Meet the new bosses, same as the old bosses
Category: Economy & Business... Oil & Gas... Politics... Thinking Allowed...
Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 06:59 AM [GMT-6]

The Wall Street Journal published an editorial addressing the sad state of the US energy situation.

The editorial goes on to describe how two Democratic Senators, both of whom want to be president, are calling for Congressional investigations to discover the causes, which, of course, they've already decided are directly related to oil company manipulation and economic deception.

Of course, the Wall Street Journal isn't buying it, and devotes the rest of the article to showing how all significant disruptions to the desired balance between supply and demand can be laid in large part at the feet of federal agencies and the shortsidedness of Congress itself.

OK, none of this constitutes new news, so why bring it up? The answer is that the editorial in question was published in July, 1975, thirty-three years ago*.

At that time, the senators in question were Adlai Stevenson and Henry "Scoop" Jackson. The supply and demand snafus were introduced by meddling rules promulgated by the FEA – the Federal Energy Administration (which set the bar for incompetence by a government agency with its performance during the Seventies).

Three-plus decades later, we (as in "Congress"; forgive me for implying that you are lumped in with that sad group) still haven't learned the lesson laid out quite clearly in the article:

In this case, the Journal was focusing specifically on the refining and distribution of gasoline, but the principles continue to be as relevant as they are ignored.

*I'd publish a link, but this editorial predates the World Wide Web by almost fifteen years. I found it in my "personal professional archives" (aka, "that big pile of junk that I keep transferring moving from one pile to another"). I have no idea why I decided that it was something I needed to keep; I'm pretty sure I never envisioned the concept of blogging back then.