Who needs an energy bill? (CNNFN Continues To Look For Bad News #4)

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Senate leaders are pushing to save the energy bill that got blocked in filibuster Friday and no wonder.

Three years in the making, 1,200 pages, special clauses galore -- sure it may look to some like a Rube Goldberg invention, but after they've spent so much time at the drafting table, it's a hard thing to give up on.

[The single economist consulted for this "top story" wondered] aloud how it was that the United States managed to survive the 540-percent spike whale oil prices saw from 1831 to 1854 without congressional intervention.

From the look of things, it appears that the free market took care of the "whale oil crisis" on its own. Prices rose, people economized and looked for other fuel for their lamps. In 1846 Abraham Gesner invented kerosene -- a cleaner-burning, less costly alternative to whale oil. By the end of the century whale oil cost less than it did in 1831.

Really. I wonder if Justin Lahart, crack journalist that he is, wondered about the cost of fuel in those days. For instance, were there confiscatory taxes on the producers of the fuel? Were there whole portions of the fuel supply purposely being blocked by the government so consumers couldn't get fuel?

Seems Justin didn't really want to search out the answers to these questions...he just apparently wanted to regurgitate the ramblings of one cranky economist.

Such is CNNFN's treatment of a "top story".

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