THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

WHY DIDN'T THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY SOLVE THE ENERGY PROBLEM? | 2000-07-08

A quarter of a century ago, a national energy emergency faced America. To deal with this emergency, liberals set up the Department of Energy in 1977. So this emergency solution has been in place for almost a generation.

In the 1970s, the energy crisis was used to push economic stagnation. We were not just to stop growing, we were to shrink economically. Bureaucrats were to divide up the oil.

For over two decades, the Department of Energy has been funded with endless billions of dollars to prevent exactly this kind of problem. Now that we have the same situation again, no one mentions anything DOE ever did about it. It wasn't SUPPOSED to really deal with any such crisis.

As with every other liberal "solution," we are wasting resources on bureaucrats while we wait for technology to solve the real problem.

Now that OPEC has raised oil prices again, and we have spent billions every year for 23 years on the Department of Energy to deal with just such a crisis, can anyone name a single way in which we are better off? Of course not.

This was what the Energy Department was given DECADES to take care of, and it never occurred to anyone to imagine that this liberal program would deal with the problem. Liberal programs not only don't work, it never occurs to anyone that they should work.