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A Democrat Energy Disaster in the Making Every time I hear or read some pronouncement on energy from Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, I think I am trapped in some nightmarish version of Wonderland where up is down and black is white. If anyone or any party could have fashioned a worse plan to meet the energy needs of America, I cannot imagine it. In an announcement on "Energy Independence" in late June, Speaker Pelosi described it as "a national issue, an economic issue, and an environmental issue" and then immediately identified rising gasoline prices as the cause of much pain. The millions of cars and trucks on the nation’s highways every day are essential to the nation’s economy, but the pain being inflicted comes from the government’s energy policies.
Apparently, too, no one has explained to Speaker Pelosi that oil is a global commodity whose price is set by the exigencies of supply and demand. What, then, does she propose to do to drive down the price of a barrel of oil? First she would "invest in new energy technologies and innovations" by which she means "the largest investment in history to improve how we grow, produce, transport, and store biofuels that will fuel our cars and trucks." Translation: more ethanol, whose cost of production and transportation is already increasing the cost of food and gas to all Americans and could well cause worldwide famines if more farm land is converted to this idiotic solution. She wants to reduce "energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions" at a time when the U.S. population now exceeds three hundred million people and growing. If the late, unlamented immigration "reform" had become law, the U.S. would have instantly added anywhere from twenty to forty millions more, as the relatives of Mexicans and other illegal aliens who already live here joined them. Only the great public outcry against this legislation stopped Congress from this colossal stupidity. Rep. Pelosi, like many members of Congress, has a hard time understanding that more people means more energy use, i.e. more cars, more trucks, more highway use, more need to repair infrastructure, more commercial flights, more housing, more everything. As for greenhouse gas emissions, she makes no mention about what she intends to do concerning its 95% water vapor content. She is intent, however, on reducing carbon dioxide emissions that scientists tell us play a miniscule role. She is talking complete and utter nonsense, but that never stopped any politician. Speaker Pelosi proposes, "tax incentives for hybrids, not Hummers." All manner of tax credits are suggested to get people to drive vehicles dependent on batteries and "for individuals biking to work", along with "encouraging mass transit" by promoting "cleaner buses, ferries, and trains." This is forced social engineering that has nothing to do with actually finding new energy sources. At a time when we are all dependent on "Big Oil" for gasoline, heating oil, and all the other petroleum-based products, Speaker Pelosi wants to repeal "Big Oil giveaways." She is advancing a measure that would repeal $16 billion in tax subsidies for Big Oil. She wants to give tax credits to bike riders while taking away subsidies that encourage Big Oil to undertake the enormously expensive and risky business of finding new sources of oil and natural gas. Moreover, she wants "Big Oil" to "pay their fair share of taxes" but neglects to mention the billions in taxes collected by the federal and state governments from every gallon of gasoline we purchase. Clearly Big Oil is Pelosi’s designated punching bag while distracting voters from her idiotic "solutions" to the nation’s energy needs.
In fact, the Democrats rejected the Gas Petroleum Refinery Improvement & Community Empowerment Act of 2007. No new refineries means less refining capability for a nation that has not seen a new one built since the 1970s. Just watch the price of gasoline rise as that continues. Speaker Pelosi, her fellow Democrats and some Republicans as well have essentially told Americans to use less energy at the same time the population continues to grow and the growth of the economy is totally tied to the provision of the energy that coal, oil and nuclear power provides. Meanwhile, as the Speaker continues to blather away about global warming, all around the world, global warming is an increasingly discredited hoax. This does not deter the Speaker from believing that the United States "should lead the global effort on a binding global warming agreement with commitments from all the major emitters including China, India, and Brazil." The UN Kyoto protocol doesn’t even include these nations. The US Senate unanimously rejected participation years ago. Just how deluded is the Speaker? I don’t know, but I do know she scares the heck out of me! "Warning Signs" is here to provide facts. From week to week we depend on the donations of visitors to this site, so if you can help, please do. Thanks.
E. Ralph Hostetter, the publisher of American Farm Publications, is one of the most cogent, sensible voices on issues concerning farming today. Recently he wrote about "The impact of biofuels." You might think he would be all for converting corn into ethanol, but Hostetter is not. He sees the insanity of using corn—a crop used in the manufacture of 3,500 commonly used products during their production or processing—in this fashion. "The American public is told by our government the rate of inflation in 2006 was only 2.2 percent," wrote Hostetter. "However, when price increases in food and energy were factored in, the reality was that actual inflation was 4.8 percent, or an increase of 118 percent what the nation was told." The volatility of food and energy prices is such that the government’s Consumer Price Index conveniently ignores them. That doesn’t make the problem go away, but it does mislead the public. "Today, 60 percent of the American corn crop is fed to U.S. livestock," noted Hostetter. "Therefore, as the price of corn is forced up by the demands of ethanol production and many natural causes such as weather, so is the price of meat, poultry, eggs, milk and more than 3,500 products American use every day." Among the products affected by the rise in the cost of corn are cake mixes, pizza, beer, whisky, candies, cookies, corn flakes, cosmetics, instant coffee, carbonated beverages, fertilizers, vitamins, tires, toothpaste, paper products, pharmaceuticals such as aspirin and more than 85 different types of antibiotics. And that’s just a short list. Across the board, the price of a bushel of corn was up six percent in 2006 because of federal government mandates for the production and use of ethanol. "Corn production for the nearly 7 billion gallons of ethanol production at the present time requires about 16 million acres or 20 percent of the total 80-plus million acres presently in corn production," Hostetter noted. In the effort to cash in on the federal ethanol mandates, production facilities cannot be built fast enough. In Iowa, when 55 ethanol plants become fully operational, they will use virtually the entire corn crop of that State! Proposals in Congress to increase biofuel production "will require nearly 100 million acres of corn, approximately a 25 percent increase above the present 80-plus million acres," said Hostetter, which means that other crops such as soybeans and cotton will not be planted. At present, the U.S. "supplies 70 percent of world corn exports of some 55 million tons of corn. It is now estimated that ethanol production in 2006 consumed about 50 million tons." Goodbye world corn exports and the money generated for the U.S. economy. Instead that corn will be added to gasoline in the form of ethanol. It’s not like the world is running out of oil for gasoline. There is no rational or scientific reason to reduce the use of gasoline except for the charge that automobile and truck use generates "greenhouse gases", but 95 percent of all greenhouse gases is water vapor! Environmentalists and the U.S. Congress want to destroy the U.S. economy by diverting corn from feeding the livestock and other food products that we consume and the thousands of other uses for which it is required. In 1992, Al Gore’s book, "Earth in the Balance", was published. It is his screed about the way everyone is participating in the destruction of the Earth. He wrote, "…it ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say a twenty-five year period." Look under the hood of your car. That’s an internal combustion engine. Driving up the cost of corn is pure genius if you want to inflict financial pain on everyone and destroy the nation’s economy. Environmentalism is the tool of America’s enemies. Did you learn something new? That’s the work of The National Anxiety Center, but it is totally dependent on your donation. Please help the Center maintain this website and our communications program that reaches out to thousands of Americans just like yourself. Thank you!
©
2007 Alan Caruba. |
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More to the point no nation on Earth is or can be energy independent. Were that the case, there would be no vast matrix of global trade in oil, natural gas, coal and the uranium utilized by nuclear energy facilities. It should be noted that the United States has been especially blessed with centuries’ worth of coal deposits and estimates of enormous untapped reserves of continental offshore oil and natural gas. As this is written Congress continues to deny access to these reserves as well as much of Alaska’s vast oil reserves.
There’s a whole aspect of life in America about which fewer and fewer Americans know anything. It’s farming. Some two percent of the population feed the rest of us who have no idea how what they produce gets to our plate. Responsible for everything we eat, agriculture is also an essential element of our nation’s economy.