Energy Independance: Don’t Hold your Breath
By Christopher MooreGeorge W. Bush and John Kerry both have plans to decrease our reliance on foreign oil supplies. But will energy independance follow shortly after either man’s inaugaration?
Ronald Bailey in this report makes clear that we shouldn’t hold our breath.
In his last state-of-the-union address, Bush said one of his energy goals was “to promote energy independence for our country.”
John Kerry, in this campaing ad, states that “it’s time to make energy independence a national priority and to put in place a plan that frees our nation from the grip of Mideast oil in the next ten years.”
These aren’t the first utterances about energy independance from a president or candidates. Since the 1973 oil embargo politicians have proposed various plans to decrease our dependance on foreign oil. In 1974 Nixon imposed oil price controls and declared the following: “Let this be our national goal: At the end of this decade, in the year 1980, the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need to provide our jobs, to heat our homes, and to keep our transportation moving.”
It only took a few years for President Ford to move that date back just a little, to 1985.
In 1979 Jimmy Carter chimed in with this: “Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977, never.”
George H.W. Bush, at the beginning of the first Iraq war, declared his energy strategy to include “reducing our dependence on foreign oil.”
And Bill Clinton — well he proposed too many different energy policies to name. And if you couldn’t guess, he was ready to end our dependance on foreign oil as well.
So George W. Bush and John Kerry seem like they have vastly different views concerning energy policy. But “both believe that at the end of the policy rainbow is energy independence, and they are willing to move heaven and earth to get there. Both are convinced we need government intervention in energy markets,” states Jerry Taylor, the Cato Institute’s director of natural resource studies. “The difference is emphasis, not policy.”
So if you are hoping for energy independance from whoever you are rooting for, history shows that you better not hold your breath. Why? Because oil is cheap. Cheaper than the alternatives. And until that simple fact changes, Americans will demand oil and we just don’t have enough here at home.
Until hydrogen, solar, and wind become economically feasible (i.e. cheap), then oil is the best, if not only game in town.
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
