Regulatory obstruction of investments in gasoline refineries is probably a more significant threat to the affordability of gasoline than any approaching exhaustion of oil reserves. Reestablishment of refiners’ reasonable property rights and adoption of strict liability as the major instrument for controlling carbon dioxide and refinery pollution might end what otherwise may become an ever-worsening, regulatory-induce “energy crisis.”

Craig S. Marxsen is an associate professor of economics at the University of Nebraska, Kearney, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Independent Institute.
Bureaucracy and GovernmentClimate ChangeEconomyEnergyEnergy and the EnvironmentEnvironmental Law and RegulationGovernment and PoliticsGovernment Waste/PorkPollutionPublic ChoiceTransportation
Other Independent Review articles by Craig S. Marxsen
Fall 2003 Bountiful Harvest: Technology, Food Safety, and the Environment
Winter 2002/03 Prophecy de Novo: The Nearly Self-Fulfilling Doomsday Forecast
Summer 2000 The Environmental Propaganda Agency