Due, ok, so you're just shifting the statistics burden to the states and not the public sector. there we can have 50 bueracracies and keep big government going. Some things are better centralized, imo.
Another thought on privatization (which I see you're not advocating):
In Monkey's model, privatization would get the info out of the free press and help the energy industry avoid the eyes of the media. Should the media have to buy the data? Isn't that obstructing the free press?
If reporting and statistics are a private sector function, then is energy any different than census data, etc? Seems rather chaotic to me.
So does pushing it to the states. I'd hate to turn them into 50 little countries, too...