Book Review:

Stephen F. Williams, Energy Policy in the Cold Light of Morning (reviewing Joseph Kalt, The Economics and Politics of Oil Price Regulation:  Federal Policy in the Post-Embargo Area (1981), and M. Elizabeth Sanders, The Regulation of Natural Gas:  Policy and Politics 1938-1978 (1981)), 61 TEXAS L. REV. 571 (1982). 

Abstract:

In theory, production of energy resources creates great opportunities for redistribution of wealth.  In practice, such attempts at redistribution can have deleterious side effects, as evidenced by America’s attempts to regulate energy production in the late 1970s.  The imposition of price ceilings on crude oil and natural gas stimulated demand, discouraged supply, and necessitated bureaucratic allocation of the commodity.  A tax and redistribution program could have scratched the redistributive itch at a fraction of the cost of the price ceiling program, which begs the question of why price ceilings were imposed in the first place.  Joseph Kalt’s The Economics and Politics of Oil Price Regulation:  Federal Policy in the Post-Embargo Area and M. Elizabeth Sanders’s The Regulation of Natural Gas:  Policy and Politics 1938-1978 address that question.