Example Image
Topic
Economic Dynamism
Published on
Jan 21, 2026
Contributors
Richard M. Reinsch II
Alaska, Dalton Highway Pipeline. (shutterstock)

The Civitas Outlook Energy Symposium

Contributors
Richard M. Reinsch II
Richard M. Reinsch II
Editor-in-Chief, Civitas Outlook
Richard M. Reinsch II
Summary
What will be America’s energy needs in this century?

Summary
What will be America’s energy needs in this century?

Listen to this article

Energy policy in America has become, over the past few decades, one of the most fraught debates in American politics. The progressives immersed the issue in a soup of universalist sentiment that equated fossil fuel use with war on the planet and our childrens’ futures. We needed to “decarbonize” the economy and rebuild it with “clean energy.” Policies to that effect have been implemented in America by Democratic presidential administrations and were a part of an overall approach to governing that stretched from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of Energy, with a stop at the Securities and Exchange Commission. This Whole of Government Approach is intended to curtail and end the fossil fuel industry. But will the American people endure the high prices and sacrifices these policies require to achieve some purportedly pollution-free economy, thwarting the perils of climate change?

Conservatives have focused on practical aspects of energy policy: prices, supply and demand, diversifying and broadening America’s energy base, production efficiency, and economic growth. It could point to tremendous success in fracking technology and to America’s growing capacity for cleaner energy production, even though the country still requires more energy. Along the way, America has become both more productive and more energy-independent. 

The new variable is AI, and its inescapable need for vast new sums of energy. How will America meet this challenge, central not only to economic vitality but also national security? How will America meet its energy needs? To answer these questions and more, Civitas Outlook has assembled four thinkers with diverse perspectives on how America’s energy policy should proceed, given our strengths and challenges.

Russ Greene

From Energy Repression to Energy Dominance

Steven F. Hayward

America’s Energy Revolution Continues

Mark Mills

Oil Remains the Epicenter of Commerce, Geopolitics, and Energy

Michael Toth

The War on Affordable and Abundant Energy Continues

10:13
1x
10:13
More articles

The Future of ESG and DEI

Politics
May 20, 2026

Mamdani’s Baseless Invocation of International Law

Politics
May 19, 2026
View all

Join the newsletter

Receive new publications, news, and updates from the Civitas Institute.

Sign up
The latest from
Economic Dynamism
View all
  Lives Entwined in the Great Stock Market Collapse
Lives Entwined in the Great Stock Market Collapse

It is highly unlikely that we in the present are any smarter than the characters caught in the great drama of a century ago.

Alex J. Pollock
May 14, 2026
The Keynes Symposium
The Keynes Symposium

Assessing Keynes' General Theory on Employment, Interest, and Money at 90.

May 13, 2026
What SpaceX’s IPO Tells Us About American Capital Markets
What SpaceX’s IPO Tells Us About American Capital Markets

The ultimate trajectory of SpaceX remains uncertain, a reflection of the inherent nature of progress at the frontier rather than a flaw in the system that produced it.

Julia R. Cartwright
May 6, 2026
Chicago’s “Disappearing Middle Class” Can Be Found in Its Proliferating Upper Middle-Class Neighborhoods
Chicago’s “Disappearing Middle Class” Can Be Found in Its Proliferating Upper Middle-Class Neighborhoods

The middle class has not been hollowed out; rather, the overall decline stems from the net movement of families upward into the upper-middle class.

Scott Winship
April 30, 2026
Is Economics a Failure?
Is Economics a Failure?

Rather than ending with “economics is broken,” Alexander Rosenberg’s deliberately provocative book 'Blunt Instrument' argues that “economics is useful for a different reason than economists often say.” That is a serious and worthwhile thesis.

Michael Munger
April 16, 2026
Richard M. Reinsch II
Civitas Outlook
The Future of ESG and DEI

Though things will likely not become as radical as the Covid hysteria of 2020 and 2021, there is still plenty of institutional “muscle memory” for ESG that will make its re-emergence all too easy.

Civitas Outlook
Mamdani’s Baseless Invocation of International Law

The entire left-wing establishment is completely defenseless against Mamdani’s invocations of international law and the vague insinuation that Zionist Jews are doing something wrong.

Join the newsletter

Get the Civitas Outlook daily digest, plus new research and events.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Ideas for
Prosperity

Tomorrow’s leaders need better, bolder ideas about how to make our society freer and more prosperous. That’s why the Civitas Institute exists, plain and simple.
Discover more at Civitas