Free markets alone cannot solve environmental and energy problems; legislation, regulation, and taxation are also necessary.

Added to korrents 5 Sept 2026 · How quotes work · Something wrong? Tell us

Where this collides

• Cannot both be true

  You cannot make people adopt more expensive clean energy, because higher fuel prices are political suicide under any government.

  MacKay says legislation, regulation and taxation are necessary alongside markets. Handmer says it is obviously impossible to make anyone adopt more expensive carbon-free energy, because higher fuel prices are political suicide under any system of government — which rules out the tax half of MacKay’s toolkit rather than disagreeing about whether it would work.

• In tension with

  Environmental permitting now causes more environmental harm than it prevents, because what it delays is the clean thing replacing the dirty one.

  MacKay treats regulation as part of the answer. Handmer says environmental protection regulation is now the primary driver of avoidable pollution, because what it delays is the clean thing replacing the dirty one. Both can hold if the regulation MacKay wants is not the regulation Handmer is describing, and nobody has said which is which.

• In tension with

  The binding constraint on building anything in America is permitting and litigation, not money.

  MacKay says markets alone cannot solve environmental and energy problems and that legislation, regulation and taxation are needed too. Cochrane and Handmer hold jointly that permitting and litigation, not money, are what stop anything getting built in America. The regulation MacKay wants and the regulation they are describing may not be the same regulation, and nobody involved says which.

Shared subject first, then similar wording. They may agree or disagree.

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