Posted on 09/12/2008 6:49:24 PM PDT by Kaslin
The recent conflict between Georgia and Russia has once again highlighted the profound danger that oil dependence poses to free nations, including the United States. Our nation's deep reliance on oil, largely imported from unstable and, in some cases, hostile regimes is corrosive to the integrity and effectiveness of American security policy.
The vast oil and natural gas reserves of Russia, combined with vulnerable energy infrastructure located in Georgia and neighboring countries, effectively eliminated the possibility of a principled and robust U.S. and European response to military aggression against a valued ally.
Another crisis in which U.S. oil dependence handcuffs foreign policy options and emboldens adversaries could occur at any moment in any place across the globe. This threat to U.S. security and economic stability is unacceptable.
The U.S. can no longer remain at the mercy of events beyond our control. We can no longer simply react to crises and call it an energy policy. And we can no longer wait. It is time to change the energy equation.
Five Democratic and five Republican Senators — the "Gang of 10" — have presented to the nation a comprehensive energy proposal that would help achieve precisely that goal.
Two-thirds of the oil consumed by the United Sates is used in the transportation system, which depends on petroleum to provide 96% of its energy needs. The Gang of 10 proposal offers a pathway toward an electrified transportation system that is dramatically less dependent on oil.
It is a balanced, thoughtful and politically courageous plan, and if we are to truly turn away from our current dangerous path, it is crucial that elected officials, business leaders, the national security community, and the public encourage this effort.
The electrification of transportation represents a major transformation of our energy equation.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
Drill here, drill now!
Please excuse my skepticism, but I don’t believe, or trust, anything that Lindsey Grahamnisty is involved in.
The terrible Gang of 16 plan is a disastrous mistake. Sacrificing the 1st real chance for fundamental change US Energy policy in 30 years just so they can say “we did something”.
No Gentlemen of the Senate, the fight is here, the fight is now, and you must fight. There can be no compromise that leaves us with false illusions of progress that accomplish nothing.
The fact is, though, that the longest stretch of electrified rail in the country -- the Milwaukee Road, from Montana to Puget Sound -- took down the catenary over thirty years ago. And the line is now abandoned.
Moving freight by rail with diesel locomotion is actually the most efficient use of fossil fuels that we have. Why we would replace it without addressing the fundamental supply issue is beyond me.
IBD and the ARA are looking at the potential subsidy and licking their chops. In the meantime, Lindsay Graham is once more playing the fool.
Gang of 10?
The only thing standing in the way of energy independence is Liberalism.
Drill Here, Drill Now, Drill deep.
The entire problem is a product of gavernment MEDDLING in the process - and the only feasible cure is to eliminate the government meddling that caused it.
The first - and most damaging - meddling was the federal drilling ban itself. It happened without forethought, based on specious reasons and even more specious reasoning.
Congress followed that with the MTBE mandate debacle. They made it mandatory, before its toxicity became apparent and they banned it.
They followed that with the current ethanol mandate, which they have now expanded far beyond the capacity of American agriculture to meet. And we see the effect every time we buy adulterated gasoline and discover that our mileage is reduced by the percentage of ethanol it contains. And we also see what this focus on ethanol has done to the price of almost everything in the grocery store!
Now these idiots of the single-digit Congress want to tax 68 BILLION dollars “from the oil companies.” Folks, companies NEVER pay taxes. They just pass them along to their customers, and that is US! My own idiot Senator Corker’s flunky had the nerve to tell me - an Econ teacher - that it wasn’t really new taxes, just some old tax breaks being removed. I asked him what the effect on their revenues would be. His first answer was that they would be reduced, but I reminded him that in fact they would increase due to the higher price they would charge to cover the larger amount they would have to send to the government.
But worst of all is what they would do with this ill-gotten cash. They would “invest” in politically correct “green” energy sources - like ethanol, hydrogen, wind, and solar. NONE OF THESE is capable of taking the place of more that a small fraction of the job done by coal and petroleum - and massive amounts of spending will not convert those boondoggles into practical solutions. Each of them might have its place in an integrated energy economy, but none of them - nor all of them together - will be the solution.
Instead, we need dozens, or even hundreds of research projects, looking at all kinds of alternatives. My personal favorites would be bioengineered algae grown in closed reactors using seawater or waste water such as agricultural runoff and CO2 from a power plant, brewery, or other industrial source, producing “green crude” that could be fed directly into any petroleum refinery. But I might be wrong, of course. However, research of this kind does not require massive funds. Development does, but at that point private investment funds will FLOOD in.
Meanwhile, we clearly need to find and extract every available barrel of American oil, wherever it can be found. ALL exploration and drilling restrictions need to be lifted or allowed to expire, and the President - Bush or McCain - needs to announce that ANY bill containing such restrictions will be vetoed!
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