The Obama/McCain Energy Charade
‘That smell on the nation’s highways isn’t just car exhaust. It’s also the rank odor of political populism, as John McCain and Barack Obama both try to score points with dubious energy ideas,’ writes Rick Newman.
Obama has now reversed an earlier stance and declared that the U.S. government should sell 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help ease the sting of $4 gas. That comes less than a week after Obama changed his mind about offshore drilling, deciding that some drilling in sensitive waters would be OK with him after all, given good environmental safeguards.
McCain has had his own inspired moments, including his call to suspend the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal tax on gasoline, and a $300 million prize for anybody who develops a miracle battery able to cheaply power a car. Hey, how about a prize for building a seven-passenger bicycle? Or a highway with no traffic?
There’s no secret behind the energy derby, of course. Record-high gas prices take a bite directly out of American paychecks and, with a shaky economy, pocketbook issues will carry the day for many voters in November. Both candidates are also priming the general disgust over America’s dependence on imported oil. And both have proposed some sensible ideas that aren’t terribly controversial. McCain, for instance, backs a hefty tax credit for people who buy cars with the lowest emission levels. Obama wants to lift the ceiling on a tax credit for hybrids that gets phased out once the manufacturer’s sales for each model hit 60,000.
But as both candidates surely know, some of their headline ideas for lowering gas prices are low-wattage nonsolutions.
Why? Read more here.
Along the same lines, the ever-pragmatic Dave Schuler has a nice post on energy and Obama here- http://theglitteringeye.com/?p=3896. Essentially, Dave argues that even under the most optimistic scenarios, our dependency upon ME oil is going to exist for a long time. I don’t think Dave would say that we should do nothing- but altnerative solutions aren’t feasible. As he says, even under Obama’s rosiest scenario, at the end of his presidency, 90% of all vehicles will still use gas.
Which is precisely why Obama specifically said (and took a lot of heat from the left for saying) that he would support expanded drilling as part of a broader package.
Such little details are always strangely left out by Obama’s critics in their attempt to create an always-bad-no-matter-what narrative. The fact that McCain’s critics do the exact same thing in the other direction doesn’t help at all nor does it justify anyone else’s intellectual dishonesty.
Actually, Schuler’s post is way better than most on this (at least he proposes a reasonable alternative to what he perceives as the flaws in Obama’s rhetorical approach), but I’m just on a “complain about the ridiculousness of the entire blogosphere” kick today.
I agree with Dave, by the way, about the possibility of independence and have said so time and again. The idea that you can become independent is ludicrous.
It’s not about independence, it’s about becoming less dependent.
Jason, this is EXACTLY the same logic that says domestic drilling won’t work, you realize that right?
MvdG, with capitalism, your independence is 0, no matter what. Unless you control how the oil gets sold, it is sold to the highest bidder, anywhere in the world, and it country of origin only affect trade balances, not ‘independence’.
Look, Kevin, I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself before your reading comprehension catches up, but no one ever said that drilling would “work” to provide a magical solution to all oil shortages. All that I (and others) have argued to you on that other thread is that increased oil exploration is worthwhile as part of a larger energy strategy that also includes accelerating investments in alternatives.
Your constant efforts at misrepresentation on this issue are becoming intensely annoying and I wish you would stop. Until you do stop and until you are willing to be a part of a serious and honest debate about the issue, I am not going to reply to you on it further.
No, I am getting very tired of you. You act like I’m not reading your argument but I have never, never said that you believe drilling is sole solution.
You just don’t understand math Jason, 2% < 50% in fact, it’s about 2500% bigger. Yet you treat oil and alternative energy as equals. Drilling is a side project. The future is in oil alternatives. It is just that simple.
Kevin, the 50% is highly, highly speculative though and there are serious wrinkles that need to be worked out of ANYthing that’s even on the horizon. Why can you not understand that we’re all simply saying that the 2% solution helps bridge the gap until those problems are worked out?
And since you’ve already admitted that the only reason NOT to drill is political, it’s quite obvious that you are putting the blame for the impasse on the wrong group.
50% might be a high end of the estimates, but so is 2%, .4% is the low estimate.
So, what’s more important CS, ‘bridging the gap’ with a 2% change, or making a 20-50% change happen a few years earlier. It would be worth 10 years of delay on dilling if we get 1 year of acceleration of alternatives.
ok, I’m done. this is going nowhere. i’ll see you in a week or two when we’ve calmed down.
Kevin, while you’re taking that deep breath, perhaps consider that you STILL haven’t responded to our repeated queries of why the repeal of drilling bans would slow down the emergence of alternative fuel technologies. If you come up with an answer for that, then a lot of us will be glad to resume the debate, but as long as you accept that as an axiom in your thinking but admit that the only reason that there’s a delay in promoting pro-alternative energy policy is because the Dems refuse to give in on drilling, then there really isn’t anything more to discuss.