The governor’s message: The City of Jackson’s Public Water System (“PWS”) had failed, and residents would have inconsistent and unsafe water supply for the foreseeable future.
Though this crisis is only now gaining national attention, it has been brewing for years. As president of Empower Mississippi, a state-based policy organization, I’ve seen the slow lead-up to this inevitable collapse. Sensationalist media want to play to the lowest common denominator and pit people against each other, but this problem will require cooperation to solve. Mississippi leaders — state and local, Democrat and Republican, black and white — have an opportunity to work together and get Jackson’s water flowing again.
as it stands today, America’s hydrocarbon industries face a potent combination of policy and regulatory impediments, higher costs of materials and services, lingering supply-chain disruptions from the global lockdowns, and skilled-labor shortages. At least one U.S. shale CEO has said that not even $200 oil would inspire his firm to expand production faster. And this says nothing about the investment-killing potential of calls for “windfall profits” taxes which, if implemented, would be as destructive and ineffective as they were when tried in 1980.
It is possible that reality may impact American policy-makers as it has those in Europe, in which case there is some hope of an energy realpolitik yet emerging with an “all of the above” energy policy. And if that were to happen — something that will require legislation, not executive orders or rhetoric — then one might yet see the mighty American hydrocarbon machine help restore order and economic sanity to the world.