Building Trades News

Wow! What a mess!
The election campaign has brought about discussions about re-shaping America’s Energy Policy, however, waiting until January of next year to change direction is much too late.
With gasoline at $4 per gallon in California, and just below that in other parts of the country, natural gas shortages looming and no new supplies being planned for, hydro-electric dams being threatened because of persistent droughts, new fossil fuel power plants being opposed everywhere they are proposed and nuclear power generation having been abandoned, our jobs and economic future are in the balance.

The country’s national energy policy to date seems to be to allow the energy producers and oil companies to decide what the consumer will buy, while raking in record profits. Instead of our elected officials formulating policy and regulating how the companies that are allowed to operate under the laws of the United States, they talk about allowing business to operate unfettered so that the “free market” will bring its benefits to us all. When?  

To date the “free market” has gotten us to the point of bankruptcy. Americans can’t afford to drive, American manufacturers can’t afford to work in this country, and government, including schools, hospitals and water facilities are facing huge deficits. The “free marketers” would have the energy policy adopted by the government continue to allow them to earn billions while the average American suffers the ups and downs of their ever-shorter paychecks.

If we can convince our elected officials to take control of our energy policy through regulation, as the States did with electric power generation and natural gas, we can do better. Regulation is equated with Public Utilities and Utilities Commissions that can approve rates, limit profits and institute a multitude of other requirements that give all of us, the people, a say in how the basic services that families need are distributed and sold.

One of the best examples of the government participation in basic public services is the Tennessee Valley Authority. It was created and construction by the Federal Government starting in 1933 with the signing of the TVA Act on May 18, by President Franklin Roosevelt. Most, if they have heard of the TVA, would think it is a power company, but it was legislated into existence to provide needed research and development to the area, which had suffered from decades of neglect and over-farming causing soil depletion and failed farms and communities. Power production, navigation, flood control, malaria prevention, and erosion control were all a part of this government corporation. The TVA has been one of the most successful government programs ever initiated and it has been producing power, and other basic needs for over 75 years. It has also provided vital income to State and local governments in its seven State area through electrical power sales.

Instead of using this model to provide a stable energy policy, including gasoline supplies, for the entire Country, too many of our elected officials, from the President to local governments have been pushing industry into deregulation, even where they didn’t agree. California, just five years ago was the best example of deregulation gone bad when we suffered through blackouts, electric cost increases and fraud perpetrated on us all by Enron and other deregulated companies, after Gov. Pete Wilson signed California’s power deregulation legislation in 1996.

On a national level, the situation is just as bad. A report by Tyson Slocum, Director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, he noted: “The ‘Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’ allows power marketers and other suppliers to charge market-based rates (meaning that they charge what the market will bear) without any regular review to ensure that such rates comply with the Federal Power Act’s mandate that all rates be “just and reasonable.” (Just so you know, Public Citizen, opposes the use of Nuclear Power, which with today’s energy shortages and environmental issues should be a part of our Country’s energy policy. )
With world oil prices exceeding $120 a barrel, electrical power generation capacity in doubt, and no consensus on how this Country will proceed, things don’t look like they will get better unless Washington, D.C. actually reverses its actions to bring more “free market solutions” as a substitute for common sense.

So many parts of our economy depend upon a common sense energy policy that it should be the main campaign issue in this election season. Keeping pressure on the candidates to enact new policy, new solutions, new regulations and new organizations for energy development can rescue our economy. Common sense tells us this is true.