Despite eight years of Clinton administration energy policies that put conservation above production, energy consumption hasn’t gone down. In fact, it has risen by an average of about 1.7 percent a year since the early 1980s.
Some experts contend that forced conservation distorts supply and demand, and actually causes people to use more energy not less. Making a product more efficient makes it cheaper to use.
Some political analysts contend that promoters of conservation recognise this flaw in their arguments. So they have joined with environmental extremists to demand a freeze on development for the sake of “nature.”
Source: Kimberley A. Strassel, Conservation Wastes Energy, Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2001.
For text (for WSJ subscribers)
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB990053498329485043.htm
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