Change, Please
Obama, Ethanol, and Energy Prices
By Jonathan Weber, 6-23-08
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| Obama in Montana April 5. File photo by Anne Medley. | |
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Two stories in the New York Times today suggest that Senator Obama has some work to do if he wants his energy policy to match his campaign rhetoric. First is a piece about Obama’s ties to the ethanol industry and his support of America’s current (and very irrational) ethanol regime. While it’s no surprise that a Senator from a corn state would support corn-based ethanol, there isn’t an economist or energy policy analyst under the sun who thinks the current combination of huge subsidies for inefficient corn ethanol and prohibitive tariffs on efficient, sugar-cane-based Brazilian ethanol makes any sense. At least some compromise on both of those issues ought to be one of the litmus tests as to whether Obama is serious about breaking from politics-as-usual.
The second piece was about an Obama proposal to crack down on oil “speculators.” I’m not an expert on energy regulation and I don’t doubt that there are some regulatory gaps to be plugged. But, there’s no emptier way to score political points than to blame [pick your problem] on evil Wall St. moneymen. Frankly, we can only hope that high oil prices are the result of speculation, because if that’s the case they will eventually crash. More worrisome is that high prices are actually the result of...terrible policies on the part of the country that burns the most oil and controls the currency in which oil is priced.
Senator John McCain’s new cure-all, offshore drilling, isn’t any better. A real energy policy, anyone?
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Comments
Perhaps you've heard McSame's brilliant idea to get rid of the 18 cents a gallon Federal Highway Fund tax, so you get 8 cents, the oil companies get 10, and you have to buy tires and fix your alignment twice as often? I think that might be emptier.
P.S. Do you know anyone that lost their retirement to McSame economic advisor Phil Gramm's Enron loophole? I do. I doubt those political points are so empty to them.