This Election Season, Voters Face A Clear Choice On Energy Policy

Last week, President Biden announced plans to release 15 million barrels of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move widely seen as an attempt to bring down gas prices ahead of November’s election.

Meanwhile, after being on the rise earlier this month, gas prices now appear to be falling again. This comes despite OPEC+ (countries in OPEC plus about a dozen others) announcing plans earlier in October to cut oil production.

Many Democrats are uneasy about the fact that so much of their election prospects seem to hinge—unfairly in their view—on a seemingly arbitrary and hard-to-control variable like gas prices. However, the public has some good reasons to be wary of their energy policies, even if it’s not quite fair to blame Democrats for every blip at the pump or to argue that Republicans have everything right.

Gas prices remained low during Donald Trump’s four years in office. Meanwhile, a run-up in prices has taken place under Biden’s tenure. This was mostly unrelated to political factors, of course. First, there were supply-chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Then came the war in Ukraine, which further constrained global oil supplies.

Most commentators agree that presidents have limited control over short-run gas prices, but that they have more influence over longer time horizons. That’s why it’s not completely crazy for the public to assign some blame to presidents in the voting booth. In fact, there are significant differences in energy policy across the two major political parties.

Democrats have a reputation for being “anti-energy,” and it’s not entirely unearned. Their promotion of energy efficiency, while well-intentioned, is centered around the idea that energy use is bad and there should be less of it. Environmental activists—who are mostly Democrats or to the left of Democrats—have spent years building up regulatory infrastructure to block new energy production and other sources of development. That may benefit the environment in some cases, but now those same regulations are making it harder to permit wind and solar developments, or to build transmission lines that connect renewable energy sources to the electrical grid.

Contrast this with the “drill, baby, drill” slogan that became something of a Republican mantra for the John McCain (and particularly Sarah Palin) presidential ticket. Under this philosophy—almost the polar opposite of the energy-efficiency worldview—the more energy, the better. Many Republicans’ unapologetic support for the use of federal lands for energy production highlights the significant divide among presidents and political parties on this issue.

To be fair, there are signs that the influence of “block everything” environmentalists is starting to wane among Democrats. Some Democrats are now talking about creating an “abundance agenda” based on “supply-side progressivism.” The idea is to advance progressive goals through an agenda that propels, rather than demonizes, production and economic growth.

This all sounds good in theory, but have these progressives really found religion?

Unfortunately, their philosophy is still largely a top-down one centered around overconfident expert management of the economy. These “reform progressives” are perfectly fine with new energy coming online, so long as the technologies are pre-approved by them, and the winners and losers of such development can be picked in advance.

In this sense, the new supply-side progressives haven’t really changed that much from their old-school command-and-control counterparts. The former just pragmatically support some traditionally Republican policies—not because they believe in free markets, but because counterproductive regulations stand in the way of their grand vision of planning an economy around renewables.

In other words, today’s fashionable progressive policies are being hamstrung by the fashionable progressive policies of yesteryear.

To be clear, Republicans are far from perfect when it comes to promoting a pro-energy agenda. They are often too cozy with the fossil fuel industry. Nor are Republicans always on the side of free markets. Many have supported the Jones Act, for example, which restricts imports of energy into places like hurricane-stricken Puerto Rico.

To their credit, Democratic economists like Larry Summers and Jason Furman oppose the Jones Act. And Democrats have been reasonable on some other energy issues, too. Barack Obama supported fracking during the natural gas boom that took place under his presidency. However, fracking was not so much of a hot-button issue back then as it is now, and it is hard to imagine a President Biden or, for that matter, a future President Harris taking the same positions today.

America’s energy future stands at a critical juncture. It is far from obvious which new energy sources will be successful in the years ahead, and which will prove passing fads. There’s wind, solar, nuclear fission and fusion, natural gas, clean coal, geothermal, clean hydrogen—and the list goes on and on.

Which ones will prove viable in a clean energy future? Both parties have ambitious visions. But one wants to hand pick tomorrow’s technologies. The other (mostly) wants the free market—meaning customers—to decide. In that sense, voters this election season face a clear choice.