"News Flash": Drill, baby, drill won't work

There were a lot of things that disgusted me about the Republican convention--generally centering on playing loose with facts, mean-spiritedness and hypocrisy.  This is one of them, captured in my latest "letter to the editor".  More to be covered in upcoming posts.

John McCain, in his nomination acceptance speech, decried the incompetence of his own party over the past eight years. At the same time, he smiled gleefully in response to his Republican delegates’ chants of “drill, baby, drill”. Electing John McCain President will ensure four more years of incompetence, because he so willingly ignores the facts.

The United States has 2% of the world’s proven oil reserves, but consumes one-quarter of global oil production. According to the Energy Information Administration, expanded offshore drilling would not have a “significant” impact on oil production for more than two decades. The EIA also predicts that drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Preserve would reduce dependence on foreign oil, by 2030, only “slightly”. “News flash” for John McCain and Sarah Palin: we aren’t going to drill our way to energy independence.

According to three Nobel laureates in economics, McCain’s proposed gas tax holiday would generate “major” profits for big oil while doing little to lower prices at the pump. Is that what McCain means by “fighting for you”?

We need an administration and Congress that will make policy decisions based on facts, not chants; an administration which defines “you” as average Americans, not large corporations. That’s why I’m voting for Barack Obama for President and Jim Himes for Congress. They have sensible, fact-based energy policies that will move us towards energy independence, create jobs and wean us off of environmentally harmful fossil fuels. And they will promote energy efficiency and conservation, concepts that McCain and Palin aggressively disdain.

Democrats Responsible for High Energy Prices - NOT!

In our local paper in Greenwich, a reader has written several letters saying "hug a Democrat if you like $4.50 per gallon gas because the Democrats are responsible for it."

My thoughts on the matter:

To claim, as Edward Dadakis did in his letter to The Greenwich Post last week, that Democrats are responsible for high gas prices because they oppose lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling is patently false. The cost of oil has increased dramatically over the past year, well before the discussion about lifting the ban started, so it hardly stands to reason that maintaining the ban is the cause of high fuel prices.

The reason most Democrats, and intellectually honest Republicans, oppose lifting the ban is because it will have no impact on oil prices in the short term, and only a negligible impact in the very distant future, yet has clear environmental risks. According to a report by the Energy Information Administration (the official source of energy statistics from the U.S. Government), expanded offshore drilling “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil or natural gas production or prices before 2030.” Even after 2030, “any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant”, because oil prices are determined on the international market, for which U.S. production accounts for less than 10%.

That hasn’t stopped Republican candidate John McCain from claiming that offshore oil drilling “would be very helpful in the short term in resolving our energy crisis.” Although let’s give credit where credit is due. When confronted by the facts, McCain has since backpedaled (flip-flopped?) to say that expanded drilling wouldn’t provide short term relief, but would have a positive “psychological impact”. Perhaps it doesn’t take much to get McCain’s spirits up, but gas prices being a few cents lower 22 years from now doesn’t do much for me.

The demagoguery about relieving the energy crisis through expanded offshore drilling and suspending the federal gas tax seems merely a convenient way for McCain to reward his big oil patrons—who have donated more than $2 million to his campaign. It’s hard to trust McCain’s independence on energy policy when he has more than 33 former oil lobbyists advising him or raising campaign funds. More than 300 economists, including several Nobel laureates, came out against the gas tax holiday, in part because “research shows that waiving the gas tax would generate major profits for oil companies rather than significantly lowering prices for consumers.” Of course, consistent with his oil-friendly policies, McCain does not support a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

Casting more doubt on Mr. Dadakis’ accusations are the facts about what energy companies aren’t doing with the federal oil and gas resources already available for development. The House Committee on Natural Resources has documented an extensive array of statistics showing the vast quantity of land and water for which federal leases have been issued—68 million acres—but that are not in production. According to the Minerals Management Service, four-fifths of the oil and gas believed to exist on the Outer Continental Shelf (the offshore area where Bush and McCain want to lift the ban on drilling) are currently open for leasing.

When it comes to energy conservation, McCain apparently thinks ribbing Obama about painless fuel-saving measures such as maintaining proper tire inflation, a position endorsed by AAA, NASCAR and the U.S. Department of Energy, will boost his popularity. Until he realized that once again he was wrong, and recanted.

And then there are the political facts. As McCain himself has said, our “dependence on foreign oil has been 30 years in the making".  Mr. Dadakis might be interested to know that over the past 30 years, Republicans have been in the White House for roughly twice as many years as the Democrats, and have controlled the Senate for 16 years compared to the Democrat’s 12 years. As far as who is up for election this year, McCain has been in Congress for 25 years, six times longer than Senator Obama. And closer to home, Republican Representative Chris Shays has 22 years on his Democratic challenger, Jim Himes.

While America’s failed energy policy goes beyond the political failings in Washington, surely the Democrats are not alone to blame, and have more coherent solutions than either McCain or Edward Dadakis.

Enough with Political Allegiance

As evidenced by the spectacular failures regarding intelligence, the war in Iraq, Katrina, and energy policy, the Bush administration has pursued a policy of rewarding slavish political allegiance ahead of merit and open, constructive debate. In the latest example, the Justice Department’s own inspector general has found that political affiliation has been used, illegally, as a screening criterion for recruiting programs aimed at attracting highly qualified candidates to the Justice Department. The facts are crystal clear—the report found that applicants with Democratic affiliation were turned away “at a significantly higher rate” than candidates with Republican ties.

The relevance of these facts is that Fairfield County’s representative in Congress, Christopher Shays, has steadfastly stood by Bush throughout his tenure in office. While Shays may have expressed muted disagreement here and there, he has not evidenced the independent, principled thinking that we need to solve the many crises that threaten our country. He has strongly supported Bush on disproportionate tax breaks for the wealthy, violating constitutional protections in the name of national security, and waging a war in Iraq that has done anything but made the U.S. more secure. Like so many other Bush loyalists, Shays is unable or unwilling to break free from President Bush and his ill-conceived policies.

Fortunately, it’s within our power to break free from Christopher Shays. With Jim Himes, running for Congress in the Connecticut 4th District, we have an intelligent, independent and socially conscious candidate who can help set America back on course. I urge voters in the 4th District to learn more about Jim Himes in what Time Magazine is calling one of the top 15 Congressional races to watch.

McCain's Economic Illiteracy

By his own admission (to the Wall Street Journal in 2005 and The Boston Globe in 2007, see John McCain on Meet the Press) John McCain is not an expert on economic policy. If anybody doubts this, he proved it with his remarks about the recent employment report. In response to the loss of 80,000 jobs in March, McCain, in a  press release, called for lower taxes and less regulation as a solution to creating job growth.

Under the current administration, overall federal income tax rates are at historically low levels. Yet the overall growth rate of private sector employment during George W. Bush’s administration is the second worst performance since World War II (his dad gets honors for the worst performance). Contrast this with the Clinton record, where despite tax increases, job growth outpaced Bush’s record by a factor of four. This certainly dispels the Republican mantra that the only way to grow the economy is by cutting taxes.

As for less regulation, the cause of the current financial market distress appears to be completely lost on the Republican nominee for president. More, not less, regulatory oversight of the subprime mortgage market could have reigned in the excesses of the imprudent lending and financing practices that are the very cause of the economic downturn that McCain believes less regulation would alleviate.

Regulation serves the purpose of policing markets where the actions of individual players can harm more than just themselves. Surely the current situation, where the reckless actions of companies like Bear Stearns are driving the economy into recession and seriously threatening the stability of financial markets, is proof positive of the need for regulation.

So when John McCain says “The American people cannot afford the Democrats and their economic leadership”, you might want to think twice. It’s time to put somebody in the White House who will put aside dogma in favor of an informed economic policy. Clearly that person is not John McCain.

A Quick Note to Joe Lieberman

While the Senate is still in the midst of debating how much unchecked power to grant the Bush administration as it continues to trample on our civil liberties, I shot off this note to CT Senator and ex-Democrat Joe Lieberman. I don't have much hope that he'll listen, but that's never stopped me from speaking out...

Dear Senator Lieberman:

As the Senate debates the reauthorization of President Bush's warantless eavesdropping program, I urge you to do everything you can to protect the civil liberties of U.S. citizens. The actions of the Bush administration have been anathema to those of us who believe the President does not have the right to trample on the Constitution in the name of national security. Frankly, I am extremely disappointed in your frequent support of Bush policies. In this case I hope you put the Constitution ahead of Bush's ill-conceived policies to protect the U.S. against the threat of Islamic extremism. And that should include voting against any immunity for telecommunications companies that forked over private records without warrants.