Energy Policy
A Deserving Victim Of The Crash
An AP article out yesterday says that many ethanol plants, which have popped up like warts in the last few years, are being shuttered. Good riddance.
October 9, 2008 | Read More
Reason #89: Saddam Hussein - Just Another American Rent-a-Thug
If we hope to understand this war and its senseless killing, we need to take a hard, cold look at how the disaster began with our own shameful foreign policy. We need to talk about our good buddy Saddam, and all the back-slapping and cigars we shared with him. He was just another one of “our guys” like Manuel “Rent-a-Colonel” Noriega.
For more than a decade, beginning in the 1970s, the United States gave him weapons and he did favors in return. He helped get American oil interests set up in the Middle East. And, beginning in 1980, he went to…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #81: Gasholes and Jackgases - Isolation on Wheels
Americans like to picture themselves driving off into the sunset, but right now, unless we make real changes to our energy policy, we’re speeding toward a cliff.
The farthest place you can get from Europe and its bullet trains is Smugsville, USA. Everyone here’s got a “up yours” attitude and we’re proud of it. How do you know you’re in Smugsville? When you’re in a car, by yourself, with the pedal to the metal and bass booming in your ears as you jerk the wheel back and forth to cut from lane to lane.
Let’s face it: We’re a culture on wheels. We demand…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #79: Ethanol, Another Phony Solution
Another stupid idea that politicians like to pitch is filling our tanks with corn ethanol. But again, it’s nothing but another boondoggle that lets politicians act like they’re doing something about our energy needs.
First of all, corn ethanol is horribly inefficient. Turning an ear of corn into fuel costs more than a dollar a gallon and it eats up almost as much fuel as it yields. What’s more, it corrodes pipelines, meaning every drop of it has to be hauled to the pump in tanker trucks. So we not only burn tons of energy just to make the stuff, we…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #77: Bush Energy Leadership = More Oil Profits
In August 2005, when Bush’s Energy Policy Act was signed into law, Jimmy Carter’s fears from 1977 became a terrible reality. Bush practically rolled out a red carpet for what Carter had called “oil profiteering,” “unfair advantages,” and “an economic, social and political crisis that threatens our free institutions.”
Bush’s Energy Policy Act gave numerous tax incentives to oil companies (no joke). And Title IX, Subtitle J called for payments totaling $1.5 billion to be made to oil corporations. Altogether, the oil companies would reap about $8 billion in these corporate welfare payments from the government. Never mind that U.S. oil profits…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #75: Look Out Jimmy C, I’ve Got an SUV!
Jimmy Carter was serious about getting us off our oil addiction. He even had the cojones to suggest that consumers who make energy-wasting decisions should be held accountable, declaring: “Citizens who insist on driving large, unnecessarily powerful cars must expect to pay more for that luxury.” Compared to today’s watered-down political-speak, that’s one shocking statement, isn’t it?
Twenty-six years after Carter uttered those words, George W. Bush signed his Economic Stimulus Package of 2003, which awarded $100,000 in tax credits to people who purchased a 6,000 pounds-plus SUV. (A Hummer weighs around 6,400 lbs and gets ten miles to the gallon in cross-town…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #73: Politicians Keep Pushing the Oil Habit
For decades now, our government has failed to implement a cohesive energy policy to effectively reduce our dependence upon foreign oil. Because of this government failure we’ve got the current war in Iraq. Have we ever even tried to get off oil? Looking back through our national history, we find that a few leaders have made some half-assed attempts to get Americans to kick the fossil habit, and a few others have even taken firm and admirable stances. But time and again all real progress has been stymied by political bickering or by the influence of private interests in Washington. So our…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
