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Nation: Energy Independence Day
Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation
…Even if the GOP does finally crack down on price manipulation, greed and collusion in the oil industry (while also pursuing more drilling and a roll-back of environmental protections) as a result of the public’s “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore” outrage – there is a more important long-range issue: when will we unite around a sane policy to achieve real and lasting energy independence for our nation?
The Apollo Alliance has provided a blueprint for doing just that. This coalition of labor, environmentalists, (enlightened) business people, lawmakers, and social justice activists offers best practices already implemented in states across the nation, as well as its own innovative ideas for achieving energy independence in the next decade (the name comes from JFK’s goal to land a man on the moon within 10 years).
Founded in 2003, the group’s 10-point plan includes: promoting renewables; upgrading existing energy infrastructure; improving efficiency in transportation, industry, and buildings; research in new clean technology; and Smart Growth for cities and suburbs.
…Ralph Nader — whose best work has been as a consumer crusader taking on the oil companies — has also weighed in with a series of smart proposals . It is high time, he argues, to use antitrust action to break up the oil industrial cartel. “The claim by the oil barons that they’re just responding to the marketplace of supply and demand is laughable,” Nader argues. “A competitive domestic oil industry would not be so able to close down scores of refineries and then turn ‘refinery shortages’ into higher gas prices at the pump.”
The kind of transformative thinking represented most clearly by the Apollo Alliance is exactly what is needed if we are to work our way out of this mess. Election year grandstanding will provide some good theater and a cathartic public shaming of some oil executives. But, after that, let’s not find ourselves exactly where we are today – hostage to the oil industry and wondering why we let things get so bad.
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor of The Nation.
(3 May 2006)
Also posted at Common Dreams.
More from the liberal side:
High Prices Caused by Iraq War by cartoonist Ted Rall.
Apollo, Already! by Robert Kuttner at TomPaine.com
Well… it’s a start. Awareness about energy issues is no better among U.S. liberals than conservatives, and in some ways worse – there’s more to energy than the Apollo Plan. Currently there is no liberal figure as knowledgeable and active about energy as Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Maryland) -BA
Sympathy as hard to find as oil
Kate Phillips & Julie Bosman, NY Times
WASHINGTON, May 2 — Just last November, Senate Republican leaders extended an unusual privilege to five of the nation’s top oil executives. To prevent what might seem like a “perp walk,” the officials entered a Senate hearing room outside the whirl of television and press photographers, who had been briefly shooed away from the site.
Moreover, the officials were not required to take an oath, avoiding the infamous imagery created when tobacco company executives lined up, right hands in the air, and then proceeded to uniformly declare before a Senate panel that cigarettes were not addictive.
But as gasoline prices have soared again in recent weeks, to more than $3 a gallon, the industry is no longer receiving the same courtesy. Not only were executives from Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP and Royal Dutch Shell compelled to return to Capitol Hill in March — this time to testify under oath — but they have also faced mounting attacks from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, took the major oil companies to task last week over their profits: “Outside of satanic cults, these people have the worst P.R. of anybody in the world.”
It’s not for want of trying. In their latest counteroffensive to that type of demonization, the big oil companies and their trade groups have stepped up their own campaigns, spending millions of dollars on television, radio and newspaper advertisements in hopes of blunting the reaction.
(3 May 2006)
Bodies for barrels: betrayal and energy dependence
Michael A. Fox, Truthout
Truthout Editor’s Note:
This perspective comes from an Ohio Republican. Michael A. Fox served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives for 23 years and is currently a County Commissioner in Butler County, Ohio. Conservative on most issues, Fox has come to realize that the war in Iraq is about feeding our oil addiction and it doesn’t sit well with him. He raises his voice eloquently against “trading the bodies of our young people for barrels of oil.” As more and more Americans from both the right and the left discover that the current energy crisis is not temporary but permanent, the political ground underneath many different issues, from the environment to foreign policy, will shift.
–kw/TO
America’s energy problems are not, as President Bush recently declared, because Americans have an “addiction to oil.” Our energy problems stem from the failed leadership of two political parties – Democrats and Republicans.
For over thirty years presidents and congresses from both parties have had an addiction to playing politics and courting the special interests who fund their next election cycle – all at the expense of our national security.
They have betrayed us. America felt the first shock wave of energy dependence with the oil embargo of 1973. The lessons from that experience were clear – our nation and our economy could be brought to its knees by a handful of hate-filled lunatics in the Middle East; a lesson ignored by both parties. Since then, leaders from each party periodically paid lip service to energy independence, making symbolic moves designed to reassure the public that making America energy independent was important. But neither party ever made it a priority. Neither party has provided continuous and determined leadership to secure our national security by securing our energy independence.
The result? Never in our history has our country been more vulnerable to foreign influence and economic attack from our enemies. The neglect and betrayal by both parties has led us to an unspoken yet horrifically real and hollow energy and foreign policy that reduces us to trading the bodies of our young people for barrels of oil.
(29 April 2006)
Natl Assn of Manufacturers: A message on our energy crisis
John Engler, Industrial Distribution
America is in the midst of a growing energy crisis that is having a devastating effect on manufacturers.
Congress and the Bush Administration have contributed to this problem and now should look in the mirror to help fix it.
The National Assn. of Manufacturers has, for many years, pointed out that there is a fundamental imbalance between energy demand and the supply structure in our country.
We warned that misguided public policies that restrict development and modernization of our natural gas and oil infrastructure would lead to massive energy-price increases. Yet here we are again providing an Economics 101 lesson.
…Instead of laying blame elsewhere, here is what Congress and the Bush Administration can, and should, do now to fix the problem:
• Open the Outer Continental Shelf for environmentally sound deep-water oil and natural gas exploration and development.
• Authorize oil and gas exploration in a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
• Enact the House-passed Gasoline for America’s Security Act to accelerate construction of additional refining capacity plus needed infrastructure.
• Accelerate the construction and siting of nuclear power and clean-coal plants.
• Pass the President’s Clear Skies Act.
• Reform the Clean Air Act to allow for fuel switching in times of crisis.
• Codify New Source Review reforms to streamline the air-quality permitting process.
John Engler is the president of the National Assn. of Manufacturers, headquartered in Washington, D.C. www.nam.org
(3 May 2006)
Engler makes no mention of the DEMAND side of the supply/demand equation – conservation and efficiency. Instead he advocates the usual short-term fixes that perpetuate the addiction. For a much better analysis and set of recommendations for business and investors, see Peter Tertzakian’s new book “A Thousand Barrels a Second.” -BA
Do the Russians play Monopoly?
Heading Out, The Oil Drum
It was a relatively minor note in the news that Gazprom has taken a majority holding in the gas pipelines that form the North European Gas Pipeline. At this rate they are going they will be scratching their heads, this time next year, to try and find anyone left that they can take over. But the gilt is off that gingerbread. As was noted in the Guardian the time when Europe foresaw `the great prospect of the 21st Century” being the energy partnership between them and Russia, has started to reveal “the dark side of the force.” We are at the point that
In a direct reference to the Russian president, Mr Barroso (head of the European Commission) last week complained that the Kremlin was increasingly resorting to a very blunt, but potent weapon in its dealings with Europe – “the use of energy resources as an instrument of political coercion”. . . . . In short, to mix the energy metaphor, Gazprom appears to have Europe over a barrel.
However, given that companies have to be assured of their investments before they commit to large energy construction, it is worth noting that the pipelines and infrastructure are going to cost around $11 billion. Since it will take four years to get the pipes in, is it fair to ask those who demand windfall profits taxes from the energy companies, what they would consider a fair return on that investment?
(4 May 2006)
Bolivia: Nationalization of gas!
Jeffery R. Webber, Znet
La Paz. Monday, May 1, 2006, amidst celebrations and marches commemorating the day of the working class internationally, the Bolivian government nationalized the country’s hydrocarbons sector (natural gas and oil). With presidential supreme decree 28701 – named Heroes of Chaco in memory of the overwhelmingly indigenous Bolivian soldiers who died in defense of oil reserves in Bolivia’s Chaco War with Paraguay in the 1930s – Evo Morales reversed the privatization of hydrocarbons instituted in 1996 by then-president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.
Speaking from the balcony of the presidential palace in La Paz, vice-president Álvaro García Linera addressed tens of thousands of supporters of the governing Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Toward Socialism, MAS) in the early afternoon. He declared the measure, “the first nationalization of the 21st century…. After today the hydrocarbons will belong to all Bolivians. Never again will they be in the hands of transnational corporations. Today the country – la patria – stands up…. This is a patriotic and heroic decision that takes back our soul and dignity. But it will be a measure attacked by dinosaurs, conservatives, and traitors of the country.”
Later that evening, addressing the same crowd, president Morales told those assembled how he couldn’t think of a better gift to give the workers on May Day than the surprise announcement of the nationalization of the hydrocarbons sector.
In fact, it was never his gift to give. The workers, the informal indigenous proletariat of the massive slum of El Alto, the Aymara peasantry of the altiplano (high plateau), the miners, among so many others, demanded and won the nationalization of gas in their monumental street battles of October 2003 and May-June 2005.
(4 May 2006)
Summary and analysis from the Left.
Related:
Watchdog warns of ‘dangerous’ trend on energy (London Financial Times)
Bolivia’s Leader Faces Complex Task (AP)
