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COMMENT: Energy bill hangs on * USA - The myth that we can have our oil and guzzle it, too
We are being taken for a ride, the conclusion of which will leave us in an unhappy place if we allow Congress to continue treating us as children
Washington,DC,USA -The Washington Post, by Warren Brown -December 15, 2007: -- ... I am referring to current congressional thinking on national energy policy, which is based on the Myth of Endless Growth and the Doctrine of Uninterrupted Joy... The Doctrine of Uninterrupted Joy says we have a right to whatever resources are available wherever they are available at affordable prices -- best defined as prices lower than those paid by anyone else... That thinking is reflected in the latest House energy bill, which would require automobile manufacturers to increase their new-fleet corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 -- a 40 percent increase over current CAFE standards... It is feel-good legislation. Democrats and Republicans like it. The car companies and the United Auto Workers union (UAW) accept it. Environmental groups applaud it as a potential breakthrough -- the first increase in federal fuel economy standards in more than two decades if approved by the Senate and signed into law by the White House... We consumers like the legislation because, as was the case with the first CAFE law in 1975, the House bill requires us to do nothing for fuel conservation -- zip, zilch, nada.. !!! ... Thus, the bill passed last week by the House effectively reinforces the tenet of original CAFE law. To wit: We can have our oil and guzzle it, too. And we can do both at the lowest fossil fuel prices in the developed world while pretending to be acting in defense of the environment... Therein is the grand fraud for which we all will pay dearly if we swallow this proposed new serving of CAFE as eagerly as we gulped the old mixture... The problem is that endless growth is a myth. History shows us as much. Empires rise. Empires fall. Observe the debris of our real estate market, the sad legacy of an empire built on property-flipping supported in large measure by bogus subprime loans. Has it not been proved that any market built on flipping is destined to flop?... Likewise, do any of you believe that oil is inexhaustible, that we can replace it easily and cheaply with alternative and renewable fuels, that we can develop easily and cheaply a safe and effective infrastructure for delivering those new fuels, that we can save petroleum by making car companies produce more fuel-efficient cars and trucks, or that we can increase oil production by stripping federal tax supports from petroleum companies while we, the American consumers, content ourselves with doing nothing, or not paying anything extra for improved fuel efficiency and energy conservation?... Put another way: Can we really solve a two-part equation involving industry and consumers by working only the industrial side?...
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posted by Unknown @ 8:22 AM
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