Thanks a lot - I've copied the analysis here:
Clearing the Lines by Stephen Heiser: Want an Energy Secretary? Take your pick! (Part 2)
September 8, 2000
Last week we looked at the somewhat less than impressive record of our nation's first Energy Secretary James R. Schlesinger (see Part 1). This week we will delve into the performance record of Schlesinger's successor, Charles Duncan.
Charles W. Duncan, Jr.
Born: September 9, 1926, Houston, Texas
Nominated: July 20, 1979
Confirmed: July 31, 1979
Term of Office: August 24, 1979-January 20, 1981
President: Jimmy Carter
B.S. Chemical Engineering, Rice University, 1947. President, Coca-Cola Company, 1971-74. Deputy Secretary of Defense, 1977-79.
On the 24th of August 1979 disco was still kicking, Carter was still in the oval office and Charles W. Duncan, Jr., was sworn in as second the Secretary of Energy. Duncan got right to work and ostensibly did nothing for the better part of a year. This was his single greatest contribution to U.S. energy policy in the 1970s. However, his hot streak ended on June 30, 1980 when the Energy Security Act was signed. This act consisted of six major actions:
The U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corporation Act
The Biomass Energy and Alcohol Fuels Act
The Renewable Energy Resources Act
The Solar Energy and Energy Conservation Act and Solar Energy and Energy Conservation Bank Act
The Geothermal Energy Act
The Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Act
The U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corporation Act kept major corporations from wasting their money on poorly conceived synthetic fuels initiatives. Instead, taxpayers, at the height of the inflationary era, were wasting their money on poorly conceived synthetic fuels initiatives.
The Biomass Energy and Alcohol Fuels Act was a sterling success except for two small setbacks. The first was that biomass-fired power generation flew harshly in the face of every conceivable Clean Air Act objective. Apparently hydrocarbon-rich power emissions raised the acid level in North American raindrops. The second setback came in the form of alcohol fuels that were significantly more expensive than fuels derived from crude oil. Add to this the temerity of major automobile manufacturers who informed new car buyers that the use of alcohol fuels would void their new car warrantees. It seems that no person at the DOE had the foresight to check to see if alcohol fuels would do irreparable damage to automobile fuel systems.
The Renewable Energy Resources Act was so convoluted that no person could criticize it. This was largely due to the fact that no person outside of the DOE could fathom what the act's means and objectives were. Fortunately for the act's administrators, no person inside the DOE could fathom what the act's means and objectives were either.
The Solar Energy and Energy Conservation Act and Solar Energy and Energy Conservation Bank Act. This act was so full of pork that people merely reading the articles were automatically entitled to free eggs, toast, and coffee. It seems that the true purpose of this piece of legislation was to siphon money out of the federal government and back into the DOE and the home states of certain bureaucrats.
The Geothermal Energy Act was perhaps the only portion of the Energy Security Act that was actually founded in legitimate science. How this slipped in we will probably never know. Still, the unfortunate end-result of this act was that there were simply not enough geothermal sources that could be meaningfully tapped to deliver competitive energy benefits.
Finally there was the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Act. My personal theory is that this piece of legislation was proposed as a practical joke and nobody got the punch line. The energy secretary took it seriously and included the silly thing in the final draft. President Carter, who incidentally was not a nuclear physicist, signed it into law along with the rest. It was Will Rogers who said, "When Congress makes a joke, it's a law, and when they make a law, it's a joke."
January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as President.
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