"President Bush Wednesday will propose new steps to increase domestic energy production, including incentives that could result in construction of nuclear-power plants and building oil refineries on abandoned military bases," USA Today reports.
"Oil prices have been rising because increased demand in countries such as China and India has made it difficult to keep production up. Bush has said that passage of energy legislation he proposed four years ago was the best solution."
Jerry Taylor, Cato's director of natural resources studies, and Peter Van Doren, editor of Cato's Regulation magazine, dispute the need for more energy legislation in "Energy Bill Illusions": "Why must the government establish a 'coherent energy policy'? Generally, we've left decisions about energy investments to private investors. Five- or ten-year economic plans are traditionally the stuff of Russian Politburos, not American presidents. It's amazing to hear Republican politicians argue that, absent some guidance from Washington, businessmen will blindly stumble through the marketplace, unable to intelligently invest in the energy sector absent some sort of congressional blueprint. It's also insulting to one's intelligence to hear politicians claim that, absent political interference in the marketplace, consumers will not have the faintest idea how to conserve energy or even be aware of the benefits of doing so in the face of high prices."
Source: Cato Institute
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