Government and Energy: Witnessing the Process
By Jim Clarkson -- August 3, 2023
Ed. Note: Jim Clarkson is a soft-spoken everyday man who has experienced first-hand the ins-and-outs of crony public-utility regulation, first as the energy manager at a large industrial user and more recently as an energy procurement/installation consultant. Clarkson, a classical liberal, has also been instrumental in the development of the Institute for Energy Research (IER) as a free-market education and advocacy organization.
“A Federal employee asked what I did and why I was on the Board…. I airily waved at the group and said: ‘I’m the only one here making an honest living.’ That didn’t go over very well. I shouldn’t have said it, but after over 50 years of observing state utility regulation, it still upsets me to see smart young people devoted to limiting freedom and prosperity when they could be doing something useful.”
Late in the Trump administration I was appointed to be on a U.S. Department of Energy advisory board. The State Energy Advisory Board consisted of some 20 state-level bureaucrats and one private sector person – me. The advisory board’s mission was to give advice on energy efficiency (EE) and renewable state policies to an Assistant Secretary of DOE.
https://www.masterresource.org/clarkson-jim/government-energy-witnessing-process/
