Posted By:
Anonymousdid we ever figure out why Jeff was on TV?
What we need to do is demand higher mileage in vehicles, stop subsidizing the oil industries with our tax dollars (where are the free marketeers on that one) and properly subsidize energy saving measures (why the tax incentive for hybrid cars is capped at 60,000 of each model is beyond anyone's intelligence to fathom), and create a Manhattan Project type attitude about alternative renewable energy development.
A modest increase in vehicle mileage would wipe out a large portion of our oil needs, yet the powers that be strenuously resist any effort to increase vehicle standards and to bring exempt vehicles like certain trucks and SUVs into the fold. The tax code has been written to incentivize the largest possible vehicles (under IRC 179) and actually limits tax incentives on higher mileage hybrid cars. Either our leaders are stupid or they are intentionally putting policy in place to drive up vehicular oil consumption. I happen to think many of those in power are astoundingly, breathtakingly stupid, but I recognize that they may not be complete idiots, in which case they are intentionally doing this.
We the people pay the oil industry, the most profitable industry on earth, approximately $120 billion a year in tax credits, subsidides and other pork. You don't want windfall profit taxes? Fine. The oil patch can pay its own way without tax welfare. Where are the supposedly anti-government "conservatives" on this?
It also astounds me to no end that seemingly intelligent people would rather destroy our oil supplies instead of conserving them for the future when they may be really important to the nation. Forget the wildlife, why on earth would you want to tap out our domestic oil supplies, depleting what oil we have on hand, when we can reduce consumption painlessly to ameliorate more domestic demand than the oil in those areas could fill? I say leave those areas to our kids and their kids and use up the rest of the world's resources now.
The shortage argument is wrong. Oil is not in short supply. Cheap oil is in short supply. Once oil reaches a certain price lots of proven reserves become economically viable to tap into. There is enough oil sand in Canada and the US to supply our needs for generations provided it is economically feasible to extract it. Which it now is given the current price of oil.