Bridenstine Had To Be Re-Interviewed For Top NASA Job
Congressman Jim Bridenstine Says He’s Still In Running To Lead NASA, NewsOn6
“Oklahoma First District Congressman Jim Bridenstine says he is still in the running to be the new head of NASA. Bridenstine told News On 6 he was recently asked back for another interview by the Trump administration. The Republican said, “I don’t know what the end result is, but I keep interviewing, which is an indicator that maybe I’m still in the mix for it.”
Bridenstine Has Second Interview for NASA Post, Roll Call
“While he lacks the science background of previous NASA administrators, he is a member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee who has advocated for space exploration. “NASA is something that Republicans and Democrats both like,” he said. “It’s something everybody wants to do.”
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It would be nice if Trump could appoint a visionary. Jim Bridenstine may be a great choice for position related to defense, but he has no experience with space or science. You would think someone who has an interest in being the NASA administrator would have chosen engineering or science as one of his 3 majors instead of business, economics, and psychology.
Or at least law like James Webb 🙂
My thoughts exactly! We’ve had recent experience with an engineer-Administrator (though to be fair he had a very short window to make a difference). The recent bean counter-Administrator has mixed marks, particularly with respect to Hubble. And we know well what a caretaker-Administrator brings to the party.
Most can’t remember what it’s like to have a Visionary-Administrator.
Aside: recently Keith included the word ‘vapid’ in a story about PAO. That’s the word that comes to mind when I turn on NASATV, or watch a live event, and, at least from the outside, that’s what NASA looks like, too, taken as a whole. It’s a shame.
Maybe this young Republican congressman can bring vitality.
Yes. The problem if you put an engineer in charge is they want to be the chief engineer and ignore the rest of the job. Same if you name a scientist, or astronaut.
But James Webb was a lawyer who knew how Washington worked and focused on getting political support ($$) for NASA while letting the engineers and scientists alone to do their jobs.
Same ‘ole’ stereotypes to justify politically motivated appointments: Why Engineers Make Great CEOs: “They’re detail-oriented, analytical and trained in systematic problem-solving. Engineers’ basic qualities make them good candidates for the top.” Ends up, some things are more complicated than they first appear ;).
Most blame the expensive, expendable hardware and architecture on Congress and their staffers…now let’s see how many of those are engineers…. 1?…….not finding many.
Different environments. If a CEO tried to be a chief engineer the markets would punish the firm quickly. But engineers with that type of inclination wouldn’t make it that high in the organization. They would have made the conversion to manager or be sidetracked into technical staff positions
That noted, it is should also be noted they are more common in resource and infrastructure based industries where they generally interact with industrial customers versus consumer markets.
Its common to blame NASA problems on Congress, but folks forget, its NASA job, as with all federal agencies, to educate Congress on its options. This is one area that James Webb was a master at but previous Administrators seem to ignore. If Congress is forcing expense impractical hardware on NASA, it is only NASA to blame for not educating them on alternative options…
Such an ‘elitist’ and hypocritical response: “Its NASA job to educate Congress”, yet, in the similar posts below you dismiss studies as ‘justifying their existence’–the same tactic used against climate denying scientists.
NASA would be better off without the lawyers, lobbyists, and staffers telling them what do on subjects they know nothing about. Engineers make great CEOs–no fake news allowed 🙂
If you are a Chief Technologist at NASA, you are not a credible source to design, you can only INFORM. IOW, if Wernher von Braun were not in the correct NASA office, then he could only INFORM.
TLM quote: “Bureaucrats always produce studies, it one of the ways they seek to justify their existence although all just end up in file cabinets gathering dust.” Internal NASA Studies Show Cheaper and Faster Alternatives to The Space Launch System
First, since you are referring to it again I need to point out that article about engineer CEOs you are linking to is not even news, its an op-ed piece to market management training. Note first the wording on it (“Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.”) which indicates it is not a news article.
The individual who wrote is actually doing a soft sell promotion of management school, which is what INSEAD is, where engineers could take courses to become managers. Note from the article.
“On the flip side, many may lack emotional intelligence and the necessary leadership, people management, and communication abilities – soft skills which can be addressed by training to assist their transition into the management arena.”
Training that INSEAD will of course provide to engineers tired of being under valued. 🙂
And then the soft sell pitch goes on…
“So what motivates engineers to depart from their more-technically-oriented career paths and make their way to the boardroom. Of the 300+ responses to an online survey I conducted of 1,280 top-level executives holding engineering degrees, the overwhelming reason for moving up was money.”
Basically it is saying that if you are unhappy with being unpaid and under valued as an engineer you should go into management and make much more money. And INSEAD of course provides the training needed 🙂
Really, you need to evaluate your references better.
As the the second point, just doing a massive technical study and dumping it on a Congressional staffers desk is not “inform and educate”. That required looking the decisions that need to be made from the perspective of Congress and then explaining the benefits of different options from the decision makers perspective, not yours…
As lawyers would state, your assessment of the article “is intentionally trying to mislead the court.” Again, no one should rely on one reference, but hey at least they are provided. Corrections based on fact welcome (references a bonus too). Where are yours?!
33% of the S&P 500 CEOs’ undergraduate degrees are in engineering and only 11% are in business administration. Most have MBAs. Not opinion, but a fact.
Why should the top 10 CEOs in the health care industry command 20 to 47M/year, BTW, and not be capped, heaven forbid, at 1M/yr. That’s about 300M/yr or at a 10K premium, enough to pay the health care of 30,000 seniors and in the later case, the money cycles into the economy much faster to serve the nation’s interests.
In summary, not qualified for an entry level position, let alone lead.
Just look at NASA under Dan Goldin or Michael Griffin. Or the two engineers who made it to President, Hebert Hoover and Jimmy Carter. Their records are not that good.
Also you note they have MBA’s, just as Rep. Bridenstine has.
Great point TLM!
I see James Webb referenced many times here. I believe when he was approached by Kennedy his first reaction was something like, “me? I know nothing of space travel.” Kennedy knew that Webb managed some big programs during WWII. But then I wonder if Webb also had advantage of when govt had endless supplies of money and not concerned how it was spent as long as we beat the Reds to the stars. I wonder how he would manage NASA these days. Another to note he had Dryden (a notable person along the lines of Ames and Glenn) for an assistant.
Please define ‘visionary’. Some might consider Mike Griffin a visionary; he certainly had a vision and he certainly tried to make that vision manifest…which didn’t turn out too well.
Sadly, ‘rocket scientists’ and astronauts have not had an especially stellar track record in these positions. I suspect there is a consistent reason for this.
I’m more for having a competent administrator in the number 1 spot with a competent scientist & a competent engineer-manager in slots 2 & 3 (consider the history of Webb, Dryden, & Seamans for example).
A person who sees the big picture, who knows that a big goal is the sum of moving parts: parts that are existing, and are to be incorporated, and parts that are possible, and so require invention.
Equally, a reader of tea leaves, and fortunate to live in propitious times.
Bridenstine’s “big vision” seems to consist of lowering operating costs for cable tv companies and getting other companies to invest in lunar resources. Like you said, business & economics, not space–not science. This appointment should be blocked. Let your senators know!
Bridenstine may have the political smarts to run the Agency but it will be critical to select a Deputy who clearly understands how NASA programs really work and can manage the competing interests of the Centers. This isn’t the time to check the PC box, you need someone who can get on the horse from day one. I can only think of one person who fits the bill…Scott Pace.
Yes, he seems a nice guy and in the current mindset in Washington the bureaucrats at NASA will chew him up and spit him out unless he has a strong Deputy Administrators to keep them in line.
Pace supports “fully funding SLS, Orion” which is odd because they do not reflect the goals of the VSE— reuse and common elements–costing billions more than the alternatives.
Some would say this labels the pair as ‘bureaucrats’.
Worse, Bridenstine is a climate change denier — “Global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago” –and is likely not qualified for an entry level position, nor run ‘Earth Sciences’.
Folks continue to blame the NASA ‘bureaucrats’ even though they produced an Internal NASA Studies Show Cheaper and Faster Alternatives to The Space Launch System.
Here is a quote from Congress asking about the study: “When NASA proposed on-orbit fuel depots in this Administration’s original plan for human space exploration, they said this game-changing technology could make the difference between exploring space and falling short. Then the depots dropped out of the conversation, and NASA has yet to provide any supporting documents explaining the change”
So? Is that the new litmus test the Democrats are planning to use?
He would be the Administrator, not Chief Scientist, so it really doesn’t matter if he believes in the tooth fairy as long as he keeps the money flowing from Congress. That is why James Webb was such a good Administrator, he knew what his job was, to build political support and keep the money flowing.
Bureaucrats always produce studies, it one of the ways they seek to justify their existence although all just end up in file cabinets gathering dust. BTW producing studies and more studies was part of Max Webers’ original definition of bureaucracy.
The Earth cannot afford climate deniers so its disturbing, actually pathetic, that the party of Red cannot take a stand against carbon/oil subsidies.
Venture capitalists evaluate the conditions which shape the chances for success and return on investment, so ‘studies’ are not limited to ‘bureaucrats’, but coined ‘business plans’.
The depot ‘study’ was based on test data of components at various TRLs, e.g. the depot study did not include a ‘flight proven’ first stage in the cost estimates. In fact, Boeing listed only a F9 as a risk a decade ago, not a ‘flight proven’ lower stage which improves the likelihood of success.
Many other TRLS were raised as well.
Here are the other ‘study’ issues. It appears that the only showstoppers that remain are the ‘bureaucratic’ Congressional language and the party of Red desire to retain the base (via the Administrator)?
* Congressional language
* Requires longer storage of cryo propellants and zero-g transfer technologies
* Volume/mass constraints (e.g, fairing size)
* NASA loses some control/oversight
* Added complexity of common CPS/depot
* Launch capacity build-up
So what has being a climate denier to do with fuel depots? Are you saying if he wasn’t a climate denier he would recognize the value of Boeing’s fuel depot study?
And how did business plans get into this? The are not done to make work, but to explore opportunities for expanding revenues.
Bridenstine is the cc denier, a stone age world is flat claim, and would be a terrible leader for Earth Sciences. Pace supports the expensive, terribly expendable SLS and represents the stuck in the mud, lack of vision path forward that depots provide. Was this not clearly stated?
Connecting the dots, one must infer that if a person cannot understand how carbon changes the Earths climate and can cost future generations trillions, how could Bridenstine understand how a gas station or ‘depot’ could save NASA billions? Sorry if this sounds ‘elitist’, but the truth hurts and there should be consequences to past actions. Were Bridenstine’s statements made out of ignorance or deceit and does it make a difference?
Or made out of frustration the government is spending billions on climate change research and only a few tens of millions on tornado research. You do know tornadoes are regarded as somewhat more of an environmental risk in Oklahoma than coastal flooding 🙂
A NASA researcher recently developed an infrasonic sensor that can detect tornadoes at ranges of hundreds of miles, but as always R&D funding for small projects of practical value is extremely limited. NASA needs to place greater emphasis on technology development of practical value even if human exploration must be deferred.
https://technology.nasa.gov…
I will agree with that, application of technology to benefit society should be their first priority in funding.
The term “denier” is elitist sounding and quite frankly it’s meant to belittle reasonable skepticism in an era where “science” has even dramatically flip flopped on what is bad or good to eat. It’s meant to imply flat earthers or moon hoaxers, meant as a harassing term that all who question are dim bulbs of some kind or simply “for pollution” somehow. Skeptics have strong reason to question climate alarmism and realignments of entire economies based upon incomplete computer simulations, and should!
Look at *all* the data. The data shows the crisis of climate change requires systemic changes.
What are these changes? The World emits ~10 gigatonnes of carbon per year and the 1.5C IPCC goal coal cannot be met. To meet the 2C goal, rich countries must phase out coal by 2030, China by 2040, World by 2050. This projection does *not* include Keystone, where it takes a barrel of oil to produce 3.
What about ‘economies’ of these changes, ‘models’, impacts, and ‘denier’ ? The economics drive the solution to renewables as they low costs of solar and wind crush coal-nuclear and beat gas, especially when the World considers that Fossil Fuels received $500B/yr subsidies. Neither wind nor solar runs dependably around the clock, so gas needs to fill the gaps.
Predictions forward rely on models based on physics, correlation to data with uncertainties. While a number of factors can change the planet’s radiative balance, CO2 has been the dominating force for the past 4 decades. The largest uncertainties are the release of Arctic methane, and regulations to limit fracking gas emissions to less than 3%, otherwise its worse than coal.
Yes, climate impacts and vulnernabilities are difficult to make, yet an overall number is that the aggregate losses have a more than 50% chance of being greater than 2% of GDP. where the impacts of doing cost more than technology changes.
Climate change denial is a *part* of the global warming controversy where dismissal, unwarranted doubt or contrarian views *strongly* depart from the scientific opinion–one cannot address a problem until you admit its real–(which Exxon finally did, but does not want liability).
Rather than provide data and understand the efforts already put forth on all aspects of cc, you resort to diversionary tactics out of ignorance, or worse intentional deceit, way worse than ‘elitism’. One concludes you are part of the problem calling folks ‘alarmists’, ‘elitists’, ‘dim bulbs’, ‘moon hoaxers’, ‘incomplete comp sims’, ‘belittle’. Most folks would ‘ashamed’ of the terrible legacy left to future gens for short term gain.
The reality is people/nations/industry are NOT going to change to the degree that climate alarmist wish. It’s just NOT going to happen. I believe embracing adaption and championing of R&D towards revolutionary leaps in energy sources, mitigation technologies… carbon scrubbers/sinks, is the better path. The guilting, the preaching, the elitism, the scientific authority from arcane academia to Hollywood pop culture, and worse of them all the exploitive politicians have all failed to a remarkable degree. Time to rethink the path forward.
There is also the question of the change, if it occurs, really being a net negative or net beneficial in terms of the global economy. The climate change advocates seem to have convinced themselves (group think) it is the end of the world. But is it?
An ice free Arctic for example would reduce travel time via ship to Asia by weeks. It also makes it easier to develop the northern regions of Canada, Russia and Alaska.
Similarly, many of the coastal cities threaten by climate change are built around outdated transportation, architecture, and infrastructure. Compare New York, with its narrow crowded streets and lack of green space, a city that was designed in an era of the horse and buggy with a modern city like Denver or Las Vegas. Burying it under a few hundred feet of water could be a blessing in disguise 🙂
Excellent points! Heck, my property here in Naples is at elevation 11.5; I’m about a mile from the beach. But maybe I will become beach front!
Check out the Sea Level Rise of Naples Perhaps they can drain the swamp. Slide the bar to whatever sea level rise your model predicts.
New York was designed for mass transit. I was there when the 1976 centennial celebation in Battery Park ended. A million people turned to leave at once. I expected hours of traffic jams. Instead the New York subway (electric powered and pollution free) swallowed up the massive human tide and sent them on their way without missing a beat.
Low-lying countries with limited financial resources like Bangladesh will suffer the worst from rising sea levels.
Yes, because that was the technology of the 19th and early 20th Century when those systems were designed. New York works the way it was designed to work.
Yes, low lying areas like that are at risk, especially as sea levels have yet to return to their high point from the last interglacial period.
http://science.sciencemag.o…
It’s interesting that you like certain cities and dislike others, for (apparently) the same reasons I have the exactly opposite opinion. I _like_ cities with a functional public transportation system and zoning for mixed use (e.g. corner stores and restaurants mixed in with homes, as opposed to miles and miles of suburbs and nowhere to shop, eat or drink without a 15 minute drive.) I like not needing to own a car, and I dislike your “modern” cities where driving is more-or-less a necessity. So your example of how it might be beneficial to get rid of certain cities reflects your personal tastes, not any objective of their value.
There is nothing stopping the residents rebuilding in the old style they are used to.
I have yet to see any climate change skeptic support increased resources for more accurate computer modeling and data collection so that the truth, wherever it lies, can be discovered. The Trump Administration has instead ordered the shutdown of NISTAR, one of the few instruments that accurately measures how much heat the Earth absorbs and radiates, even though it costs almost nothing to collect the data.
I’ve yet to see any climate alarmists champion alternatives that do not reach for wallets and freedoms. So it goes both ways and this middle ground goes ignored due to battle lines being heavily drawn. Sigh.
And that is the basic problem. It was taken over by the environmental movement as a cause to fight the evils of capitalism and the success of free market economic systems in generating wealth.
Since the running out of resources theme didn’t work (Paul Ehrlich “The Population Bomb”, Meadows, Meadows, Randers and Behrens, “Limits to Growth”) they had to find a new approach. So now the argument is – Yes, there is enough resources, but we will destroy ourselves if we use them all… We need to lower our life style.
But again, no evidence whar the changing climate will do to destroy humanity, just some vague hand waving about rising sea level and changing climate bringing about the end of civilization. How? Yes, adjustments will need to be made, but that is what free market economies are good at. And the elements of the free market like insurers are already incorporating climate change into their business models and adapting. That is why President Trump is trying to build a seawall to protect his golf course in Scotland, so his insurance rates will fall.
Really, folks have been crying doom and gloom since Thomas Malthus wrote about it in 1798. Yet here we are, living better than ever with the promise of more abundance in the future.
Yes, its the environmentalists who made climate change research political. Its no accident the “March for Science” is on Earth Day 🙂
The current generation of climate scientists have chosen their political partners and are now crying about folks dismissing them. Given the track record of environmentalists in being wrong about the collapse of society they shouldn’t be surprised. When you choose to hang out with the boy who cried wolf and start crying wolf with them, you shouldn’t be surprised if no one listens to you.
I am not sure I have seen the evidence to support what you say, that people who have studied the evidence and fount that burning of massive amounts of fossil fuel is adding to atmospheric CO2, are adversely affecting your lifestyle. Wind and solar energy are huge new industries, and nuclear has considerable room for growth if Congress and the NM state government can get WIPP operational. Solar is already competitive with coal in many areas and its average price (for electricity) will soon be lower. https://www.bloomberg.com/n…
If there are “battle lines” being drawn we need to talk. The first goal is to look at th facts without preconceptions. Otherwise confirmation bias will make it impossible for us to learn the truth.
Its been running for a while now. Have the results been published anywhere?
NISTAR is part of the ongoing Earth Radiation Budget Experiment. You can access the raw data yourself on the Internet. There is a lot of published literature with careful analyses. It is heavy reading, but the only way to have anything like an accurate picture of how much is actually known about climate is to work through a significant part of it.
Data formats are fully documented:
https://eosweb.larc.nasa.go…
Every sensor has to be calibrated with extreme accuracy:
https://www.nist.gov/sites/…
NISTAR was delayed for years and has just completed launch, activation, checkout and calibration and been turned over to its operational team at NOAA.
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov…
https://eosweb.larc.nasa.go…
https://eosweb.larc.nasa.go…
http://opensky.ucar.edu/isl…
https://www2.ucar.edu/
http://opensky.ucar.edu/isl…
https://climatedataguide.uc…
http://journals.ametsoc.org…
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas…
Thanks for the links.
Matula knows his history and has it right. The Agency badly needs a Webb/ Hans Mark combination. Someone who knows how to get and someone who knows how to do. The Bolden/Garver combination was neither. Charlie was into ribbon cutting and STEM. Laurie was into advancing her career. Take time to look into Paces career, he’s ” unlikely” to be drawn into ” we’ve always done it this way” and understands the value of commerialism in restructuring the neW NASA. But most of all, he recognizes that there’s more to space then the manned program.
You have attacked Garver in the past, along with Shana Dale, for not having technical backgrounds and now you criticize her for wanting to advance her career. It appears you don’t have a problem with men who lack technical backgrounds, so why Shana and Lori (the correct spelling of her name)? As for “being into advancing her career”, she seems to be an exception to the rule. Male NASA senior leaders (including you?) choose the revolving door and cash-in on their contacts and decisions they made while at NASA. Frank Culbertson (Orbital/ATK), Scott Horowitz (ATK), Charlie Precourt (ATK), and Mike Hawes (Lockheed) to mention just a few examples. Sean O’Keefe and Mike Griffin have made millions off the aerospace industry since they left. Fred Gregory and Charlie Bolden went into aerospace consulting. Lori charted a post-NASA career in a new field instead of cashing in on her NASA contacts and expertise. There appears to be a double standard.
Eric: Your position on this isn’t clear, even though I (think) I’ve followed your comments over time. Are you denigrating the career actions of Dr. Hawes et. al., or applauding them?
My own view on this tends to be situational: in many of these cases, NASA gets expertise that it would not be able to obtain were it to openly compete in a salary market. The expertise (or employee) gets NASA exposure, sure, but also gets opportunities for lifetime-singular projects; many see this as a fair trade.
And as a citizen I certainly do. I’m happy to have had the services of Dr. Hawes and others. Clearly NASA benefits.
I get that the revolving door is a balancing act and that there’s a lot of criticism; that there’s the accusation that government jobs are merely levers used by the unscrupulous. That’s certainly true in some cases.
Actually a revolving door is what the Founding Fathers had in mind for government and government agencies. They assumed that individuals would out of good citizenship (the Cincinnatus model) spend only a part of their time working at lower wages for the public good in government before returning to their professions.
That is also why there never were voting rights given to Washington D.C. They assumed that those living there would only do so temporarily and would continue to vote in their home states. And of course they never envisioned full time government careers would emerge as the norm with professional politicians and their camp followers (consultants, lobbyists, contractors, civil service) all making Washington D.C. their home. They had hoped that the model that existed during the colonial period of part time government service would endure.
Really, they would probably be sadden that the “swamps” of elitist experts and bureaucrats that were part of the courts of European monarchies at the time, and is now found in Washington D.C., would emerge to dominate the government in the U.S.
I don’t think the Founding Fathers wanted our public servants making decisions to benefit companies in order to secure higher paying jobs in those companies for themselves when they left government. That is the downside of the “revolving door”. Whether or not you believe people actively make such arrangements overtly or not – it can’t help but impact their thinking when deciding on contracts. Ethics laws are supposed to give you a lifetime ban on working for a contractor if you were involved in awarding them work while in the government. However, senior people often assign the formal responsibility of “contracting official” to someone else, to assure they don’t have that post-NASA employment restriction. The swamp sort of smells – right?
Actually they would probably be horrified that so many firms have built their business models on government funding.
Ethics rules like “cooling off periods” are an attempt to keep public servants from awarding contracts and making decisions in the government that help them secure jobs in companies that benefit from their decisions (at higher pay). Hawes did everything possible for Orion in his position at NASA and then went to Lockheed, Horowitz did the same for Ares I (it was called the Scotty rocket for goodness sake) and then got some sort of waiver to go to ATK. It is difficult to get independent thinkers at NASA because most want to cash-in and go to the big aerospace companies after NASA, so it is not to their benefit to try to get the best deal for the tax-payer while they are in government. I can’t imagine anyone thinks that is a good thing and my point is that Garver is one of the only people who didn’t do that. Agree with her or not, she was an independent thinker at NASA and always looked out for the tax-payer – NOT her future career. By not sucking up to big industry she must have known she was limiting her future career prospects and I can only imagine what people would have said if she gone to work for SpaceX when she left NASA!
Based on numerous panels and speeches to congress, I have never seen Lori Garver make an error on a technical subject. She also is politically astute and has a solidly based strategic vision focussed on reducing the cost of human spaceflight to a level that will allow hundreds of humans to work and travel in space, not just a chosen handful.
James Webb did not openly den scientific facts.
Wow I didn’t know he also flies an X-wing. What hasn’t this guy done? 🙂
If there were X-Wings he could probably fly it. He has 1,900 flight hours including 333 carrier landings in a Hawkeye. He also organized a team for the Rocket Racing League 🙂
I personally do not feel engineering experience is necessary to lead NASA, but one must at least have an open mind on questions of science. I cannot find evidence of that. Here is a quote.
Q: Do you believe that human activity is contributing to climate change?
A: No. The Earth’s climate has always varied substantially as demonstrated by pre-industrial human records and natural evidence. There is no doubt that human activity can change local conditions, but on a global scale natural processes including variations in solar output and ocean currents control climatic conditions. There is no credible scientific evidence that greenhouse gas atmospheric concentrations, including carbon dioxide, affect global climate. I oppose regulating greenhouse gases. Doing so will significantly increase energy prices and keep more people in poverty.
He’s a Disciple of the Church of Free Enterprise, where the motto is “I don’t think it’s my job to make decisions about the kind of energy the country uses”.
Leaving aside the “credible…evidence” claim (he’s just wrong), look at the last claim. It’s now the case that more people are employed in alternative energy than in oil and gas, at least according to Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/n… this is an example of where the government sets a direction and establishes a level playing field, and then private enterprise goes to work.
So how is a level playing field when carbon industry sets aside *NOTHING* for future generations and say, flooding of Naples, Fla?
Support a carbon tax today to level the playing field.
A simpler example of ‘level playing field’ is one that I have used before: the government required all cars to provide seat belts. Manufacturers could build the seat belts in any way that they wanted, as long as they met certain requirements.
In this way, you get the government doing what it should do, which is establish social policy. And you get business doing what it should do, which is compete to implement the policy.
There are fine points, of course, but they don’t distract the argument.
Similarly, national policy, say, under President Carter could have been away from oil and towards renewables. And while it is true that the enabling technology making alternatives so attractive now wasn’t available then, it is also true that reducing foreign oil consumption would have reduced the likelihood of war in Iraq, and Afghanistan; would have as well reduced the likelihood of troops in Saudi Arabia, with the concomitant reduction in Muslim ire and the 911 attacks. And yes, this is 20/20, but it was also clear at the time.
As it is clear now, as we prepare to spend enormous amounts on defense at the expense of programs far more worthy, including social welfare. And space.