Another adult heard from

Robert Samuelson on energy:

The truth is that we're almost powerless to influence today's prices... because we didn't take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two.  The first thing to do:  Start drilling.

It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia.  We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits.  These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.  By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).

What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity...

A good beginning. Unfortunately, Samuelson starts waffling as soon as he tries to consider practical solutions. (Well, he is writing in the Post, after all.)  Second thing out of his mouth is the old command-and-control solution of demand restraints: Higher CAFE standards and higher taxes. He does take a swipe at the ethanol boondoggle, but only on environmental and food-price grounds. No mention of nuclear power, or the Congressional restrictions on DOD use of oil from Alberta, or the tariff on imported ethanol.

Still, you have to count this as progress, since it appeared in The Washington Post.  But there’s still such a long way to go.


Previously: Drawing attention to the real issues

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 23:03:25 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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