Bernard L. McNamee is an attorney and former commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). His chapter in the Mandate for Leadership concerns the Department of Energy and related commissions. Those related commissions are FERC and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
His experience as an attorney has included representing electric and natural gas utilities before state public utility commissions.
The Mandate for Leadership summarizes his chapter in this way: “A conservative President must be committed to unleashing all of America’s energy resources and making the energy economy serve the American people, not special interests.” By this the book means fossil fuel special interests are to be served.
Also, when the Mandate for Leadership advocates for serving the American people, it means not serving them. A great way to serve them would be taking steps to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change. Letting the fossil fuel industry do as it pleases does not serve the American people, even if the presumed benefit of lower energy costs is taken into account. (For example, a bill dubbed the “Lower Energy Costs Act” that contains no provisions to lower energy costs for consumers. Another example: fossil fuel interests did not lower consumer prices as profits rose.) As for unleashing all of America’s energy resources, they have in reality been unleashed, as the United States has been producing record amounts of fuel for some time now. This fact contradicts the assertion that energy production has been choked by the Biden administration. McNamee puts the assertion this way: “The new energy crisis is caused not by a lack of resources, but by extreme ‘green’ policies. Under the rubrics of ‘combating climate change’…the Biden Administration, Congress, and various states, as well as Wall Street investors, international corporations, and progressive special-interest groups” are to blame for a crisis-level decline in the “energy dominance” of the United States. (The Mandate for Leadership advocates for U.S. “energy dominance” but does not define the term.)
No “extreme” green policies have been implemented anywhere in the world, which continues to use large amounts of fossil fuels. An extreme green policy would presumably involve completely and immediately ending fossil fuel use and fossil fuel extraction. But in the Mandate for Leadership’s parlance, all green policies are extreme—even the relatively half-hearted and tame ones currently being advocated for and to some extent implemented.
Also, Wall Street investors and international corporations are not tree-hugging environmentalists. If there is money to be made by investing in renewable energy, it should follow that free-market conservatives would be in favor of it. (Another example of the Mandate for Leadership’s terminology: subsidies for renewable energy “distort” the market, while subsidies for fossil fuels go unmentioned.) As for special interest groups, they could be said to include the people of the world, as they are among those who are suffering from the worsening effects of climate change.
If it is true that only painters and lawyers can turn black to white, then the chapter on the Department of Energy could serve as an example. Like other chapters in the Mandate for Leadership, it seems to have been written with the interests of fossil fuel corporations in mind. The chapter labels human beings as special interest groups and claims fossil fuel interests as one and the same as those of the American people.
