ENERGY POLICIES AND THE FREE MARKET
To thwart climate change, U.S. must nationalize energy sector
Not only are shore lines receding due to global climate change , but a group of scientists recentlyconcluded that the concept of seasons may fade away as weather patterns are drastically altered by an increasingly warm planet.
So , add the term “seasonal integrity ” to a growing list of the catastrophic effects of climatic change brought about by man-made gases being spewed into the atmosphere.
Faced by a foot-dragging Republican Congress that vehemently opposes any action to address climate change , President Ba rack O ba ma has every right to declare a weather emergency and nationalize energy industry assets in an attempt to save the country and the planet from devastation.
Just as fiction al presidents have declared national emergencies and spa red no expense or action to deal with menacing planet-dooming asteroids and come ts , O ba ma has the executive authority to override a do-nothing Congress and take extraordinary measures to deal with an existential threat to the nation.
As far as exercising executive authority to ensure that private corporations get with urgent national security and economic emergency programs , Sen . Bernie Sanders of Vermont was correct when he offered nationalization as a possible solution. U.S . presidents have exercised such nationalization authority in the past and are entitled , by virtue of their constitutional office , to do so in the future.
Under the Army Appropriations Act of 1916, President Woodrow Wilson nationalized the rail roads in
preparation for war.
Wilson stated in an address to Congress, “There must be no doubt as to the power of the Executive to make immediate and uninterrupted use of the railroads for the concentration of the military forces of the nation wherever they are needed and whenever they are needed.”
When the country was threatened, no one, not Congress nor the American people, objected to the president exercising his constitutional duty to roll over property rights in the interest of the common good of the nation.
On April 8, 1952, President Harry S. Truman ordered the secretary of commerce to seize and operate the nation’s steel mills because a management-union impasse threatened a steel strike.
The threat of a strike directly threatened America’s ability to provide weapons to U.S. and allied troops fighting against Communism in Korea.
Only a few diehard right-wingers bellyached about Truman’s decision, putting their own profit margins ahead of the lives of American combat troops.
Just as in 1952, there are those who would put their own selfish interests ahead of millions of Americans threatened by starvation from crop failure and livestock loss, drowning from rising seas and more violent storms, and death from invasive diseases like the Zika virus.
It is the president’s duty to protect all Americans, regardless of how it may
It is the president’s duty to protect all Americans, regardless of how it may impact on billionaires’ hedge funds and other corporate contrivances.
impact on billionaires’ hedge funds and other corporate contrivances.
Lest anyone argue that the aforementioned presidential actions were carried out by Democrats, it should be recalled that in June 1973, President Richard Nixon, a Republican, effectively nationalized the entire national economy when he ordered the immediate imposition of wage and price controls. No one called Nixon a socialist or a communist.
The president has the authority to nationalize all or part of the U.S. civil aviation industry under the authorities granted by Congress to maintain a Civil Reserve Air Fleet.
The fleet has been activated twice, by President George H. W. Bush in Desert Storm and George W. Bush in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
No one complained about socialism in either case. And no one should complain if Obama opts to nationalize the energy sector to urgently mitigate a global emergency now.
A University of Mississippi graduate, Wayne Madsen is a progressive commentator whose articles have appeared in leading newspapers throughout the U.S. and Europe.