Tilting At More Windmills
Posted by: Jubal | 06/12/2008 3:08 PM
The Wall Street Journal published an excellent editorial on the insanity of locking up our energy-producing natural resources amidst rising oil prices:
Yeah, I know: more solar, wind, mass transit, blah, blah, blah. But let's get real: we're not going to become a nation of Ed Begley, Jrs.
And I hope someone on the GOP side is tracking Loretta's votes on these issues.
Here's a link to Dan Henninger's "Wonderland" column on the same subject.
$4 Gasbags
Anyone wondering why U.S. energy policy is so dysfunctional need only review Congress's recent antics. Members have debated ideas ranging from suing OPEC to the Senate's carbon tax-and-regulation monstrosity, to a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to new punishments for "price gouging" - everything except expanding domestic energy supplies.There's much more, and you can read it here.
Amid $135 oil, it ought to be an easy, bipartisan victory to lift the political restrictions on energy exploration and production. Record-high fuel costs are hitting consumers and business like a huge tax increase. Yet the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank.
Yeah, I know: more solar, wind, mass transit, blah, blah, blah. But let's get real: we're not going to become a nation of Ed Begley, Jrs.
And I hope someone on the GOP side is tracking Loretta's votes on these issues.
Here's a link to Dan Henninger's "Wonderland" column on the same subject.
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National Stuff
Mr. Ayer registered as a Republican to be electable in an interim election with no incumbents. He did...
So let's say we expand domestic energy supplies. Is that to be the total solution? There's reason to believe the supply of oil in the ground is finite. Can't we start doing something to conserve and to develop alternatives to petroleum?
Conservation is not the total answer. Alternative sources are not the total answer, at least not in the short run. Mass transit isn't the total answer, particularly in southern California. But "expanding domestic energy supplies" is surely not the total answer either.
Nobody said it was.
And not exploiting those resources because it isn't "the total answer" would be an egregious case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.