“Oil Addiction” Lies ... Alan Caruba

“Oil Addiction” Lies
By Alan Caruba

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Next to the huge international hoax about global warming allegedly caused by carbon dioxide, the biggest lie being told to Americans these days is that we are “addicted” to oil and that we must convert our economy and society away from its use.

The first time I recall hearing this was during George W. Bush’s 2006 State of the Union Speech and, frankly, I was astounded to hear it from the son of a former President who made his fortune in oil. The latest to repeat the lie is President Barack Obama, but he is allied with environmental organizations that are anti-energy no matter what form it takes.

Americans and everyone else around the world are not “addicted” to oil or other forms of energy sources such as coal and natural gas. They are used to maintain and enhance modern life.

Data from 2006 makes it abundantly clear that 85.5% of the electricity we use comes from carbon-based fuels. Nuclear and hydroelectric energy add over 20% of the rest. All that magical “clean” energy, solar and wind, provides 3% or less of the electricity the nation requires.

As Robert Bryce, an editor of Energy Tribune and author of several books on energy, says, “The simple unavoidable truth is that we humans cannot (and) will not quit using oil. If oil did not exist, we’d have to invent it. No other substance can compare to oil in terms of energy density, flexibility, cost, and convenience.

“About 95% of the world’s transportation fuel comes from oil,” notes Bryce. “Thus, without oil, there is no commerce.” No commerce, no world economy.

Americans are being force-fed lies about energy and the worst of them are about “clean energy research and development.” There are no viable or sensible substitutes for oil, coal, and natural gas.

According to an October 28, 2009 report by the Congressional Research Service “U.S. proven reserves of oil total 21.3 billion barrels and reserves of natural gas are 237.7 trillion cubic feet. Undiscovered technically recoverable oil in the United States is 145.4 billion barrels, and undiscovered technically recoverable natural gas is 1.162.7 trillion cubic feet. The demonstrated reserve base for coal is 489 billion short tons, of which 262 billion short tons are considered technically recoverable.”

So why has the Obama administration announced a shutdown of the auctioning of oil leases? Why have several administrations refused to allow access to the oil beneath the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve or the potentially vast offshore Alaskan reserves?

If the ban on offshore drilling for oil and natural gas on 85% of the U.S. offshore regions is maintained, the nation will be forced to rely on foreign sources, many of whom are unfriendly, even hostile.

Think about this. Beneath a 1.5 million acre tract on the North Slope of Alaska there are an estimated three to nine billion barrels of recoverable oil. In 1987 the Department of Interior recommended development. There has been none because a succession of Congresses has refused to allow drilling on what would amount to a postage-size part of the vast Coastal Plain.

The U.S. must import the vast percentage of the oil we require, some 60%, and yet Americans are being denied the right to access, extract, refine and use the oil we have or look for more. Oil companies are routinely demonized despite the billions they must spend in exploration, extraction and refining.

Are we that stupid?

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, is promising to bring the Cap-and-Trade bill, an energy tax bill now called a “climate” bill, to a vote in July. Studies suggest its passage would destroy more than two million jobs nationwide.

One analysis projected that the bill would reduce gross domestic product (GDP) by $9.4 trillion over the next 25 years. The U.S. doesn’t have 25 years. Our current national debt is $13 trillion and our GDP is $12.9 trillion. Do the math!

Likewise, raising taxes on oil and natural gas companies would reduce the amount of private capital available for vitally needed investments to access our energy resources.

The big, awful oil and natural gas industry has already invested $58.4 billion to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and there is no need to reduce carbon dioxide. It plays no role whatever in a global warming that is NOT happening. The Earth has been cooling for a decade. Significantly, an increase in carbon dioxide would yield more crops and healthier expanded forests.

Finally, let’s get a grip on reality. As bad as the leak has become, there is just one oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico leaking oil. It’s out there because environmentalists and government policies have forced oil companies to explore and drill in hazardous places.

The rest of the rigs, several hundreds, are still safely pumping oil. The BP Deepwater Horizon rig will be capped eventually. That problem will end. The spilled oil will be worked on by the forces of nature, dispersing and evaporating it. In five years, just like the Valdez spill, there will be no evidence of the spill.

The real “addiction” that threatens the United States is a Congress that will not stop borrowing and spending an unsustainable amount of money on programs that should have been abandoned or adjusted years ago.

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Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about “scare campaigns” designed to influence public opinion and policy.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

From Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama: A Horror Story!

From Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama: A Horror Story

By Alan Caruba
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John F. Kennedy, standing in front of the Berlin Wall, said “Ich bin en Berliner” to declare his solidarity with Western Germany, divided from its eastern half by the compromises with the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. Ronald Reagan would later demand, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” as well as declare his solidarity with the Polish people seeking to free themselves from Soviet domination.

I have heard two versions of what President Obama has done in response to the Iranian uprising. One says that he was right to keep a low profile so that the United States would not be blamed for the rebellion against the tyrannical ayatollahs. This, it’s said provides “deniability” in the event the regime successfully puts down the rebellion. The other version says he should be outspoken in his support for the Iranian people.

History will decide whether President Obama has chosen the right course of action, but we know he has already made major efforts to reach out to the “Supreme Leader” and his mullah cronies. Death to the U.S. and Israel has always been the rallying call for the thirty-year-old Islamic revolution. We are the external enemies by which the mullahs assert their right to run Iran. At the same time, by distancing himself from the Israelis, President Obama has let the whole of the Middle East know he has cast his vote for Islam.

In 1979 there were crowds in the streets of Tehran that drove out the Shah. President Jimmy Carter appeared to have been caught off-guard by what happened. So were the U.S. diplomats and the CIA who apparently had no idea how deep the hatred ran for the Shah. The exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini tapped into that hatred. Soon our diplomats were to be held hostage for 444 days, released only when Ronald Reagan took the oath of office and Jimmy Carter was rendered a powerless and defeated one-term ex-President.

Jimmy Carter was incapable of demonstrating the power and the will of the American people to free our diplomats. He blamed earlier decisions regarding Iran as a buffer state against the Soviet Union and a source of oil to the West. Did the CIA “meddle” in Iran’s affairs, engineering the overthrow of a prime minister in 1953? Yes, along with the British we did and, from what I can determine, it was the right decision.

By the time Carter was elected President in 1977, the memories of the 1973 oil embargo were still fresh in the minds of Americans. The members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries used the embargo to punish the U.S. for supporting Israel, re-supplying its military during the Yom Kippur war.

Despite later negotiating a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, it is safe to conclude Carter was no friend to Israel and that animus has deepened over the years. Israel relinquished the Sinai desert, just as it would later withdraw from the Gaza in a vain hope of peace. There's a museum in Cairo devoted to the "victory" Egypt claims it secured in the war.

As Seldon B. Graham, Jr. points out in his book, “Why Your Gasoline Prices Are High”, “On January 23, 1980, President Carter announced to Congress that the U.S. would defend the Persian Gulf area by military force if necessary. Thus, the official energy policy of the United States abandoned USA oil and gave the supply to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).”

Carter had already called for a “windfall profits tax” on U.S. oil companies and Graham calls it, “a death notice for USA oil”, noting that “Many US oil and gas companies went bankrupt because of the Windfall Profits Tax.” During his campaign, President Obama called for a similar tax.

In the wake of that earlier tax, not one single new refinery has been built by U.S. oil companies because (a) they cost well over a billion to construct and (b) there is no way they can be sure another such tax would not be imposed.

Exploration for America's vast reserves of oil have been meager as well. Virtually the entire continental shelf of the nation was put off-limits to exploration and extraction. An effort by the Bush administration to lift the restriction was swiftly rescinded by the Obama administration. Congress still will not let oil companies drill in Alaska's ANWR.

Carter's actions effectively left the United States dependent to a large degree on Middle East oil, although these days the U.S. now imports much of its oil from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela.

Denying the U.S. of its own vast energy reserves and attacking its energy producers has been a consistent theme in a straight line between President Carter and President Obama.

President Obama apparently also hates coal, vowing to “bankrupt” any company that attempted to build a coal-fired plant to provide much-need electricity to our growing population. In addition to rescinding the opening of the continental shelf to exploration, one of the first acts of the Obama administration was to cancel leases to explore for oil deposits in states where it is known to exist in large quantities.

Both the Carter and Obama administrations display the weakness liberals have for despots and despotic regimes of every description. In their hearts they see them as an appropriate way to keep people in bondage.

The leaders of many foreign nations have already taken Barack Obama’s measure.

The North Koreans hold him in such contempt they intend to fire a ballistic missile at Hawaii, probably on Independence Day. If he really wanted to show some character and a clear intent to defend the nation, he would destroy it in flight because we have the capacity to do this. He won’t.

Obama’s Democrat majority in Congress is beginning to back away from his disastrous taxing and spending proposals. It is widely rumored that the proposed “Cap-and-Trade” legislation, based on the bogus global warming hoax, will fail in Congress.

Similarly, the panic in the White House as it attempts to cope with a failing economy can be smelled a few blocks away on Capitol Hill. Obama’s constant drumbeat of one “crisis” after another is beginning to wear thin and it is likely too that his healthcare “reform” will fail as well.

Raising taxes in the midst of the worst recession since the days of the Great Depression is not likely to find much favor either.

On Independence Day, nearly 1,500 or more protest rallies, “Tea parties”, will be held in America from coast to coast. Their message will not be lost on Congress though you can be sure the slavish mainstream news media will do what they can to mislead the public into believing they were minor events.

Only they will not be minor events, nor will those that will follow. Americans will be in the streets in the weeks and months that follow. They will reflect the same determination of Iranians who want the freedom we too often take for granted.

In October 2010, Americans will have an opportunity to neuter this narcissist, this pretender in the White House. It is time to prepare for the midterm elections. It is time to take America back from the liberals that are ruining it.

Alan Caruba
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