On Energy

On July 14, 2008, the United States energy plan officially shifted. Mr. Bush’s executive order lifting the executive branch’s ban on offshore drilling on the Eastern seaboard, and pushing of Congress to do the same (at the time of this post, the House has lifted the ban, while the Senate is in their break), was not only the pseudo-“liberation from foreign oil” that Mr. Bush, presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee candidate John McCain, and the rest of the Republican Party touts, but also the death knell by the Republican Party to any further change in energy policy. To many members of the Republican Party, this is sufficient to lower the price of oil, thus gasoline, thereby solving the energy crisis in this nation- the most important issue at this stage of the 2008 campaign, as per a poll by the Washington Post and ABC.

However, in short, this is inherently incorrect in so many ways. Beyond the fact that the Republican Party supports many other projects that are the pinnacle of debauchery by the GOP towards the special interests of said party (namely ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and other members of the energy market) that I will discuss later in this post, the plan inscribed by Messrs. Bush and McCain is one that shows absolute ignorance of the progress in the field of alternative fuels in the past decade and the plans inscribed by other members of the energy field, not to mention is the exact opposite of the “compassionate conservative” or “maverick” that each of this dynamic duo claims to be. First of all, the plan comes at a point where Mr. McCain had publicly opposed offshore drilling. This standpoint would support his slowly weakening claim that he is a ‘maverick’ in the Republican Party, that he’ll go against the grain as he has in the issue campaign financing, in which he supports a plan made by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA). However, he has gone against environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, as he had previously given his word that he would not allow drilling in the Everglades, one of the sites where oil exploration would occur. Second, the plan states that oil companies would be allowed to explore and drill on the eastern seaboard, although they have parts of the Gulf of Mexico where they are not drilling! Third, the plan does not take into account the fact that many oil refineries on the Gulf have closed since their destruction from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Finally, the McCain campaign states that “we have untapped oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States.” However, such simple tasks as correct inflation of tires, keeping windows closed on highways, replacing air filters, and regular tune-ups of automobiles can increase automobile mileage by great margins (for example, by simply inflating all four tires correctly, that lowers one’s mileage by 12 percent), in effect equaling the amount of gas that would be achieved by offshore drilling, and has been endorsed by the American Automobile Association, and accepted by Mr. McCain, despite the RNC’s “Obama Energy Plan” tire gauges.

The McCain Energy Plan is primarily the gimmick of offshore drilling, the Barnumian policy to solve the problem by a gimmick, a pseudo-solution-much like the great P.T. Barnum circus exit “To the egress”, a way to reduce crowding-thereby confirming Barnum’s quote, “There is a sucker born every minute.” However, this is more. This includes support of alcohol-based fuels-which in turn cause worse greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline itself and can only fuel 12 percent of consumption for vehicles alone if we use the entire corn crop in the States, ‘clean coal’-hasn’t Mr. McCain ever seen Mary Poppins? Coal isn’t clean!- and nuclear power, including building 45 nuclear plants-which not only is not safe(where the hell do you go in a meltdown?) , is not clean (where the hell do you put the waste?), is not cheap (where the hell are you going to get the many from?), and is not supported (why the hell would I want that in my backyard?), but also, the money goes to private contractors to build the reactors, run the reactors, and bring the waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. He’s also against a windfall profits tax on oil companies, even though ExxonMobil had $11.68 billion in earnings in the 2007 fiscal year. And he’s for closing the “Enron loophole”, which is a good thing, as it gets oil speculators out of the oil business, which lowers prices more than offshore drilling-except there’s one problem: McCain’s former economic advisor, Phil Gramm, was responsible for the Enron loophole in the Senate when it was put into HR 5660 in 2000. Conflict of interest, anyone?

Such is the reason why, this week, the Democratic National Committee has launched their ExxonMcCain ’08, deriding Mr. McCain of his views in the terms that oil companies will reap the big bucks. There’s a reason to this-they’ve given huge bucks to his campaign. Oil companies have given over $2 million to the McCain campaign, along with the Victory Fund, a joint venture between the McCain campaign and the RNC, along with other organizations-more than any other candidate so far in this campaign. Days after McCain flip-flopped on drilling, ten members of the Hess Corporation (yes, where those cute little Christmas trucks are sold) gave $28,000 apiece to the campaign. Over a quarter of a million dollars handed to the McCain campaign in 10 days, from none other than the oil companies.

One reason the McCain campaign claims to show that their platform is better than his opponent’s, Mr. Obama, is because of the fact that his platform is not specific enough, as stated by former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani. However, along with the fact that, along with the candidates’ campaign platforms being of equal specificity (which, in truth, is not much), Mr. Obama also supports the plan formed by T. Boone Pickens, which is centered around alternative fuels, such as wind power in the Midwest, CNG vehicles, to go along with some offshore drilling. It’s also a plan endorsed by Al Gore, former Vice President and spokesman for the climate crisis. If we can combine environmental with efficient, we can truly create a new great energy policy.