President has right ideas on energy!

Posted on May 1, 2008

Hillary wants to play with taxes this summer to give the illusion of “doing something” about gas prices. She would increase taxes on the oil companies to “offset” the loss to the treasury (begs the question - how will prices go down if the taxes on producers go up?). McCain also wants to suspend collection of the fed’s gas tax (haven’t heard him call for new taxes though). Obama says turn more corn into fuel (I guess that is in line with the thought that when you have a head ache, smash your thumb with a hammer - then you won’t notice the head ache as much!) he also wants to increase taxes on energy producers. Do Democrats think we are all stupid enough to believe that taxing the people who produce the gas will convince those people to not only eat the new taxes but cut their profits further by cutting prices for consumers? Businesses do not pay taxes, the businesses customers pay those taxes. Increasing taxes on gas producers will increase the price of gas - not reduce it.

Obama also says reducing the purchases of oil for the Strategic Reserve will help. Maybe if he had ever served in the military he would understand something about strategy. It involves thinking past the next battle, the next election. It involves thinking about what will happen in the future because of actions taken now.

His idea of Siphoning money from current energy producers and giving it to people who may or may not ever produce viable alternative sources of energy is not a strategy that will lead to lower costs to consumers.

On the whole, a former adviser to Algore said in the WaPo:

“The smart people say ‘It’s stupid,’ and the people who aren’t as schooled say ‘At least it will do something for me,’ ” he said. “I don’t know that anyone connects the dots: that there have been a series of politically expedient decisions . . . that have added up to an economic picture that is not at all rosy and in fact fairly disastrous.”

President Bush said Monday that we should look at the real reasons for the gas price run up. A big part is the lack of domestic supply. Congress has prohibited drilling in ANWR. The oil industry estimates that the disruption of that area would amount to around 2000 acres - which to someone living in Manhattan or in a 1200 square foot house might think is a lot of space - in comparison to the 8 million acres of ANWR it is tiny. I Google Earthed the area and picked out a small rectangular forest area about 2000 acres. It is the little black speck in the first picture (which does not show all of the ANWR). The small brown square on the second picture (the bulk of the state of Alaska) is the area in the first picture.

Picture 1 - Part of ANWR

Picture 2 Alaska

The technology of oil well drilling has evolved considerably in the past few years. So has the technology of transporting equipment over the frozen tundra. A well drilling location that 30 years ago disturbed some 65 acres today only needs less than 9 acres. Gravel covered roads of the past are now replaced by temporary ice roads - that do not disturb the tundra and totally disappear.

As an aside - I recently drove through Kansas and saw a new Wind Farm, thousands of acres of land covered with huge wind mills, far more impact on the land than is proposed for the drilling in ANWR.

There also is the problem of refinery capacity. Congress, state and local governments have placed so many roadblocks in the path of new refineries that none have been built is some thirty years and rebuilding those that do exist when they are damaged by weather or accidents is overly complicated. Thirty tears ago we exported refined petroleum products, today we import them.

If Congress and the people who would be President really intend to do anything to address the cost of energy and our dependence on foreign oil then they should take President Bush’s lead and pursue the known energy sources in this country first and let the alternative energy producers mature and prove that their production is viable - before the taxpayers and rate payers are hit with the bills for speculators’ theories.

» Filed Under Reid, Pelosi, Republicans, McCain, Democrats, general nonsense, North Carolina, Global Warming, Presidential Primary, Legislators, National Politics