Posted on 06/12/2008 3:29:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
The other day in southwestern Fresno County, a poor part of Central California, I talked with a number of folks at a rural gas station. Most drove second- and third-hand pickups, large cast-off sedans or used SUVs. Their general complaint was twofold: They didn't have the cash to buy a new fuel-efficient Honda or Toyota. And they were now spending a day or two of their wages just to fuel their cars for their long rural commutes.
But I also fill up three hours away on the San Francisco peninsula near Stanford University, where I work. High-priced hybrid cars and new more-efficient SUVs are everywhere. Mass transit is available and crammed. After listening to these quite different motorists, I can confirm an obvious rule about energy use: The wealthier and better educated seem less concerned about the price of gas.
Indeed, from my informal conversations at two very different gas stations, I would go even further: The wealthy, particularly those who are politically liberal, also like that high-priced gas translates into less burning of fossil fuels by others and will help accelerate research into alternative energies.
But what these elites don't seem to realize is that the energy policies they tend to advocate are for the present paralyzing almost everyone else in the country -- and that the truly ethical and environmental solution would require embracing positions long considered anathema to traditional liberalism.
The debate in Congress over more refineries and nuclear power plants; drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off our coasts; and developing oil shale, tar sands and liquid coal has been usually a predictable soap opera: Grasping Republicans supposedly wish to enrich energy companies, while idealistic Democrats want only to protect the environment. But those black-and-white positions, hatched in the good old days of $1.50-a-gallon gas, should now be revisited on the basis of far different moral considerations.
One is fairness to the poor and middle class. Like it or not, radical environmentalism (and those behind it who provide the lobbying, funding and influence to block energy legislation) appeals to an elite not all that worried when gas prices rise or electricity rates go up -- since fossil energy use goes down.
But a paradox is that most environmentalists think of themselves as egalitarians. So, instead of objecting to the view of a derrick from the California hills above the Santa Barbara coast, shouldn't a liberal estate owner instead console himself that the offshore pumping will help a nearby farm worker or carpenter get to work without going broke?
Another paradox: American laws and technology ensure a rig off Florida or in Alaska has far less chance of springing a leak than one in the Persian Gulf or the Russian tundra. If there really is a shared "planet earth," then aren't we all its collective stewards? By locking out energy exploration in the United States, we are encouraging it almost everywhere else.
No one is talking of more domestic drilling to give our SUVs and Hummers one last gasp at $2 a gallon gas. Everyone is already cutting back and waiting for more efficient engines and methods of conservation. Instead, producing as much of our own energy as possible means extracting more safely the world's oil for the world's biggest consumer.
Consider also how oil triggers a massive transfer of wealth abroad that is as illiberal as it is dangerous. Productive energy-strapped Americans, Europeans, Japanese, Chinese and Indians are working day and night to give the world critical material goods, ideas and services. To be blunt, oil-rich Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia and Iran are not.
At best, the massive transfer of national wealth to most oil producers translates into a Chinese worker on an assembly line working longer for less money while artificial island resorts pop up in the Persian Gulf. At worst, that strapped Chinese fabricator is also working harder for another Iranian centrifuge, al-Qaida landmine or Saudi-funded madrassa.
We should stop talking about suing the OPEC cartel, jawboning the House of Saud to lower prices, blaming the oil companies or adding yet another massive tax on sky-high gas prices. What we don't need right now are more pie-in-the-sky sermons about wind and solar saving us all or about millions of new jobs in green technology that can be almost instantly created.
That all may be well and good in a generation. But in the here and now, we still need to tap the abundant conventional energy we already have in the United States. And in large part that means building, mining and drilling.
Yes, drill like crazy, build refineries and nuke plants, and drop the imported ethanol tarriff.
And issue big fat tax credits for investing in alternative energy research.
Amen.
Why won’t Congress get it?
Better still, why are not congeressional Republicans positively hammering these points?
You want to score big with the great unwashed and save your precarious seats in the “club”? Pick up this issue!
That all makes perfect sense, which is why it will roll off the liberal mindset like water off a duck’s back.
While liberals claim to want to help poor people, they secretly despise them as grubby breeders who are having too many kids, causing pollution and wearing tacky clothes. Plus, poor people are more likely to be ICK! religious or even worse, Christians, so anything that makes life worse for them is no skin off their nose.
The left is quite simply against burning fossil fuels ... when cars emissions became so clean in the 1990’s that in many cities the exhaust from your car was cleaner than the air it injested they had to make carbon dioxide a pollutant to support their hatred of American wealth..
Drill Now! I want to see rigs off Florida’s coast flying a US flag ,, not just Cuba’s flag and China’s flag.
Many criticized Newt Gingrich for appearing in a TV ad with Nancy Pelosi. But what he did was get his foot in the door. What Newt did was open the way for others besides the nuts to propose solutions, not just the same old treehugger BS. It is one sign of hope. Another is that SD voted to build a new refinery, the first in many, many years. Drilling, nuke technology, and all kinds of new and innovative technology should be used to get this country off the foreign oil. The envirowhackos are trying to save the piping plover, and the rest of us have suffered long enough at the hands of those idiots.
Use OLD MILITARY BASES for REFINERIES!
WHERE'S OUR REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP?????GEt OUT HERE and FIGHT!
WHERE’S OUR REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP????? ........................... MAYBE ON THE LOBBIEST PAYROLL LIKE THE REST OF CONGRESS?
When that energy becomes far more expensive the costs far exceed the immediate cost of the energy itself. It ripples though out the economy costing jobs and productivity making us all poorer.
I want to DRILL EVERYWHERE — PACIFIC COAST, Gulf Coast and the Atlantic coast. Bush should say it is time to start drilling and if California doesn’t want us to drill, we should shut off the power to them. (They are a net IMPORTER of ENERGY, so we should stop giving them power!) We need to drill offshore, and build refineries, coal liquidification plants, oil shale plants and NUCLEAR POWER plants!!
Sure they pay more in Europe, but they also pay higher taxes. Oh is this what the democRats are leading up to, when they refuse to let the oil companies drill? I thought so
Most Europeans don’t even own a car...the govts want ONLY public transportation, so they keep the gas SO damn high, it prohibits average people from getting a car.
These people will be likely voting for their favorite Democrats in the upcoming elections...
You were doing good until you included that part about "dropping imported ethanol tarriff". The reality is that Brazil only produces 400,000 barrels of ethanol per day and most of that is consumed in that country. The USA consumes 8 million barrels of ethanol per day. Additionally, ethanol only contains 70% of the energy content that gas does. Ethanol simply isn't worth the oil invested to transport here.
Let the Brazillians keep their ethanol...we should be pressing Congress for more access to drilling, more access to oil shale and investment in coal to liquid production.
This is actually very bad. If it tukes millions more people working to provide me the same lifestyle I have now, we are all much poorer. We become richer when millions fewer people can provide me nmy current lifestyle. The remaining people then go to work increasing my standard of living.
My point is simply to let the market take care of itself. If ethanol is a ripoff, and it is, it will go away.
Biofuel development and improvement however, should be encouraged through tax credits.
Although I agree with all of the above posts, I think all of it misses the point.
We know and agree on the above. So the point is: How do we influence the idiots in congress, including senator Dole from my state?
How do we get rid of them? If that is not possible in the short term because of the election cycle, how do we knock sense into their heads?
Talking about it endlessly puts us in the same boat as the congress: All talk and no action.
What do we do?
I have written Senator Burr, who definitely agrees with us and I get good replies.
I have written Dole and if you did not see her name on it, you would swear that the reply came from Ralph Nader.
Anyone who is against drilling here and drilling now should be voted out of office!
And anyone like McCain who isn’t on board should get on board if they want to be elected on 11/4!
R U paying attention John McCain?
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