The candidates who will get my vote this November will be those who stop pandering to me when it comes to the politics of oil. All it has brought us is record high gas prices and a nation more dependent than ever on others for our energy needs. That says a lot about how our government's short-term solutions can produce even bigger long-term problems.
Like when the U.S. government needed a clean air additive for gasoline after discovering MTBE has an odd effect of making groundwater poisonous. What about ethanol? Completely renewable, will help farmers by increasing demand for their crops, and grown here in the good ol' U.S.of.A so it would help reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It's a win-win-win, right?
So where did we end up? Record prices for many crops because so many acres are now being used for fuel, not food ... record high gas prices because ethanol really does nothing to make gas cheaper, and by the way ... taxpayers still subsidize the production of ethanol ... and to add insult to injury, we also subsidize farmers who have seen their crop prices explode. I don't know how many orifices are in your body, but I'm pretty sure you are paying out of all them right now.
It speaks to the folly of quick, easy answers to complex problems such as energy policy. Here are two more easy answers that make no sense.
Temporarily eliminate the federal gas tax. Forget for a moment that the money this tax generates for our transportation infrastructure is critically needed. A collapsing interstate highway bridge in Minnesota is not a sign you should pull back on your highway investment. The individual savings from temporarily eliminating the federal gas tax aren't that great either. Let's say you drive 1000 miles a month in a vehicle that gets 20 miles to the gallon. That's 50 gallons of gas times the 18 cents a gallon federal tax equals a whopping $9/month. And if you make the assumption that a lower cost of gas will lead to more consumption, you won't even save that much because gas prices will rise even faster. Sorry John and Hillary, Barack is right on this one.
The second easy answer is to allow more domestic drilling in areas that are currently off limits like the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. This is one of Bill Sali's favorites, and he sends us press releases blaming Democrats for high gas prices because they refuse to budge on this issue. That's because on this issue, the Democrats are right. Everyone (including Sali I suspect) knows that drilling for more oil in Alaska will have a negligible impact on the price of a gallon of gas. The problem is exploding world demand, and even if we doubled the domestic oil production tomorrow, America's limited refining capacity would keep prices very high. Oil companies are just too smart to invest hundreds of millions of dollars for new refineries they suspect may be obsolete not far down the road. Allow oil companies to drill for more here, and would they would just take the extra oil, sell it at a huge markup on the world market and pocket the cash. I think they're making enough already.
Besides, in a turbulent world, oil is black gold we're treating too much like black tin. There is a limited supply of it, and like gold in a vault, we're better off keeping some of our remaining domestic supplies untapped in case we really need them later.
The real answer ... the answer few politicians will give you ... is we have to get more serious about developing alternate forms of energy while mandating conservation, and if we can do that, the economic benefits to all of us would be enormous.
Just one example. Let's say gas finally stabilizes at $5 a gallon, but the government works with automakers to develop affordable technologies that quadruple fuel efficiency. That technology is closer than you think. Get there, and suddenly a $5 gallon of gas is really costing you $1.25 because it goes four times farther. But wait, it gets better. Suppose instead of gasoline, your vehicle runs mostly on electricity. Producing electricity costs a fraction of using gas for energy because of how it is generated and distributed. Capturing energy from hydro or solar or wind or geothermal can be costly to start up, but there is savings long-term because the source of the renewable energy is free.
Some optimistically believe that in time, electric vehicles powered by renewable energy sources would be able to lower the cost of vehicle travel 10-fold ... meaning a $3.50 gallon of gasoline today would cost the equivalent of 35 cents in an electric vehicle. Could you imagine the amazing impact that would have on our economy? One-hundred percent of that energy would be home-grown, so dollars stay here instead of being exported to the middle east and other rather unstable oil producing nations, some of which support terrorists.
Makes you wonder why aren't politicians talking more about a home grown renewable energy policy. It's because getting there will be hard. The current political culture in the U.S. today assumes you and I are lazy and selfish. That we are unwilling to sacrifice now for the greater good later. That we will not vote for politicians who ask us to endure short-term pain for long-term gain.
If they're right, then no wonder so many politicians are blatantly pandering to us when it comes to energy. I suppose the question to you and I is ... "Are they right?"
I don't think those pandering politicians are right, and that's why I'm not voting for them. Will you?
Your fix for the energy problem, electric powered cars, is just another "quick fix" without examining the impacts, i.e. what do we do with all those dead batteries? Already a problem without adding millions of electric vehicles to the mix. Our government needs to step up with another "Manhattan Project" to develop vehicles that run on a fuel that is relatively cheap, renewable, and non polluting. As long as this problem is left in the hands of private industry nothing will be accomplished. The only thing that motivates private industry is "PROFIT". If they can't control the supply, they're not interested. Have you ever heard of a company that sells air? The demand is high, but nobody has a means of controlling the supply.
Posted by: Charles | May 22, 2008 at 08:27 AM
The ignorant redneck extremist criminal thug lives!
That's right.He's still alive.Simplot and all of his ignorant criminal thugs and cronies have followed me all the way here to Gettysburg,Pennsylvania.Even his Clinton sex scandal crony,Linda Tripp,has also come here.Their criminal harassment is relentless and never ending.These ignorant and backward criminal bigots of the radical WRONG-wing have been waging their discrimination,harasswment,and psychiatric slander warfare against me for about the past 25 years.They have completely ruined and destroyed my entire life.And all the crooked cops and corrupt government officials keep taking sides with them instead of upholding justice.
This entire U.S.A. is being run by arrogant conservative criminals above the law.All these ignorant and backward redneck bigots have done sold the entire country out to crooked rich criminals involved in secret societies like the Illuminati and the Mafia.Boise,Idaho is about the most ignorant,backward,and corrupt place in the U.S.A.
Posted by: Christopher Lynn Skinner | August 03, 2008 at 01:39 PM