector; (2) rapidly growing demand; and (3) antitrust, intellectual property and standards policies that together promote vigorous competition and the entry of new firms.”

How many people would ‘demand’ electric vehicles at a high price, just out of the goodness of their hearts?  Or would that demand depend on the existence of a policy that raises the price of burning fossil fuels?

The President noted that when Sputnik was launched, NASA did not exist.  Yet, the Department of Energy has existed for many years, and America’s energy policy is still unclear and uncertain.