Who is that man on the right?

 

 

 

 

 

a.  Lineal descendant of  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,

 

b.  Reincarnation of Froederick Fronkensteen,

 

 

c.  Tootsie … in the later years,

 

 

 

d.  Ernest Moniz, Secretary of the U.S Department of Energy

Other than Solyndra, what comes to mind when you consider the DOE (assuming that’s on your mind when an alternative is the NCAA baseball postseason)?

Many view the DOE as does the CATO Institute. Hear the video describing the DOE’s misguided programs over the years.  Let me summarize their point: Off-load regulation of nuclear energy to another federal agency, let private enterprise handle the rest, and save $25 billion every fiscal year.

If that isn’t enough, here is the agency, like the uninvited relatives who make themselves at home in your guest room and won’t leave, imposing your money and mine on a New Jersey wind farm project that state regulators rejected.

But if you like solar you’ll like this news of a solar power grant to the City of Chicago.

What has the DOE accomplished since 1978?  If its original purpose was to reduce U. S. dependence on imported oil? Not much, if I read between the lines of this recent Time Magazine article, which credits factors other than the DOE for recent progress.

But Let’s Not Jump the Gun 

Oil and gas people, before you get too smug, maybe you‘ve heard that the DOE was responsible for, or at least contributed to, the early research of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling that led to the revolution in shale formation production? The report, complete with testimonials, sounds true.

If you think private enterprise can do most things better than government, you probably still say DOE needs to go, but perhaps you will also admit that it has done some good. Maybe you mean to say we need smarter government, not no government.

Musical Interlude

Let’s acknowledge this Administration’s double-talk on energy policy by considering the two-step. There is Jimmy Dale Gilmore‘s Texas dancehall version, which is nothing like the Eunice Two-Step, this one by Robert Bertrand.  (I chose it because  it has the translation.) These two places are separated by more than  just a narrow river.

Special thanks to cousin Paul Provenza for the inspiration for this post.