-Caveat Lector-
Black gold & green lies
By Alan Caruba
web posted September 25, 2000
If the nation's media rolls over for the lies Al Gore is telling about the
high cost of gasoline and what's to come with heating oil and natural gas
costs, then we are being put on the path to an economic disaster in America.
The simple reason is that everything travels on wheels these days. We all
drive to work and every piece of goods that gets made and delivered comes in
a truck.
Reportedly, both the Secretary of the Treasury, Lawrence Summers, and
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, issued a memorandum calling
the President's decision to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
"a major and substantial policy mistake." It's worse than that. It is a
decision driven totally by politics, not policy. It was a decision to advance
Hillary Clinton's campaign in New York State and Al Gore's floundering
campaign nationwide. There will be no impact on oil prices
In the United States today, we import more than half of all the oil we need
to function and our economy requires what we're using now and more in the
near future. Why? Because our economy is growing. Some people here at home
and many others round the world resent this. The same holds true for the need
to provide more electricity. We need more coal-burning utilities because coal
is electrical power in America and we need nuclear powered utilities too.
Ralph Nader's running mate, Ms. LaDuke, came to fame opposing all nuclear
power. Al Gore thinks that nuclear power "is now obviously at a technological
dead end."
Why is the cost of gas so high? Why don't we have the utilities we require?
Why is the EPA attacking the utilities we have? Why haven't we been drilling
for our own reserves of oil? Why can't we open up a new coal mine anywhere?
Why did Clinton put the richest reserves of high-grade coal in the West off
limits to any development? My friends, I give you Al Gore and the policies of
the environmental movement, the Greens!
Right now in Alaska, according to one of the latest U.S. Geological Surveys,
there's at least 16 billion barrels of oil going untapped. That's comparable
to five years of U.S. imports. Guess what? The Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge is off-limits to any use of its huge reserves. The caribou are too
important. The Clinton-Gore administration has also seen to it that the oil
reserves off California and Florida can't be tapped either. We have to
protect the sea otters and seals. Want to know why you're paying so much
money to fill your tank? Ask Al Gore, Jr!
This is, of course, the same Al Gore, who, on September 21st, said, "People
should be able to get in their cars and drive where they want, when they
want, at a low price." This is the same Al Gore who, writing in his book,
"Earth in the Balance" said, "Today, we must recognize that our heavy
reliance on cars as our primary means of transportation accounts for a large
proportion of the carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere from the
industrial world. Objectively, it makes little sense for each of us to burn
up all the energy necessary to travel with several thousands pounds of metal
wherever we go."
To demonstrate how insane Gore's views about the automobile truly are, you
need only read his book where, at one point, he says "We now know that their
cumulative impact on the global environment is posing a mortal threat to the
security of every nation more deadly than that of any military enemy we are
ever again likely to confront."
Objectively and scientifically, there is no global warming and the amount of
CO2 humans produce is nothing compared to the billions of metric tons
produced by the oceans of the world and other natural sources. More CO2 is a
boon to agriculture and forest growth. Measurements of the earth's overall
temperature all indicate there has been no warming in over fifty years.
Nothing Al Gore Jr. has to say on this subject makes any sense whatever.
Meanwhile, the OPEC nations, whose oil it is, have pointed out that the
reason we are paying high prices here and the Europeans are paying even
higher prices is because of the taxes imposed by our federal and state
governments and those of the other consumer nations. To put it another way,
the US and the European governments get huge amounts of money for doing
nothing while the producers of oil are depleting what, for most, is their
only natural resource.
OPEC nations have enough known reserves for, at the least, another fifty
years. That means we have time to (1) drill and utilize our own reserves and
(2) come up with new technology to reduce our dependency on oil. If you doubt
we can do this, you know nothing of history. It wasn't until the last century
that the automobile was even invented or came into widespread use. Before
that it was horses!
At this point you must also factor in the Clean Air policies of the
Environmental Protection Agency. Led by Gore's hand-picked director, Carol
Browner, the EPA has imposed mandates on the refining of oil resulting in gas
shortages in the mid-West this summer and the poisoning of the nation's water
sources due to an EPA-required additive. Al Gore has gone from blaming OPEC
to blaming "Big Oil" and, by next week, he will be blaming George W. Bush for
not having stayed in the oil business.
Gore is Big Oil. He is responsible for an estate worth hundreds of thousands
of dollars in Occidental Oil stock. First his daddy raised Big Tobacco for a
living and then, after the folks in Tennessee threw Albert Sr. out of
Congress, daddy worked for Occidental. This oil company is currently trying
to drill for oil in Colombia.
It gets worse. Back in August, Reuters reported that "a top advisor" to Al
Gore advocated creating "a new global environmental organization to protect
wildlife and address concerns about the impact of trade on natural
resources." Laura Tyson wants to have a permanent forum similar to the World
Trade Organization or the International Labor Organization to deal with
"cross-border disputes that affect the health of forests, oceans and
endangered species." Let me translate this for you. This is a ploy to shut
down the use of any natural resources anywhere for any reason.
The Clinton-Gore administration has now tapped into our Strategic Petroleum
Reserves, something reserved only for war or an economic emergency. This is a
blatant effort to (1) gain votes and (2) cover up the fact they have had no
energy policy for the past seven years other than to stump on any effort to
find and extract our own nation's vast reserves of oil. To claim that the
Clinton-Gore administration isn't significantly responsible for the rise in
the cost of oil is the most audacious lie of all.
While taking credit for the economic boom that started because of the Reagan
administration's policies, they also managed for seven years to ignore the
growing energy needs of the nation. Between Al Gore, Hazel O'Leary and now
Bill Richardson, we have had three of the biggest nincompoops in the nation
to blame for the current situation.
We are being whipsawed between the real costs of black gold and the Green
lies of environmental policies.
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, and the founder of The
National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about scare
campaigns intended to influence public opinion and policies. The Center
maintains an Internet site at www.anxietycenter.com. Mr. Caruba can be
reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2000.
Other related stories: (open in a new window)
Al Gore's gasoline lies by Alan Caruba (July 24, 2000)
It's a gas, man! by Alan Caruba (July 3, 2000)
Government energy policy errors contribute to high gasoline prices by Amy
Ridenour (April 3, 2000)
Good news about energy by Amy Ridenour (February 1999)
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