See the previous entry. At the same time Rush Limbaugh was saying that people do not "understand" the gasoline market, as he was DISTORTING it, he was saying that there is no "quick fix" for gasoline prices. WRONG (probably). See the previous entry in this blog telling you exactly what CAN be done about the price of oil and gasoline.
Meanwhile, Bill O'Reilly said last night that we should have a LAW mandating that every vehicle sold in the U.S. be a "flex fuel" vehicle. FREEDOM anyone? CENTRAL LPLANNNG anyone (that discredited goal of socialism and Communism)? Free markets anyone. Obviously neither O'Reilly (especially) nor Limbaugh (with his equating of free markets with big corporate empires themselves) is promoting the idea of free markets here (Big Oil empires created by mergers are a DISTORTION of free markets).
Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, is taking the CORRECT view that we CAN do something about oil prices (even though I have major doubts about this "American Solutions" idea of Gingrich that we can arrive at a COCENSUS of what needs to be done about every problem in this country). Gingrich has a petition out there asking the government to allow oil companies to DRILL NOW. That means Anwar, the Continental shelf, and oil shale in the Rocky Mountains (not exactly "drilling").
Reference the leftist LIE (see previous entry this week) that we can't "drill" our way out of dependence on foreign oil, and therefore have to go the stupid, central planning, anti-freedom, O'Reilly way of the government directing all energy production and all energy using products--meaning the govenment totally takes over both the economy and your lives.
As Gingrich says, the PSYCHOLOGY of oil prices (and speculaton) is such that the mere PROOF that we are serious about DRILLING for more oil will likely collapse the present oil price BUBBLE. Anwar is "pristine" only in the sense that Saudi Arabia (which leftists suggest is a villain mainly because ot the Michael Moore kook theory about its connection with the Bush family, but also for not producing more oil) SAND is "pristine". Anwar is a wilderness of ice. Not even many animals live there. WE could have been drilling there since 1996 or so (when Clinton vetoed the bill), without harming ANY useful environment (not to mention that oil drilling technology is now capable of drilling in that kind of wilderness without hardly affecting it--the main effect probably being housing the workers and equipment).
As Gingrich says, BRAZIL is heading toward energy independence by a COMBINATION of sugar based ethanol (considerably better than corn based ethanol and soybean based biodiesel, albeit with its own problems in reducing the rainforest and not as efficient as OIL) and OFFSHORE DRILLING. Brazil has made major oil finds in the Atlantic, whiile our companies have been unable to drill on our own continental shelf. Of course, Brazil finds may add to future WORLD supply, but drilling in the U.S. would add MORE to world supply, in addition to helping us becopme less dependent on foreign sources.
In one of those outrageous FEDERAL GOVERNMENT obstacles to lower fuel (and food) prices, tariffs and restrictions on importation of Brazilian sugar bassed ethanol makes no sense, and ptentially prevents lower fuel prices here--even as ethanol MANDATES here (using 30% of our corn crop and rising) ADDS to the cost of gasoline. Unfortunately, Brazil probably does not have much sugar based ethanol to export, but the policy is still nuts. It is nuts for the same reason that the recent Farm Bill was nuts--a POLITICAL interference with free trade to "protect" American farmers. This, of course, is also raising the price of food. Meanwhile, biodiesel fuel is so expensive that many of the plants constructed based on the POLITICAL expectation of government mandates and subsidies are shut down.
Right now, we are PAYING the gasoline companies 5 billion dollars a year (and rising) to comply with government mandates on using ethanol. The stuff is STILL too expensive, and is raising our price of gasoline (crucitying us on the leftist mantra of "alternative" energy, augmented by the farm lobby). John McCain has correctly said that we should SUSPEND (we should ELIMATE the idea for good) the SHAM of ethanol mandates by the Federal Government.
Stop the envrionmental insanity preventing new refineries, drilling, and nuclear power plants. STOP this headlong, lemming like rush toward raising fuel prices with environmental REGULATION. My brother--co-owner of a trucking compnay--ays that recent polluton control regulatons have raised his costs (really, I think, just on the price of fuel, although I am not positive there) 8 to 12%. He says that NEW regulations are going to add at least 25 cents to the cost of diesel, in addition to raising the cost of new engires (which are required, in my brother's view, to put out an exhaust CLEANER than the air that goes into the engine).
The idea that we can't do immediate things to lower the price of gasoline and diesel is just WRONG. What that really means is that leftists do not believe we can do anything which they WANT to do, and they don't really want to lower the cost of oil based, "carbon" products anyway.
I have not even gotten to the DEMAND side. Free market theory relies on the theory of supply and demand, which DOES work in oil and gasoline--just imperfectly.
As I said before, President Bush should IMMEDIATELY direct the Federal Government to TIGHTEN ITS BELT (as the rest of us have to tighten ours) and IMPLEMENT plans (agency by agency) to REDUCE gasoline usage by the Federal Government by 20% in 30 days. Don't tell me it can't be done. I am morally certain it CAN be done. I, myself, have reduced by gasoline consumption by over 90%. I no longer have a car, and WALK most places (or use a bus). Admittedly, this is because of my eyesight rather than gas prices, but it is ridiculous to say it can't be done. You just have to have the WILL to take the necessary measures.
AFTER puting in place the EXECUTIVE ORDER requiring the Federal Government to reduce gasoline consumption (from RECENT levels and not from levels of a year ago, if tjhose are hiagher, as they should be but may not be), President Bush should challenge employers to do the same--using the Federal Government as an EXAMPLE. He should go an and challenge INDIVIDUALS to do the same (although many may already have been froced into some such action). People, INCLUDING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, should sit down and BUDGET their fuel.
Yes, the government should even suggest ways for it to be done, and PUBLISH government plans being impletmented to reduce FEDERAL gasoline usage.
My brother has suggested measures like telecommuting one day a week (allowing employees to do that) and 4 day work weeks (10 hour days). Those measures may not reduce gaoline usage as much as they should, because people might use their cars more for personal things. STill, it might work. My brother has also suggested the EXPANDED McCain approach of suspending a whole host of environmental regulations now in effect, or which just went into effect. Some of those regulations are directly affecting the cost of transportion costs and food, such as the regulations requiring new engines for trucks (less efficient engines) at an EXTRA cost of $8,000.00 per truck.
Again, this IMMEIDIATE action would have more than just DEMAND reduction benefits. It would show the oil market that we are SERIOUS about reducing the demand for oil and gasoline. The Federal Government should also announce an IMMEDIATE program to reduce ALL energy usage by the Federal Government, as an EXAMPLE to us all--again publishing the DETAILS of the ACTIONS taken. This will all DRAMATICALLY affect the psychology of the oil markets.
Combine the above assault on demand with more OIL DRILLING, and less environmental restriction, and you can definitively burst the BUBBLE in oil prices. You might well have oil under 50 dollars a barrel again (something leftist environmentalists do NOT want).
Gingrich suggests releasing HALF of the strategic oil reserve on the market, at the rate of 2 million barrels a day. To me, that is short sighted. That is a NATIONAL SECURITY measure designed for supply disruption. Once you start using it promiscuously as a polical weapon against gasoline prices, the real purpose may be completely undermined.
HOWEVER, I have said before (over at least a YEAR, and not just in the last month) that it was STUPID to keep ADDING (HOARDING oil--a TERRIBLE example to other countries) to the strategic oil reserve at ever increasing prices. You should add to the reserve when prices are LOW, and not aid the speculators drive prices higher. We probably added several MILLION gallons of oil to the reserve over the past year that we should not have added.
I am open to the idea of a PILOT release, or authority for he President to release, about 2 or 3 million barrels on the market at a rate of 100,000 barrels a day. Sure, this would be mainly symbolic. But it would indicate we are SERIOUS. The oil markets would have to worry about what I would worry about: the possibility that we might start REALLY using the reserve as Gingrich is advocating. This is an "advanced", dangerous form of "chicken", and I am really ambivalent about it.
However, I DO, as stated above, believe that there are MANY things we cando about the price of gasoline that do NOT involve ONE government mandate, and not ONE expenditure of a taxpayer dollar. Nor do these measures involve any extra REGULATION, or expansinon of government. In fact, these measures would SAVE taxpayer dollars (reducing gasoline and energy use by the Federal Government, and the President shjould challenge CONGRESS to match the program within Washington and back in their home offices), and it would REDUCE government interference in the free market. Rather, these measures would ENCOURAGE the free market to operate.
Even my ONE recommended government action against energy comopanies would be in AID of free markets, and not an INTERFERENCE. The President should announce that he will OPPOSE any further mergers of big companies in energy markets, and even that he will look into breaking up portions of energy companies with too much power in individual regions (because of previous mergers). I put this LAST, because it ain't going to happen. Republicans like Rush Limbaugh are too wedded to their allegiance to big business, even when such allegiance makes no sense in terms of free market theory, and Democrats LIKE big business (don't let them tell you otherwise) as a SOURCE of funds (both for campaigns and for government use). Democrats further NEED "big business" as a bogeyman to advocate Big Government as the only agency available to control the "excesses" of those evil, big corporations. Nope. It ain't going to happen (a campaign aganst big mergers in Big Drug, Big Oil, Big Telecom, etc.). Nevertheless, it should happen.
I dare anyone to read the above and say that we can't do anything IMMEDIATELY to affect gasoline prices. We CAN. We just don't have the WILL to do so, because there are too many people with agendas out there who do not WANT to do anything about gasoline prices.
Will the public contnue to put up with it? Well, see yesterday's entry about lemmings. More importantly, maybe, our POLITICIANS are providing no leadership on this. John McCain is out there talking about "global warming" and OPPOSING drilling in Anwar. Brack Obama is advocating a windfall profits tax that cannot possibly reduce the price of oil or gasoline ONE PENNY (rather, it will likely RAISE the price of gasoline), and leftist Democrats are salivating over USING oil company profits to finance their pet politiclal projects.
Do you wonder why I say that conservatives are being exiled to the wilderness, to wander without direction. I will go further: SANE, intelligent people are being shunted aside here as the inmates take over the asylum.
You can disagree with some of the things I say above, but the idea that we can do NOTHING but mouth meaningless platitudes about "energy independence" and "alternative energy" at some vague time in the future is INSANE. We may not survive it, or the present zenith of the power and influence of radical, leftist environmentalists.
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