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Baker Center: US Energy Policy and this Year’s Election: Why we are likely to continue to pursue failure
October 27, 2016 @ 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
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Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy’s Energy & Environment Forum
Dr. Peter Z. Grossman, Clarence Efroymson Professor of Economics at Butler University, will present US Energy Policy and this Year’s Election: Why we are likely to continue to pursue failure at the Energy & Environmental Forum on October 27, 2016,1:00 – 2:30 pm in the Toyota Auditorium.
For more than 40 years, US energy policy has: (a) been motivated by crises; (b) been grandiose in conception; and (c) failed in its outcomes. These attributes are unlikely to change much no matter who is elected this coming November.
Hillary Clinton and her fellow Democrats generally have pledged to have …50percent clean electricity within the next ten years…[and 100%] clean energy by mid-century. This continues the grandiosity of the past, based on a climate crisis toward which these energy goals would do little — neither of these goals are plausible. Donald Trump and the Republicans cannot get away from the over-used rhetoric of US energy independence. His ideas would more than likely make energy costs in the US higher and his protectionist trade proposals could result in a reduction in the competitiveness of US supplies of hydrocarbons, and renewable energy and clean energy technologies on world markets.
This talk will apply the lessons learned from past attempts at energy policy to the current debate. The suggested solution is a more modest energy policy providing continuous support for basic research while leaving scope for market-driven innovation that will have a much greater chance of success.