Reagan (and Bush) on Energy and Consumer Protection

News has it that President Obama is installing solar energy-producing panels on the roof of the White House.

This item, and earlier ones, reminded us that President Jimmy Carter had also installed solar panels on the White House roof—and then Ronald Reagan removed them. Why would he do this, when it must have cost taxpayers money to remove them? My guess is, simply to thumb his nose at environmentalists.

Also, as is not very well known, on the day of his inauguration, Reagan froze all funding of alternative energy research by the Department of Energy. I can tell you that a lot of alternative energy research that is being called for today or has recently been started up, was going on in 1981 when Reagan halted it. On the smaller scale, Reagan's move cost many jobs (including, ultimately, mine—so yes, I have a personal axe to grind here) but it also set back the efforts to find new energy sources by 30 years.

Many of the bad things that Reagan did (okay, bad at least from my perspective, or any liberal perspective) were not publicized at the time. Reagan was very popular—remember, he was called "the Teflon President," and the Press was afraid to criticize him because of that popularity.

For example, he gutted federal regulatory agencies such as the EPA and FDA that were intended by Congress to safeguard our food, water, air, and so forth. He appointed as heads of these agencies industry-sympathetic people or even industry insiders who had no intention of allowing these agencies to function effectively.

Similarly, Congress passed laws to beef up (no pun) government inspections of food-processing plants. Had these measures taken effect, they might have prevented some of the recent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses such as Salmonella and E. coli from eggs, peanut butter, and so forth (there have been many in the last few years). But the stiffer inspection schedules were never implemented, because of eight years of foot-dragging by the Bush administration.

Update, August 26, 2011
I recently learned that Rodger Mudd, of CBS TV news, did at the time report on Reagan removing the solar panels from the White House. It was a very brief news item and didn't mention any possible explanation.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein