John McCain on Energy Policy
June 19th, 2008 at 07:36am Mark Noonan
It takes a very short leap in logic to wonder why we produce less and less crude oil, while we use more and more of it, or why politicians talk so much about promoting alternative energy sources, but often do so little to promote these alternatives. A reasonable observer, presented only with these numbers of consumption and production, might draw the conclusion that America has accepted this fate because we have no choice in the matter, or because we have no resources of our own. But just the opposite is true: We do have resources, and we do have a choice.
In oil, gas, and coal deposits, we have enormous energy reserves of our own. And we are gaining the means to use these resources in cleaner, more responsible ways. As for offshore drilling, it’s safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston. Yet for reasons that become less convincing with every rise in the price of foreign oil, the federal government discourages offshore production.
At the very least, one might assume, America had surely been building new refineries to achieve a more efficient delivery of gasoline to market, and thereby to lower the prices paid by the American people — especially in the summer season. But the policymakers in Washington haven’t got around to that, either. There’s so much regulation of the industry that the last American refinery was built when Jerry Ford was president.
As for nuclear energy — a proven energy source that requires zero emissions — we haven’t built a new reactor in 31 years. In Europe and elsewhere, they have been expanding their use of nuclear energy. But we’ve waited so long that we’ve lost our domestic capability to even build these power plants. Nuclear power is among the surest ways to gain a clean, abundant, and stable energy supply, as other nations understand. One nation today has plans to build almost 50 new reactors by 2020. Another country plans to build 26 major nuclear stations. A third nation plans to build enough nuclear plants to meet one quarter of all the electricity needs of its people — a population of more than a billion people. Those three countries are China, Russia, and India. And if they have the vision to set and carry out great goals in energy policy, then why don’t we?
So, taking stock of our energy situation, it is time we draw a few sensible conclusions of our own. In their sum effect on the American economy, the policies of our government could hardly have left us more dependent had they been designed to do precisely that.
There is plenty of blame to go around here - GOPers and Democrats have been remiss in their responsibilities to the nation as a whole as it relates to energy policy. Again and again President Bush proposed various measures we could have been taking over the past 7 years to reduce our dependency on oil and cut our oil imports, but no action has been taken - not under the GOP Congress, not under the Democratic Congress. That $50 you just shovelled into your gas tank is the result of decade after decade of doing nothing - or, worse, actually working against energy independence by over-concern about overblown environmentalist fearmongers and/or the worst sort of “nimbyism” which makes out that everyone wants energy, but no one wants it produced within a country mile of themselves.
It is time for a change - a real change; not more of the same from Obama and not pie-in-the-sky hopes for the future…we have oil, gas, coal and nuclear power sources, and we should be working out ways to maximize domestic energy production, while the high technology change over to new sources of energy is placed on the back burner until we get our energy house in order. McCain proposes to hit the problem head on and deal with it in a realistic manner - in spite of his bows to the global warming zealots, it is clear that he’s not going to allow environmentalist whackos to set energy policy. Clean, yes; but not so clean that nothing gets done. Human activity will always produce waste, and things like this are always a series of trade-offs with no perfect solution possible. Absent a few billion of us dying, we’re just going to have to work with things as they are, not as we might wish them to be.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Economy, Environment, Republicans
22 Comments
1. js | June 19th, 2008 at 8:01 am
maybe our duely elected representatives have a valid reason why we should allow the rest of the world to pump oil, and that its ok for us to make the rest of the world risk thier “environment” while we demand they pump more and more oil for our citizens to burn in thier SUV’s….while we sit back and get fat and lazy and dont pump much at all….even though we are sitting on huge untapped reserves that could make us independent of foreign oil…
the philosophy of cost doesnt really apply…because the actual profit from what we pay today for gas at the pump has just about doubled in the last 1.5 years…..so its not about money….
2. Right Wing News&hellip | June 19th, 2008 at 8:05 am
John McCain On Energy Policy By Mark Noonan
Excellent: It takes a very short leap in logic to wonder why we produce less and less crude oil, while we use more and more of it, or why politicians talk so much about promoting alternative energy sources, but often…
3. neocon | June 19th, 2008 at 9:15 am
That was an excellent speech. Almost Reaganesque.
4. Cavalor Epthith, Esquire, D.S.V.J. | June 19th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Can someone here tell me what the cost of Light Sweet crude drilled in say western Louisiana sells for right now by the barrel??
Drilling in ANWR and offshore would shift the ration of imported oil from 12MM bbl per day to 10MM bbl per day or parity between what you import and what you produce domestically. America will never be able to get oil out of the ground fast enough to produce the 21+MM bbl a day it needs purely domestically.
5. Retired Spook | June 19th, 2008 at 10:50 am
America will never be able to get oil out of the ground fast enough to produce the 21+MM bbl a day it needs purely domestically.
Never, EVER use the phrase “never be able to” in the same sentence as “America”. That’s the kind of thinking that’s gotten us into the current mess.
A caller to Glen Beck’s show this morning made one of the best points on this subject that I’ve ever heard. I’m paraphrasing: “we can drill for water on Mars, but we can’t drill for our own oil in our own back yard.” What’s wrong with this picture?
6. Cavalor Epthith, Esquire, D.S.V.J. | June 19th, 2008 at 11:00 am
5. Retired Spook | June 19th, 2008 at 10:50 am
No surprise to me you did not touch the Louisiana oil price question.
Unless you had an excellent career in intelligence or analysis from age 4 to 24 RS then what I said applies. You will not live long enough to see technology allow the US to prodice 21+MM bbl per day domestically even if every available source is opened up.
There is neither the economic impetus nor the technology currently available for the United States to produce 21+ MM barrels per day. The pace at which you can get it out of the ground is limited by technology as is where you can actually drill. And by that I mean physically can place a well head nit where you are barred from drilling. There are thousands of places where you could be drilling right now all across the US but the oil companies do not for the same reason you have fewer refineries than you did in 1981 because it is not cost effective to keep small refineries open because just as it is not cost effective to drill everywhere you know there is potentially 5K bbl of output like in the early 20th Century.
7. neocon | June 19th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Cav,
Do you support drilling or not? It’s really easy to throw up red herrings to every argument, even my 5 year old grandson can tell me why things can’t be done. It’s not exactly a talent.
Can you think of a domestic solution to this current problem? Or is America completely at the mercy of the international community?
I anxiously await your reponse.
have a nice day
peace, neocon
8. Retired Spook | June 19th, 2008 at 11:43 am
No surprise to me you did not touch the Louisiana oil price question.
The last I checked, Cav, light, sweet crude was trading at $136.46/barrel. Not sure what your point is. Oil is a globally traded commodity. Given current supplies, oil produced in Louisiana is going to trade (assuming comparable quality) for the same as oil produced in Saudi Arabia.
The current situation reminds me of a great movie; Three Days of the Condor in 1975. That was back when when we hit the snooze alarm WRT oil for the first time. In the movie, Higgins, (the Cliff Robertson CIA character) tells Turner (Robert Redford) that when oil becomes scarce the American people won’t care how we get it or where we get it from — only that we get it. We are about to get to that point. And if Congressional Democrats continue to stand in the way of getting oil (especially our own oil) at a reasonable price, they do so at their own peril. The White House and the massive anticipated increases in their House and Senate majorities could well go up in a cloud of gasoline fumes. It’s going to be fun to watch.
9. Cavalor Epthith, Esquire, D.S.V.J. | June 19th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
8. Retired Spook | June 19th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Twice I have written about Three Days of the Condor and it is one of the finest terrestrial films ever made.
Is American, meaning domestic use oil sold at a cheaper rate than the NYMEX light sweet going rate for contract delivery??
i head quite a bit about how “dangerous” Barack Hussein Obama would be to America, but have any of you on the political Right considered what would happen if John McCain was not up to the job and it caused America economic or physical harm? I am not silly I know that no matter what you GOPers would go down in flames with your man such is the price of being a GOPer but I have to wonder what makes you think McCain is that much better other than the fact that his name is followed by an R? Fun to watch an economic collapse in the US because the party you disagree with is in power? That is not very patriotic and it sounds like something a KosKid or a Freeper would say.
10. OhioOrrin | June 19th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
2 probs w nuclear -
spent uranium transport n disposal.
enormous back end decommissioning costs.
11. LiberalNitemare | June 19th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Qouted:
America will never be able to get oil out of the ground fast enough to produce the 21+MM bbl a day it needs purely domestically.
So I guess the democratic thing to do is just ignore the problem till it goes away? Or tax it till no one can afford it anyway?
Qouted:
Drilling in ANWR and offshore would shift the ration of imported oil from 12MM bbl per day to 10MM bbl per day or parity between what you import and what you produce domestically.
So I guess we shouldnt even bother to try for a 1/6th reduction in the amount of oil we import?
Making our own oil resources available will increase the global supply thus driving prices down. It will also substantially increase our political clout with the nations that currently supply our oil.
Personally, My own recommendation would be to tell Opec “You have the oil, we have the corn. We’ll try to make our corn into gasoline, you try to make your oil into corn. Well see who lasts the longest.” But Im willing to give McCains solution a try first.
Especially since the democratically controlled congress and the most powerful women in the free world has yet to make a suggestion.
12. neocon | June 19th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Cav,
Thank you for not answering my questions. It says a lot.
peace, neocon
13. Cavalor Epthith, Esquire, D.S.V.J. | June 19th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
7. neocon | June 19th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Sorry neocon I was in the midst of a rather unruly sandwich.
Yes I am in favor of drilling for oil.
The US should drill anywhere they think oil is but with no “outs” for oil companies that poison water to cut costs. Period.
Let them drill in Yellowstone if they want 2 miles off South Beach that would be fine too. I think the solution is really simple but you ask the question in a manner that you want me to reveal some great new technology. There is none.
There is no solution to allowing Americans to continue to live the sort of lifestyle they do on the cheap as they had it for relatively 50 years. The age of cheap oil is over. I am really sorry but that is a political and economic fact that no one not Obama, not McCain not even Barr will tell you. Only Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader would tell that truth.
Like most Americans you do not want to heaer that your SUV must be traded in at a loss for a Prius or that gasoline will cost more than 5 USD per gallon this time next year too. Adding 1 MM barrels of output per day might bring down the spot price around 2 USD per barrel and maybe gasoline by 25 cents per gallon for half a decade. I would be willing to wager that the top ten oil analysts on Terra would tell you that oil would be much cheaper had Bush not invaded Iraq. ANWR, offshore and tar sands/shale can never replace the lost output from Iraq that has averaged 600 K bbl per day since March of 2003.
14. Retired Spook | June 19th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Adding 1 MM barrels of output per day might bring down the spot price around 2 USD per barrel and maybe gasoline by 25 cents per gallon for half a decade.
According to Senator Schumer it depends on where the oil comes from. Too funny.
15. neocon | June 19th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Cav,
Think you for linking Bush and Iraq into the discussion further solifying you BDS.
Why would people have to trade in their SUV’s? They make them hybrid these days. Or are you just spewing more talking points? You knucklehead.
Do you ever have any original thought?
I am happy to hear you support domestic drilling which, considering domestic reserves, will be plenty enough supply for America until we shift to a more sustainable energy base.
See how that works? We can support our oil energy needs domestically until we ultimately wean ourselves from crude to a more sustainable energy paradigm.
It can happen
have nice day
peace, neocon
16. Some Assembly Required | June 19th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
“Why would people have to trade in their SUV’s? They make them hybrid these days. Or are you just spewing more talking points? You knucklehead.”
A statement like that means you are either clueless or completely brainwashed. ‘Hybrid’ SUV’s in most cases are not worth the money. They may save you 5 - 10 mpg extra when driven properly. Not to mention how they are manufactured. I could go into more technical details with regards to design and efficiency but I have neither the time nor the patience today.
17. neocon | June 19th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
But SAR,
You never did say why people have to trade in their SUV’s.
Did you run out of time and patience? Or intellect?
have a nice day
peace, neocon
18. Common Sense of a Conserv&hellip | June 19th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
[…] John McCain on Energy Policy […]
19. FmrMarine | June 19th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
CEE porno/homo/ sick site from HELLS daily newspaper.
>>>There is no solution to allowing Americans to continue to live the sort of lifestyle they do on the cheap as they had it for relatively 50 years. The age of cheap oil is over. I am really sorry but that is a political and economic fact that no one not Obama, not McCain not even Barr will tell you. Only Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader would tell that truth.<<<<
It is amazing some larry flynt wannabee from the UK is here telling us all about out Govt. and it’s oil policies….WTF???
20. Danish Artist | June 19th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Liberals again with their usual tactic - criticize, object and OFFER NOTHING!!!
Can’t give anything to the non-liberal types. IT’S AN ELECTION YEAR AND THEY NEED A PLATFORM.
Once again putting politics before the nation’s interests.
Why do liberals stand back and do nothing?
21. Danish Artist | June 19th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Where is the “common sense legislation” for oil and gas that they promised for the 2006 election?
Must be the nationalization issue.
22. neocon | June 19th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Exaxctly Danish…
Their common sense is nationalization
frightening