Posted by
David C. Innes on Wednesday, July 09, 2008 4:26:26 PM
Texas
oilman T. Boone Pickens has entered the energy debate that is becoming
an ever deeper concern for American voters as the price of gas and
eventually home heating oil climb. In today's Wall Street Journal ("
My Plan to Escape the Grip of Foreign Oil")
he presents his plan "to reduce America's foreign oil imports by more
than one-third in the next five to 10 years." You can find it more
fully elaborated on his website,
http://www.pickensplan.com/.
"Foreign
oil," he says, "is at the intersection of America's three most
important issues: the economy, the environment and our national
security." Though he mentions new jobs and the "carbon footprint," his
concern is primarily national security. "With all my experience, I've
never been as worried about our energy security as I am now. Like many
of us, I ignored what was happening. Now our country faces what I
believe is the most serious situation since World War II." Our oil
imports have gone from 24% of consumption in 1973 (the year of the OPEC
oil embargo) to 42$ in 1990 (the year of the first Gulf War) to 70%
today. Of course, the economy has multiplied in size whereas domestic
oil production has likely decreased. He reports that over the next ten
years, America will transfer $10 trillion to foreign nations. He does
not mention that much of will flow to people who are trouble for
America, international evils and curses on their own people.
His
plan is to develop a diversity of energy sources--wind in the Midwest,
solar in the Southwest, drilling offshore, batteries and fuel cells,
and encouraging the use of natural gas powered trucks and buses. He
relies largely on the private sector with certain government mandates
such as for the formation of wind and solar transmission corridors. It
requires "no new consumer or corporate taxes or government regulation."
The
question for students of American politics is: which candidate will
come forward with the most convincing plan to address this issue. The
rhetorical task is to convince the unconvinced that there is a problem,
and persuade the convinced that your plan is feasible, relatively swift
in it's delivery, reasonably sensitive to the environment, cost
efficient and government lite. The Pickens Plan is quite convincing to
this energy layman.
Power Line
ends a post on the recent AP/Yahoo poll on the presidential race with
this: "The Presidential race polls as a dead heat. The tie-breaker is
the price of gasoline. Of all issues, it is rated
highest by respondents, with 66% saying it is 'extremely important.' If
John McCain quits paying lip service to the global warming myth and
runs as the candidate who wants to expand our access to energy, he will
win rather easily in November."