Posted: 10/25/2005
One More Chance For Sound Energy Policy
Senate Can Avoid Pitfalls of House-Passed Legislation
DALLAS (October 25, 2005) – As debate begins in the U.S. Senate on an energy bill, government needs to remove barriers outside of Hurricane Alley that restrict domestic energy production and refining that would benefit consumers, according to NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett, noting that private firms both prepared for and responded to the recent hurricanes better and with more effectiveness than governments.
“The moratorium on new oil and gas development and production along the Atlantic shelf and California must end, and we must move forward with production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR),” Burnett said. “A disruption in the supply of energy, especially gasoline, as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has highlighted a problem that policy makers have ignored for too long.”
A bill has already passed the House of Representatives, but contains several potential pitfalls, Burnett explained:
- The House bill does not provide for expanding energy production outside the Gulf of Mexico.
- Political road blocks – federal, state and local – continue to inhibit expansion, even though market conditions were already encouraging companies to seek out new opportunities.
- Allowing new refineries to be built on public lands could preempt state and local restrictions, but the bill should make it clear that any leasing arrangements should be done at market rates with subsidies.
Burnett also pointed out that new energy legislation need not address price gouging, since government already has the power to investigate such behavior through the Federal Trade Commission and other agencies and, indeed, an investigation of pricing following the devastation from Katrina and Rita is already underway. Based on past experience, another study of the issue will be a waste of scarce federal resources at a time when money and manpower are scarce.
“There is very little that can be done short-term to improve America’s energy prospects in the short term,” Burnett added, but allowing states to share the wealth from new energy development off their coasts is a good start to correcting these errors.”
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