Romney's Plan to Keep the Lights On

Like the rationalist he is, Romney prefers a revenue-neutral carbon tax to cap-and-trade. But even more interesting is the intelligent and frequently unconventional cast of mind revealed by Romney's energy ideas.

Click here for all of David Frum’s blogposts on Mitt Romney’s “No Apology”.

The headline on Romney's energy policy is the ex-governor's openness to restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. Like the rationalist he is, Romney prefers a revenue-neutral carbon tax to cap-and-trade. But more interesting than the headlines is the intelligent and frequently unconventional cast of mind revealed by Romney's energy ideas. Here he is on "Drill here, drill now."

Having begun by explaining that North America and especially the United States are comparatively oil-poor regions of the world earlier in the chapter, Romney now observes:

If we drill and pump the last available drop of oil from every domestic source, we may walk into a trap set by the oil oligopolists who would like nothing better than to watch us exhaust our own oil supplies now so we'll become entirely beholden to them in the future. On the other hand, if we don't drill, we risk aiding the oil cartels by increasing demand for their oil today, and watching helplessly as that demand drives world oil prices skyward - filling their coffers and emptying ours.

The solution to this dilemma may be to explore and develop oil from these new domestic locations, but also to carefully meter the amount of oil we actually produce from them in order to moderate the pricing power of the foreign cartels and to safeguard our long-term supply. In effect, the oil produced from these new sources would serve as a kind of supersize strategic oil reserve. And if very large oil reserves were discovered or if oil subsidies showed greater and earlier potential, we could open the spigot.

Noteworthy here:

Romney thinks about energy in strategic not market terms. As Romney displayed in his opening chapter, he is a man whose policy thought is built upon a perception of a world of competing great powers. The first job of government is to enhance the strength and power of the United States in this competition. That is the theme that links together his views on education, on economic policy, and yes on healthcare too - since the excess cost of healthcare burdens the United States in the power struggle between the great powers.

Romney belongs firmly to the Hamiltonian political tradition in the United States. That's a conservative tradition too of course - but one at dangerous variance with the Jacksonian fervor of the Republican base.