U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that she would be willing to hold a vote on opening up offshore drilling, but only if a bill addresses issues such as tax credits for wind and solar energy and releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve.
A follow up to my post “Drill, Drill, Drill”: it is not only the GOP that is repeating the slogan time and again. Newspapers are following suit. See, for instance, the Chicago Tribune. Its latest editorial is called “Drill for more oil,” which basically says it all. (more…)
When it comes to energy, Senator John McCain is quite a Republican maverick. He has said that he ‘respects’ former Vice President Al Gore’s work on this subject, and that he ’shares’ his (Gore’s) goals (energy independence, clean energy, and so on). (more…)
‘Despite the scientific consensus that climate change is occurring, there remain sharp political disagreements both here in the United States and around the world about how policymakers should respond. Nowhere is this gap more profound than between developed and developing countries,’ Richard G. Lugar and Henry M. Paulson Jr. write. (more…)
‘Oil prices had their biggest-ever jump on Friday, after a senior Israeli politician raised the specter of an attack on Iran and the dollar fell against the euro,’ the New York Times reports. ‘The gains on Friday capped a second day of strong gains on energy markets, and fueled suspicions that commodities might be caught in a speculative bubble.’ (more…)
Hidden from public view by a media that prefers to blame oil companies for the rapid increase in oil and gas prices is another cause — Democrats’ purist environmental policies. George Will highlights this in an excellent summary today in the Wall Street Journal. (more…)
It took a while, but Europeans have finally noticed that the price of oil has run completely out of hand. Honest to God, I didn’t realize that fuel had become as expensive as it has either, until I returned back in the Netherlands and had to buy fuel for in the car; slightly above 1.60 euro per liter for normal fuel (at the gas station I went to). That’s ridiculously high (say $2.50 per liter, that’s $6.25 per gallon if I am not mistaken). (more…)
Tom Friedman has something to say about energy, hard truths that most people don’t want to hear. As he notes, these are the things that our presidential candidates ought to be telling us but have not. Will anyone step forward?
The price of gasoline is never going back down. Therefore, if you buy a big gas guzzler today, you are locking yourself into perpetually high gasoline bills. You are buying a pig that will eat you out of house and home.
When I was at the Houston Energy Summit earlier this year the theme that ran the length and breadth of every presentation made was that of energy security. While the oil supply and pricing problems I’ve written about recently have not gone unnoticed in Congress, no concrete action has emerged from that body. Worse, Tom Friedman says that President Bush has not done any better.
There are two divergent views about future oil supply in the market in the news, the doom and gloom and the relatively optimistic. Who to believe? Does it matter? Should the view to which we subscribe change our energy policy?
America is way behind the 8-ball in terms of having a next-generation energy program. But instead of taking action, Congressional Democrats spent the day badgering oil executives about high gas prices and their personal compensation packages. Democrats like to talk about John McCain’s lack of economic know-how and not without some justification. But their own approach to energy policy practically screams out that they don’t know what they’re doing.
This article at the Washington Post will, I am sure, encourage many of those in favor of a huge energy independence project: a report says that the United States ‘has the ability to meet 20 percent of its electricity-generation needs with wind by 2030, enough to displace 50 percent of natural gas consumption and 18 percent of coal consumption.’ (more…)
The New York Times gets it right:
The time has come for Congress to rethink ethanol, an alternative fuel that has lately fallen from favor. Specifically, it is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol and to call a timeout in the fivefold increase in ethanol production mandated in the 2007 energy bill.
The situation is actually worse than that. It would have been better to say that ethanol has recent found favor, in spite of all logic. At any rate, we need to do far better than grain-based alcohol when it comes to replacing foreign oil.
(via memeorandum)
John McCain has joined with 23 other Senate Republicans to call for ethanol production mandates to be eased in light of rising grain prices. McCain did not vote on the 2007 energy bill that contains President Bush’s new bio-fuel requirements.
Food prices have increased substantially worldwide and CNN reports that riots have occurred in Egypt, Haiti, Yemen, Bangladesh and other nations. Johnny-on-the-spot, the United Nations formed a task force to discuss the problem, a definitive move that’s sure to put a chicken in every pot. Or not.
(via memeorandum)
Many of the same people who champion fuel-efficient, (relatively) environmentally-friendly automobiles are at the front lines calling for the government to "do something" about high gasoline prices. For these people, the news that higher gas prices are driving an unmistakable shift to the very cars they’d like us to drive must present a bit of a puzzle. Which agenda item to support? What a conundrum. But the truth is that their efforts were never needed. Free markets take care of rising prices and increased demand for commodities quite nicely, thank you.
(via memeorandum)
Federal gas taxes help support America’s transportation system, one in which roadways all over the nation are being repaired and upgraded after a period of significant neglect. It’s unpleasant to pay the $0.18 extra per gallon, yet there are worse things.
Thomas Friedman has this to say about the unholy alliance of McCain & Clinton that embraces the foolhardy notion of removing the federal excise tax on gasoline for this summer’s rush to the pumps:
It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away.
Gasoline prices are at all-time highs here in Texas, including a whopping $3.46 in Houston, home of many oil-related businesses and refineries. Many parts of the U.S. are experiencing even higher prices, to say nothing of Europe, et al, so I expect little sympathy from most readers.
So what’s a government to do? Meddle, of course! But as Mark Steyn so eloquently puts it, “The real problem isn’t the “problem” but the Big Government solution to it.”
Today is “Earth Hour” day (supported by google). The idea is to turn off your lights from 8PM to 9PM local time, so as to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort. (more…)
Hillary Clinton has talked about what making the Green Corps a central part of her environmental initiatives. (more…)
This is the second part in a series on the Energy Summit in Houston, Texas. It’s an original report: PoliGazette’s Marc Moore traveled down to the Summit to report about this very important issue. (more…)
Original report: Energy industry leaders gathered in Houston yesterday to discuss the state of energy in the United States and the discussion immediately turned to economics. (more…)
Facing a do-or-die primary in Texas, Hillary Clinton delivered a great speech at the Houston Presidential Energy Summit tonight.
Paul Krugman points us to this Bloomberg article that makes the case against the Bush administrations ethanol mandate fairly well. Some highlights:
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