Diary Of A Mad Voter: Heath Haussamen
Let’s Focus On Oil Addiction
By Heath Haussamen, 5-16-08
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Ninety-seven U.S. senators voted on Tuesday to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for six months, a move they say they hope will help ease the gas-price burden on motorists through the summer months. The vast majority of House members later followed suit in approving the proposal.
But the reality is that this was a do-nothing vote following weeks of partisan rhetoric designed to make it look, in this election year, like Congress is doing something to allay the concerns of angry Americans who are watching gas and food prices skyrocket. Meanwhile, substantive legislation that would actually help solve America’s energy and fuel crisis is nowhere to be found.
The rhetoric began on April 29 when President Bush publicly blamed Congress for doing nothing about rising oil prices. Two days later, Senate Republicans responded first, with U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, backed by 19 Republican cosponsors, holding a news conference to announce legislation that would increase domestic oil production with more offshore drilling and by opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
Shortly after Domenici, R-N.M. and the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, announced the introduction of that legislation, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. and chair of the committee, gave a speech on the Senate floor calling for a halt to the filling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He also made other proposals, including the suggestion that Americans drive slower.
Bingaman’s suggestions were soon followed by a bill from Senate Democrats that included some proposals he backed and others he did not. Democrats and Republicans then spent several days sending out news release after news release attacking the others’ proposals.
Domenici and Bingaman were no exception, engaging in the partisan rhetoric along with everyone else. A news release from Bingaman’s office “highlights flaws in Senate Republicans’ energy proposal,” while a release from Domenici says the Democrats’ plan is “running on empty.”
The Senate rejected Domenici’s proposal to increase production before voting overwhelmingly on Tuesday to stop filling the reserve, which would put another 70,000 barrels of oil per day on the market. That pales in comparison with daily consumption and would have little or no effect on gas prices. At best, prices would drop a few cents per gallon, only to start rising again from that point. That’s one reason the president has said he opposes the proposal.
A long-term solution is needed
All the talk is about short and mid-term solutions - conserving oil, increasing production of oil, tightening oversight of oil companies and increasing taxes on oil companies. But focusing on oil won’t cure our addiction to it. Gas prices are going to continue to rise. We can increase domestic production and fuel efficiency as much as possible, but we’re not going to decrease our dependence on oil that way. We’ll just slow the rate at which it’s increasing.
The only way to decrease our dependence on oil is to replace it with other fuel sources.
We need leaders with the long-term vision to find ways to encourage or force development of alternative fuel and energy sources. America must break its addiction to oil, foreign and domestic. That’s going to take a long time. It will take leaders willing to set a goal that may not be accomplished until long after they leave office. In a political system that focuses on short-term thinking and the 24-hour news cycle, that’s going to be difficult.
But the only real solution is putting aside partisan rhetoric to work through substantive policy differences and find compromises that will increase America’s use of alternative fuel and energy sources. With gas and food prices shooting up as the economy and wages continue to stagnate, we can’t afford to waste our time with short-term political stunts that do little or nothing to solve the problem. It’s time we focus on the long-term solution we should have tackled years ago.
Editor’s note: Heath Haussamen’s weekly blogs are part of NewWest.Net/Politics’ “Diary of a Mad Voter” feature, a group blog, published in partnership with the Denver Post’s Politics West intended give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the ‘08 election cycle. For more columns check in with www.newwest.net/madvoter. And for more information on each of the bloggers, click here.
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Comments
It may come even sooner, as it appears that special election loss in a very red Mississippi district last week set off a four alarm fire in the House yesterday. In a panic, 2/3 of House Republicans decided not to vote for the latest Iraq spending bill and they trying to jump off the S.S. McBush as fast as any rat has ever jumped ship. I think that opens a window where Republicans who a very scared of losing their elections will quit playing games, tell the Boehner to go Cheney himself, and get to passing alternative legislation.
At least it will be a start (and it will come too late to save any of those who hugged the Decider so tight for the last 8 years).
It's also too bad that the media and the farmers create a food versus fuel dichotomy. Replacing oil will take a menagerie of sources, from ethanol to coal-to-liquid. If a large corporation like Tyson can fuel their machinery with synthetically produced oil(made from chicken pars and auto junk), I think America can do better.
We can demand that wind farms be allowed to be built and force the environmental groups preventing them to back off.
There are mroe things, but these are a good start.
Solar is still too expensive for mass useage, but certainly it would be a good place for envirnmentla groups to invest some of their million in reasearch to bring the cost down.
We knew all these things back in the early seventies...
A viable vision is promoted by Apollo Alliance, a coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution in America to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, cut the carbon emissions that are destabilizing our climate, and expand opportunities for American businesses and workers.
Sadly, high fuel costs are more effective than political slogans in changing behavior, such as less motorized recreation (from private jets to ATVs), home improvements (insulation, windows, solar panels), rising demands for public transportation in communities large and small and tax breaks for wind, solar, geothermal, tidal and alternative energy research.
Germany, which does not have a sunny clime, is a world leader with solar energy -- you can find panels on almost every roof and some farmers have solar arrays in their fields, like crops.
My own household is bicycling more, driving less, trying to sell our gas-thirsty 4x4, planting a garden, planning a backyard greenhouse (as we install higher R-value windows, recycle the old into the greenhouse) and supporting candidates who acknowledge and recognize that the last 7 years have been a flaming disaster and that great changes are needed for my children and grand-children to have any chance, any hope at all.