Energy Policies

Time to roll out what I imagine will be a regular feature of this blog, The Arg! Files, wherein I discuss a liberal talking point used incessently that makes me want to scream "Arg!" everytime I hear it.  Enjoy...

In yesterday's Washington Post op-ed, "What Palin Got Wrong About Energy", Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry once again roll out this silly talking point:

"...the United States has only 3 percent of the world's proven oil reserves, while we are responsible for 25 percent of the world's oil consumption."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/23/AR2009072302633.html

This has been in wide use among Democrats for some time now, making an appearance in the presidential debates last year and in nearly every discussion of energy policy.  Of course, on close examination, it has not a fraction of the power they imagine it does.  But who examines this stuff closely anyway?

While the numbers they cite are true, it is also true that the United States has less than 5% of the world's population and produces more than 27% of the world's wealth (measured in GDP).  Given that discrepancy, and the fact that we are far and away the most economically developed country in the world, don't you think we should be expected to use more oil?  Would they have us to produce less wealth to even things out?  And no, Mr. Liberal, I'm not going to let you get away with saying we don't share all that wealth.  The U.S. is the world's largest private and public charitable giver.  Plus, our goods and services are exported across the globe. 

There are three ways to balance the inequality put forth in the talking point: find more oil, use less oil, or some combination of the first two.  Usually, the implication from Dems who make this point is that the United States must use less oil, since most causal observers would believe you can't possibly add to our oil reserves.  But there again is a faulty premise.  The statistic cited, "proven oil reserves", isn't just the total amount of oil in the ground.  It's more strictly oil believed to be recoverable with a high probability and under "existing economic and political conditions".  Anything about that definition jump out at you?  Why would it be that under existing conditions the United States has a dearth of oil reserves?  I'll give you a clue: it's one word, starts with an L, ends with an S,  and the middle sounds like "iberal".  That's right, liberals.  Way back in 1972, the U.S. produced, get this, 25% of the world's oil.  It's 10% now - and falling.  What happened in between?  Endless environmental regulations slowed or closed off nearly all new production.  Our "proven reserves" don't count gigantic oil basins in Alaska or off-shore because under existing political conditions, we can't recover that oil.  Think any of those Middle Eastern countries have similar restraints?  Dream on.  The "proven reserves" would shoot up under a "Drill, Baby, Drill" energy policy.  Our liberal friends will have nothing of it but don't mind making political hay out of the sad stat they've helped create. 

Final point: if the United States had 100% of the world's proven oil reserves, do you think liberals and Dems would advocate more oil use?  Of course not, and that is the fundamental hypocrisy of this formulation.  They care not a wit about our actual oil reserves, they care about our evil consumerism and its impact on global warming.  They'd use any stat they could to convince us of our evil ways - I just wish they'd stop using this one, it's driving me crazy. 

the more they stay the same. I don't know how many people clicked on the link from the Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web" regarding the debate between Ronald Reagan and John Anderson but I found it interesting reading.

Regarding energy policy Anderson states (remember that this debate was held in September of 1980) that

"....here are at least five reputable studies, one even by the American Petroleum Institute itself, that, I think, clearly indicate that somewhere along around the end of the present decade, total world demand for oil is simply going to exceed total available supplies."

Sound familiar?

Previously in the debate the Great One had said,

"We have nuclear power, which, I believe, with the safest. the most stringent of safety requirements, could meet our energy needs for the next couple of decades while we go forward exploring the areas of solar power and other forms of energy that might be renewable and that would not be exhaustible. All of these things can be done."

as well as

"When you stop and think that we are only drilling on 2%. have leased only 2% of the possible. possibility for oil of the continental shelf around the United States; when you stop to think that the government has taken over 100 million acres of land out of circulation in Alaska, alone, that is believed by geologists to contain much in the line of minerals and energy sources,..."

Nearly 30 years later our nuclear power plants are still being stiffled. The other forms of renewable energy have had that time to be developed and mature and yet they are stillborn. If a technology is economically feasible then it is profitable and it doesn't need government subsidies.

Read the whole thing; http://debates.org/pages/trans80a.html. It's a great insight into the past.

I have one quote of Mr. Reagan's that I can't help but include even though it doesn't bear on anything else. Just because it is so delightful and so telling. Responding to one of Anderson's points Mr. Reagan says,

"Well, some people look up figures, and some people make up figures. And John has just made up some very interesting figures."

Brought a smile to my face.