The United States Constitution and Energy Policy

It was on this day in 1787 that the United States Constitution was signed by delegates at the final meeting of the Constitutional Convention.

Personally, I’m a big fan of Madison (shown here), who favored a strong central government.  Of course, it’s easy to say this in hindsight, where we can see, 226 years later that very little good has come from 50 different sets of criminal and civil statutes.  Does someone in possession of cocaine pose a worse threat to the people of Texas than to the people of Colorado?  Is it safer to drive at high speeds in Montana than it is in Oklahoma? Is second-degree murder a more heinous crime in Arizona than Vermont?  Of course not. 

States’ rights is equally perverse when it comes to energy policy.  There are 30 states that mine coal, meaning that we have 60 out of our 100 senators working to block a migration away from coal.  Ray Lane, Managing Partner of venture capital titan Kleiner Perkins, whom I interviewed for “Is Renewable Really Doable?” told me, “Craig, when they’re asked to get off coal, these senators don’t say no.’ They say ‘Hell no.’”

Going back to the Constitution, one can only imagine what Madison and the others would think about our current situation, given:

• The U.S. Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision, giving corporations the right to spend as much as they wish to influence our elections.

• Legislators who receive huge campaign contributions from the oil companies voting to continue federal subsidies to their paymasters.

• The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act which provides broad authority for the federal government to use the military in domestic operations in order to detain Americans indefinitely and without trial, nullifying the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as the natural rights of Americans.

I rather suspect that if I asked one of them if he could believe the damage that has been done recently to the concepts of freedom and decency for which they had fought so hard and made so many sacrifices, they’d simply look at their shoes in disgust and mutter, “Hell no.”