Sunday, June 08, 2008
Meddling is worse than fiddling
From the RoundTable blog
Read the latest entries
Trevor Roe
Roe, of Ferrum, is a retired corporate human resources director for Trinity Packaging Corp. in Rocky Mount.
At least Nero merely fiddled while Rome burned. Congress adds kindling to the flames of escalating oil prices that threaten this country's economic well-being. Your May 27 editorial ("Gasbag politicking") shrugs off an assertion that Democrats in the House and Senate bear responsibility for increases in gasoline prices since becoming the majority party in 2007 and promising a plan to reduce gas prices, then $2.33 per gallon, regardless of their past blocking of earlier attempts to increase domestic supplies.
It's time to unveil their plan. Instead, they've helped perpetuate the cycle of escalating prices and dependence on foreign suppliers, exacerbating that cycle by refusing to address the supply side of a supply-and-demand situation. Not surprisingly, the Democrats' special interest group, Big Green, is happy about rising prices because they might help convince the rest of us to drive whatever Big Green thinks we should be driving, despite diverse automotive needs. They're plotting even more dramatic increases of $1.50 to $5 per gallon as part of a proposed bill to reduce "global warming" or "climate change." It's getting difficult to keep up with the latest buzzwords politicians use to increase taxes and control over our lives.
I'm all for alternative sources of energy, and I'll celebrate a viable replacement whenever one is found. In the short term, however, shouldn't we be maximizing the exploration and drilling of domestic fields until the Next Great Thing comes along? Big Green and the Dems argue that it would take years before untapped domestic oil fields were producing and providing any relief. Well, they've been talking for years and that hasn't solved the problem. Just agreeing to open domestic fields to drilling would have the immediate effect of reducing current market prices for oil.
I was embarrassed watching segments of the shameless mock-trial of oil executives by the Senate last month. As senators pointed accusatory fingers at the very people doing their best to provide for America's increasing energy needs despite numerous roadblocks, frivolous mandates, onerous taxes and politically inspired regulations imposed upon them by their inquisitors, the adage about three fingers pointing back at an accuser came to mind.
What Congress has done to "help" is to ban drilling in a minute portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, previously designated for drilling. It has banned drilling 30 miles or more off the coasts of California and Florida, while China, Venezuela and Cuba signed leases to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. It's shutting down oil fields in Colorado and blocking development of shale fields elsewhere.
Legislation enables Big Green to tie up authorized fields through perpetual litigation. Congress has not permitted a new refinery to be built in America in 30 years. We have roughly half the refineries that were operational here 26 years ago. They've thwarted attempts to build nuclear and hydroelectric facilities to help reduce demands on oil. They did mandate increases in the use of ethanol, and we can see how well that's working out.
Congressionally mandated increases in fuel-efficiency standards for vehicle manufacturers resulted in a rise in national highway fatalities. Democrats have even better plans in mind, should they capture the White House and maintain their congressional majorities, including suing OPEC, taxing oil companies on their windfall profits, confiscating those profits outright or nationalizing energy providers. Does anyone believe that any of those ideas will actually help reduce prices?
Barack Obama during a recent interview spoke about citizens "needing to realize that they couldn't continue to drive whatever they wanted and set their thermostats on whatever temperatures they wanted." Thermostat regulation is, apparently, "Change you can believe in," and that prospect terrifies me.
Big Oil is reaping historic revenues, but they're also reinvesting historic sums to explore, to upgrade and maintain their existing facilities, and to try to develop alternative energy sources that their critics desire.
Profit margins averaging 4 percent are regularly exceeded by those in many other industries. Such profits, shared with stockholders, are not the problem. Increasing demands and decreasing supplies are the problem. Everyone, except for Big Green and Democrats in Congress, has figured that out by now. I wish we could provide our representatives with fiddles instead of the power to legislate. The current firestorm would be less intense and climate change, therefore, reduced. Give them a few more years to work on it and we'll be remembering $4 per gallon gas with nostalgia.
