Who’s really to blame?
Everyone is complaining about the price of gas and fingers are being pointed in all directions. But all I hear is “it’s Bush’s fault” or “it’s those greedy oil companies” and there is likely some part-truths there. What I’m not hearing are the actions over the last decade plus that lead us up to the point we are at today and outside of Bush, outside of the oil companies the people most responsible are the radical greens, the free traders and the Walmart consumer.
First the radical and not so radical environmentalists. As we watch the news and see $6/gallon gas prices in Atlanta what the news isn’t talking about is the EPA mandated “boutique” gasoline mix specific to Atlanta. This isn’t only an Atlanta problem, either, best I could find was that there are no less than 40 such “boutique” mixes that refineries have to make to specific standards for as little as one city.
Now I’m not saying that the reasoning behind these various mixes don’t have some logic basis in the real world. What I am saying is why can’t we settle on one mix for the whole country then order it in the 3 grades and be done with it. Even the areas that don’t have to use an expensive boutique mix would likely save money and get a cleaner gasoline.
Oil supply is another critical problem that the environmentalists have created in that they pressured Bill Clinton to stop oil exploration on public lands. Now considering how much of the west the U.S. Government owns that’s a huge chunk of oil and gas rich territory no one can drill. We’re capitalists remember so the Government isn’t in the business of drilling, refining and selling petrol products so a Government ban on the sale of the rights makes no sense. Unless they want the Government to take on that task in the future… or unless they want all “fossil fuels” eventually banned.
EPA regulations largely responsible for all the boutique fuel mixes also slow and sometimes prevent exploration and pumping anywhere including private land and off the coasts. And where a private enterprise may actually get through the 10 years of licensing, inspections, impact statements and a long line of lawyers local “green” organizations sue their pants off to save some mysterious fish or mouse that no one has heard of. If that fails to stop them then comes the local “citizens group” with their NIMBY attitude. Thus no new oil exploration in the U.S. in a decade and no new refining facilities in close to 30 years.
As if that weren’t enough next comes these so-called free-traders. Free trade at any cost is only slightly better than peace at any cost and both will kill you sooner or later. In the case of China Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status enabled an explosion of industrial growth. That growth brought China to the point of direct competition with the U.S. for oil as their industrial base needs more and more energy to feed the U.S. consumers’ appetite for disposable “consumer products”, aka discount store junk no one even needs.
So everyone can sit around and point fingers and Bush, at big oil if you want. Just remember when the movement is afoot to boot the EPA regs out the door, or at least slacken them to a reasonable extent (for which the Bush Administration is already being sued by Democrat Mayors and Governors) and support common sense measures.
We really can have cheap fuel, a clean environment and clean air at the same time. But we cannot let the “green” groups who believe humans are the problem make our policy any more. They don’t want common sense balance for cheap fuel nor a clean environment nor clean air- they want humans herded into the population centers and walled off.
And their plan is to make us demand it.