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Trump’s mission: ‘Bolster America’s energy sector to unleash the U.S. economy’

As Trump takes on that goal, he should keep four main tenets in mind: respect for private property rights, reliance on voluntary exchange, tax neutrality, and consumer welfare.

The Trump administration will have to undo eight years of obstruction under President Barack Obama’s relentless public policy war against fossil fuels. After a good many executive orders to cancel out the previous administration’s overreach, it will be time to play offense.

Breakthrough technology has opened up vast reserves of previously inaccessible oil and gas. But rather than welcoming this bounty (although he took credit for it at the wellhead and at the pump), Obama has been more interested in restricting access and blocking infrastructure development.

Trump’s new energy-policy era can find inspiration in Ronald Reagan’s swift closure of the Richard Nixon-to-Jimmy Carter energy-crisis era. A week after taking the oath of office in 1981, Reagan removed price and allocation controls from crude oil and petroleum products.

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