Mr. Bush’s Energy Conversion

02/21/2006

Paul Munnis

Over the last five years Bush advocacy of the oil patch has become legendary with both Mr. Bush and Dick Chaney championing such things as drilling in the Artic Wildlife Preserve over the objections of most Americans. Taking care of the oil patch was both a domestic and foreign priority for the Bush Administration. Some people even claim the Iraq War was over seizure of the second largest known oil reserve in the world. Dick Chaney has done more shuttling to the mid-east to dine with oil princes than we have ever seen before.

Things got really out of control though. The Iraq War provoked Arab nations across the mid-east and poorly managed diplomacy with Venezuela had that country’s leaders pointing at Bush mistakes and diplomatic gaffes even as they subsidized heating for American citizens in New England who depend upon fuel oil for their home heating. Mr. Bush has ignored Canada and its oil tar sand solution preferring instead to stroke the fat cats of Saudi Arabia for crude oil. This was all done to the tune of increased GOP campaign contributions.

The litany of diplomatic errors compounded over the years and then came the desperate attempt to stop the stagnant and failing U.S. industrial sector and to get U.S. exports going again as we became overwhelmed by the import/export account deficit. Mr. Bush devalued the U.S. currency some 30% against the Euro in an effort to make American foreign earnings look better in dollar terms.

The results showed up in the price of a barrel of oil. It rose 45% almost overnight. On Mr. Bush’s watch oil has gone from $22 a barrel to as high as $68 per barrel (that’s over a 300% increase) and some say that $100 a barrel is in sight over the rest of this decade.

Congress refuses to tax the excess energy earnings and pretends innocence of any complicity in the results. Americans are seething and Congressional ratings are now lower than those for Mr. Bush. The Congress is dominated by the GOP. A fall election revolution is in the making as a direct result.

Oil speculators began a feeding frenzy while insecurity arose over pumping and shipping of energy products; two unwelcome events. As if all of that wasn’t enough, America found itself with a capacity shortage in domestic oil refineries. Hurricane Katrina showed that we had too much oil concentrated in too few places thus leaving America vulnerable to distribution problems. Now Mr. Bush wants to sell our port terminals that handle cargo and oil to United Arab Emirates in a controversy that will likely cause many a Congressional seat to be overthrown in this coming election. Governor after governor is coming out against the Bush Port Plan. Americans are just shaking their heads in total disgust and these are not all Democratic heads that are shaking either. Many a GOP family is cussing the Bush Administration across dinner tables. The airline industry is looking at another round of bankruptcy.

The price of oil has doubled while subsidy is rising and America is taking it right in the wallet. Citizens are furious as energy prices have mushroomed causing yet another redo of family budgets and priorities.

So Mr. Bush has a well deserved reputation of an oil patch hawk and as a government management failure.

For all of his five years in office Mr. Bush pushed away alternative energy programs except in a most condescending and arrogant sense. For example he killed the requirements that Congress had mandated for demand for improved gas mileage for U.S. cars. He subsidized SUV purchases, he revised the timetable for research on hydrogen power, and this list goes on and on.

One result was that Detroit put off needed improvements in car technology and when the doubling of energy costs arrived then Detroit was without the technology needed to compete. We have seen over 100,000 jobs lost in the American automobile industry as a direct result of this failed Administration policy.

Energy inflation has been ignited and in spite of Mr. Bush’s protestations to the contrary the results are being felt all across the American economy. The Federal Reserve has no ready fix for this as they are still trying to dampen out the last recession that required interest rate distortions that impacted banking and pensions in a big way. This as we are charging headlong towards a new recession caused by rising energy cost and the tools for managing it are shaky.

The White House championed an Energy Bill and a Transportation Bill that were pure pork and had nothing to do with an effective energy strategy for our nation. Those Bills were laden with earmarks and they were so full of pork-fat that even Congress refused to pass them for over three years. The Bush Administration has squandered Billions of federal dollars without a comprehensive plan for federal spending. The icon of the Bush Administration energy and transportation failure has become the “Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere.”

This polished and honed the Bush Administration image as: “A Bunch of Energy Management Failures.”

As Bush’s popularity has reached the lowest level of any elected president in modern history he now seeks to polish his political image. It is his image that is the object of this housekeeping and not the underlying management failure that prompted his image failure in the first place. Thus he will remain forever dull.

Suddenly Mr. Bush has discovered what the rest of America has known for decades. We are sending too many dollars abroad for the purchase of energy. We cannot sustain it. We need a major energy policy change in America. We need to cut back the tab for foreign oil in particular. The problem is more acute than ever and the devaluation of the U.S. dollar points this out.

Alternative energy and renewable energy are strategic elements for America’s future.

Now as the Bushies seek photo-ops for this political angel in the making the White House staff is amazed to find that America is moving on and doing it without federal government help. The States have taken the leadership role in energy.

America is well on it way to energy independence mainly through State actions taken over a lack of Federal leadership and from private action resulting from economic forces that motivate consumers.

Fixes like importing hybrid technology cars, working out practical solutions for ethanol and bio-diesel fuels, and paving American rooftops with solar panels, are all happening from coast to coast. Wind farms are developing in the mid-west and people are installing roof-top solar energy panels in response to State legislation that permits sale of the energy into the public grid. All this is happening even as new bio-diesel and ethanol plants are opening up all across our nation. More importantly, these regional energy solutions are springing up with dozens of practical alternatives to mid-east oil arising and hungry American corporations are seeing the value of decentralized energy installations that has them drooling over emerging market-share. The federal government is being left in the dust and is in real danger of losing any of its petro-political clout since America has just given up on Congress who is now seen as the American problem and not the American solution.

Suddenly mid-eastern planners are wondering if one can farm the desert and they are looking to Israel for the needed technology in drip irrigation and sand culture. When America leaves Iraq that is what the mid-east has to look forward to, farming of the desert, because even as we plan to leave we will do our very best to crank down the amount of oil that we import.

Consider Iraq as a case in point. Today they are being fed by America as welfare recipients. As they form a nation they need revenue to run Iraq. They have to restore an economy. Oil is the hub of that plan. As we cut oil consumption in America, then Europe and Asia will emulate us. The result will be crashing oil markets and a need to feed the people of Iraq. Even as we strive for oil patch independence both Europe and Asia will join the race to avoid the treasury drain of foreign oil imports. The world can no longer afford Arabian manipulation of a world commodity. We will have to find a way to eliminate the Arab nations as controlling factors. Removing this dependence upon foreign imports will also remove one of the most controversial periods of politics in history.

We will all benefit from the peace that follows except for our military. The outlook for the military is recognition of two main things: America can no longer afford to occupy a foreign nation and war will have to be fought on the cheap. Such realities favor defense and not offense. The future lies in fuel efficient aircraft and for more nuclear ships. Tanks will be moth-balled, they are too expensive to run. Even Air Force One will be downsized. 

Thus Mr. Bush will stand in front of the press cameras and he will marvel at the robustness of American technology and the innovations of American thinkers. He will showcase other energy advances too and we will all watch him knowing that he opposed every single inch of progress that has been made. His image isn’t improving it is deteriorating further in the eye of the public.

Let’s face it – Mr. Bush is not green and even Kermit the frog would boot him out of the Energy Pond as not being green enough for swamp membership.