Third (and widely unknown to most Americans), Congress continues to mandate the production of roughly 30 different types of gasoline to be used in different parts of the nation, which has further increased the cost of gasoline's production and largely explains the disparities in prices from state to state. Eric Bolling, a strategic advisor to the New York Mercantile Exchange and an insightful market commentator for Fox's recently launched business channel, predicted this past May that gasoline was likely headed to $4 a gallon by mid-summer. Fortunately for Americans, it didn't quite reach that level, but it did rapidly exceed $3 a gallon in most areas of the nation, and the price of oil per barrel concurrently skyrocketed from $65 to nearly $100 last month. That's the quantifiable cost of a war on terrorism that is not yet won and a Congress that still seems clueless to the extent of this nation's mounting energy crisis. Forget a long-term plan; this Congress doesn't have a short-term one.
Our long-term energy policy, when it does emerge, will not likely be rooted in oil, as both President Bush and Congressional Democrats have astutely acknowledged. What hasn't been said, however, is that the short-term bridge between here and that long-term policy is rooted almost entirely in petroleum. Given that, it's a short-term bridge that requires the use of our own oil resources. Such a step would simultaneously ease the supply constrictions that are burdening this nation with unnecessarily escalating oil and gasoline prices while diminishing our dependence on unreliable Persian Gulf, Nigerian, Venezuelan and other global oil resources.
Ditto the case with nuclear power, which, since Three Mile Island, modern technology has made an impressively efficient and environmentally-friendly mechanism for the delivery of energy. Even in the environmentally conscious European Union nations, nuclear power's safety and efficiency was long ago recognized. But in the U.S., it's now been 30 years since bureaucrats at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have authorized the construction of a new nuclear power facility in this nation. The first one since then is now under development in New Mexico, but it's been a long time coming.
A final point: The likelihood of a potential conflict with Iran hopefully diminished this week, presuming the declassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report, which reveals that Iran appears to have suspended its covert nuclear program in late 2003, is to be believed. But the potential for conflict of varying sorts with this unpredictable and often unreasonable regime still remains, even if the NIE findings are 100 percent accurate, and it's worth observing that Israel and other sources promptly challenged the NIE conclusions, stating that Iran has been and continues to engage in uranium enrichment and other steps associated with the development of nuclear weapons capabilities.
Article comments
1 - Dr Dreadful
Tiny quibble:
It's the Strait of Hormuz, not Straight.
2 - Christopher Rose
That's dire!
;-)
3 - Clavos
...aand it's not even a straight strait...
4 - Dr Dreadful
Should the body of water between San Francisco and Tiburon be called a gay?
5 - REMF
^ at least it's straighter than munchkins...
6 - Clavos
You are a bad boy, Doc!
7 - Franco
Well written and informitive ipinion pieces.
Right off of U.S. coastal waters……..European and other nations are right now drilling for oil in areas where our own Congress has prohibited such drilling by American oil companies.
Why?
it will be important that our currently untapped U.S.-based oil reserves are available and sufficient to carry this nation through such a crisis. The time to ensure adequate access to these petroleum resources is not once the U.S. begins its response to Iranian aggression. The time for that preparation is now.
What's holding up the show?
8 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Petroleum is an important material for making things like computers and other packages that do not contain food or drink.
But truth be told, for liquid fuel, or any other purpose, it is not needed at all. The tchnology to replace it is already here, and can be developed in short order....
When the firms come out with those materials, it will be a pleasure to see the faces of all the oil execs and their ba(n)ckers who now think they are in the catbird's seat, as they suddenly realize they are as expendable as Burger King employees.
9 - Clavos
"off of U.S. coastal waters, European and other nations are right now drilling for oil in areas where our own Congress has prohibited such drilling by American oil companies."
Off the US coast??? That's the first I've heard that.
Exactly where?
10 - Clavos
"When the firms come out with those materials, it will be a pleasure to see the faces of all the oil execs and their ba(n)ckers who now think they are in the catbird's seat, as they suddenly realize they are as expendable as Burger King employees."
Ruvy, Ruvy, Ruvy...
Who do you think is going to be supplying those materials? The oil companies--already, they are all spending billions on R & D for alternative fuels; they're not just OIL companies, Ruvy. They are ENERGY companies.
And they're not stupid. If some one else comes up with a good alternative fuel, they'll buy (or steal) the process. They are not about to go out of business any time soon.
11 - Dave Nalle
Clavos has a good point. Shell and BP are among the world's leading producers of solar panels (made from petroleum byproducts) while Chevron is going into the alternative fuels business on a large scale with ethanol and biodiesel.
Dave