Welcome to the "progressive" world of tire inflation storm troopers & a government controlled car industry (in other words a dead one).

If you want to look at energy consumption look at the subsidies that it gets. The government builds all these socialist roads for people to drive on. The big cities' socialism makes life there intolerable. The suburban municipalities want development to increase their tax base. So they encourage building more houses, malls, industrial parks, & office buildings. They build the socialist schools themselves. Put it all together & you have massive unnecessary energy use. Instead of people living in a more efficient  city they sprawl out into the countryside while the cities die.

This is the price we pay for having the government run our economy, & you want them to take even more control? Why? So they can mess things up even more?

Instead of bailing out the car manufacturers if they do a, b, c, the government should not bail them out period. They should also not impose costly regulations, taxes, & unions on them. Then they could compete  on the world market.

You want to put people back to work? Let's give them real jobs, not make them a tire inflation Gestapo. If this idea of yours were actually implemented the politicians will no doubt attach fines to the process to pay for the policing. 

Anyway, what ever happened to the 4th Amendment? You can't have government agents charging onto private property to see if people's tires are inflated properly. This would be just as wrong as the police in Minnisota  raiding houses & arresting people because they might (yeah right) riot. See the connection here? You can't pick & choose your liberties.

I love this one, "I blame our legislators for failing to stand up to short sighted special interests". What else do politicians do but cater to special interests? It would be like you asking a spider to stop eating bugs to expect them to do otherwise. 

"The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang   of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent  for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.   Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for  something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that   promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting ‘A’ to satisfy ‘B’. In  other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced  auction on stolen goods."

— H.L. Mencken

by Darren Wolfe (15 articles, 400 quicklinks, 141 diaries, 1031 comments [84 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Sep 7, 2008 at 10:09:45 AM

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Rob Kall's Offshore Drilling Approach is Bad For America;
Submitted by Geophys55

by Steve Campbell (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments) on Sunday, Sep 7, 2008 at 12:53:26 PM

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Not that I disagree necessarily, but you should explain why you see things the way you do.

by Darren Wolfe (15 articles, 400 quicklinks, 141 diaries, 1031 comments [84 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Sep 7, 2008 at 8:28:54 PM

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here is the short list.

1.  The US has not had a cohesive energy policy since before the mid 1970's...

2.  The US has not built serious energy infrastructure, to speak of, since the 1970's...

3.   12 years ago when people wanted to start drilling, the VERY SHORT SIGHTED politicians, catering to special interest, said "It would take 10 years to make that a reality." (that was 12 years ago...)

4.  Does anyone truly believe that it will take all of 10 years if it was not for the fact that government policy, put in place by VERY SHORT SIGHTED POLITICIANS, catering to special interests, creates hurtles nearly impossible to leap??

5.  there are no alternate energy solutions that will be able to come on line due to the severe lack of infrastructure, caused by the same short sighted politicians catering to special interests...

6.  other solutions, such as ethanol cause more pollution in production, cause inflation of food costs, and lower gas mileage in automobiles.  This is fact, it is not debatable, it is not even being argued against.  The same short sighted politicians have created policy, catering to special interests, that keep the US using this Ethanol for fuel DESPITE the knowledge of how bad it truly is for the nation...

7.  People like you look to those same short sighted politicians, catering to special interest, for a solution, and then wonder why they are not receiving one...

This is something to think about while your freedom of speech is stomped on by your candidate for president as he creates the NATIONAL POLICE FORCE, to protect the children, as opposed to protecting our rights as he SWORE to do....

Ciao, CZ

by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Sep 7, 2008 at 2:45:26 PM

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Any energy policy, especially when one comes to discussing a publicly-owned, non-renewable, and strategic resource as oil, should have conservation and oil alternatives as it's first and second components. Period.

Short-sighted policies, like DRILL NOW, only delay the inevitable.

Why is it that conservative voices who instinctively decry leaving massive government debt to future generations always seem to want to drill and consume every last drop of such a precious resource NOW, and leave those future generations with nothing? Does it make any sense to allow it to be squandered propelling individual commuters in their 13 mpg 6000 lb Lincoln Navigators around town?

Most pro-DRILL NOW proponents simply want to reduce the price of gas at the pump NOW, to continue an American life-style utterly dependent on oil. Of course there are no economically competitive alternatives to oil, the government has subsidized the oil industry for decades, and subsidized the bizarre politics of entire regions of the planet for decades so that Americans have cheap oil.

If oil were priced at anywhere near the real cost of it's consumption then other alternatives would be far more attractive. The entire cost of oil is simply the price that it takes to drill it NOW and move it NOW. No value is placed at all on the substance itself while it's in the ground. No pricing is based on the value of future goods and services it can produce, if conserved now and used later. No pricing considers the estimated $1.00 per gallon cost in ameliorating environmental effects of CO2 like global warming. No pricing considers the health and environmental costs of emitting hazardous gasses and particulate matter into the atmosphere where it continues into the lungs of the population.

Free markets, as they exist now, rarely consider the true costs, and hence true price, of a resource like oil. No value is given to the obvious characteristic that it's non-renewable, it's simply exploited NOW. So no value is ever given to it's future utility, and that is especially important when the resource is publicly-owned. Given the difficulty of determining the true value of oil, how can the country decide if it's actually made the best deal it possibly can when it yields up this resource for exploitation by private corporations?

I can't help but think this will become increasingly obvious to future generations when they look back and see how this ever-diminishing resource was simply squandered.

Conservation is of the first importance, and the basis of a permanent solution, not some short-term solution like DRILL NOW. Let's CONSERVE NOW and save this truly valuable resource for a time when we've learned to respect its value.

by Robert Knowles (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 59 comments) on Sunday, Sep 7, 2008 at 4:17:51 PM

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Comment from Ratings:   Having Congress mandate an 80-mile per gallon car is a little like having Congress mandate that the earth’s climate stop changing. It is a nice idea, but not very helpful. We cannot convert every car on the road to run on natural gas or bio-diesel in 5 years. Nor can we instantly create alternative energy sources to provide the electrical base load needed when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. Drilling will reduce our dependence on foreign oil while allowing technology a chance to develop the alternative sources. We need to start developing our own resources and stop expecting the rest of the world to give us whatever we want just because we are the last superpower.

by Marqman (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments) on Sunday, Sep 7, 2008 at 4:42:17 PM

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... is it a national security issue?

So, Mark, with your plan (DRILL NOW) is your goal to reduce the price of gas? Or is it to reduce the American dependency on foreign oil?

Based on even a cursory glance at gas prices and auto sales this summer, it's obvious that at about $4.00 - $4.25 gallon, Americans passion for gas-guzzling SUVs tends to diminish -- market forces at work -- and if they could afford a Hummer, they can afford a Civic, and they (at least) can still make it to work. Maybe $4.50 is a good price for gas.

Frankly, back in 1973 when the Saudis stopped shipping because of our support for Israel, I thought we should have started back then doing everything we could to conserve. But we didn't. Ironically the solution (and to some, an economic and political coup), was to just befriend the Saudi ruling family with gifts of advanced military systems and ask them to keep pumping to keep prices low.

That "friendship" generated a new and incredibly ambiguous balance of power in the Middle East. That friendship eventually led to the actual placement of military troops in Saudi Arabia, not to mention all of the other sheikdoms who promised Americans a continuous flow of oil. Those "friendships", replete with supporting US forces, are the reason given by most observers, including Osama bin Laden, for why Islamic fundamentalists dislike America so much that they'll commit suicide to harm us.

And now, after a continuous series of wars, and a political environment where progress for peace has been stalled for decades, we still don't conserve and still drive bigger and more inefficient automobiles.

So maybe you're right, maybe we can't do it in 5 years, but we absolutely need to make conservation THE TOP priority. We've already waited far too long. The consequences of providing Americans with cheap gas are actually just far too expensive, and maybe cheap gas isn't so cheap after all.

BTW, Congress actually can mandate higher mileage cars and experience shows that the industry, in spite of its truculence, can actually meet them, and I have no problem with Congress doing so. All of those cars do, after all, affect the quality of the air that I and my family breath.

by Robert Knowles (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 59 comments) on Sunday, Sep 7, 2008 at 5:51:04 PM

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After traversing Cuba, forecasters said Ike would enter the Gulf of Mexico, where 4,000 platforms produce 25 percent of U.S. oil and 15 percent of its natural gas, and point toward Louisiana and Texas.

 So OKAY! Let's put 4000 MORE platforms out there and when the next disastrous HURRICANE shuts them down or destroys them, the oil companies can hike the price of gas again 5, 10 or 20 times what it is already "While they fix them", and then keep the price up there AFTER and FOREVER after keep raking in those profits. That will help us a LOT. RIGHT?

by weslen1 (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 64 comments [8 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Sep 7, 2008 at 8:09:05 PM

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While an interuption of oil production in the Gulf would raise prices, not adding to the production with new wells will do the same. At least while the new wells are producing (which will be most of the time) they will be adding to the supply & pushing the price down. Bottom line, your post makes no sense.

Try learning something about economics:

Supply and demand

by Darren Wolfe (15 articles, 400 quicklinks, 141 diaries, 1031 comments [84 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Sep 7, 2008 at 8:42:02 PM

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Comment from Ratings:   You hit the nail on the head of a very important topic. I keep reading more of these things and my blood will be boiling so much during the Winter alone in this Huge House with Oil Heat...I could get by without the female writer I'm looking for...

by Michael Dewey (5 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 245 comments [12 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Sep 8, 2008 at 3:32:36 AM

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Automakers Go Hat in Hand to Congress

September 8, 2008

by Darren Wolfe (15 articles, 400 quicklinks, 141 diaries, 1031 comments [84 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Sep 8, 2008 at 7:54:39 AM

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