A Welcome Problem

There are so many Objectivists being published that I can't keep up. I'll post links if or as I have time to catch up, but apologies in advance for those I miss. In any case, here's the first, Alex Epstein in the WSJ. Its opener:

Which former president does Barack Obama most resemble? When it comes to handling oil spills, the answer is Richard Nixon. Like our current president, Nixon too presided over a major offshore oil blowout—the three million gallon Santa Barbara spill of 1969. And, like Mr. Obama, Nixon responded by whipping up anti-oil sentiment and passing a sweeping moratorium on drilling.

This parallel is important to keep in mind, because Nixon's reaction helped cause the worst energy crisis in American history. Before the Santa Barbara spill, American oil drillers were working on a variety of major projects off the coast of California and in Alaska that could have provided more than 20% of America's domestic oil production at the time. In Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, for example, oil companies struck in late 1967 what is still the largest oil field in U.S. history.