Democrats and Oil

Not too long ago I made the mistake of telling one of my friends that Democrats want to raise the price of oil. My friend is involved in the Democratic party to some extent and told me that they didn’t think it was part of the platform campaign. After they looked into it, it turns out that it is indeed not an official stance of the Democratic party. Ok, I stand corrected.

But, it’s often been said that actions speak louder than words. The actions of congress are pretty indicative that the Democrats (currently controlling congress) either want the price of gas to go up or that they simply do not understand basic economic models.

It is believed that there is enough oil in America and in American shorelines to give us independence from other countries for our national oil supply.

But,

· Democrats have blocked the development of new sources of petroleum.
· Democrats have blocked drilling in ANWR.
· Democrats have blocked drilling off the coast of Florida.
· Democrats have blocked drilling off of the east coast.
· Democrats have blocked drilling off of the west coast.
· Democrats have blocked drilling off the Alaskan coast.
· Democrats have blocked building oil refineries.
· Democrats have blocked clean nuclear energy production.
· Democrats have blocked clean coal production.

Keep in mind that the red part of the graph is over an eight-year time span. The blue part of the graph has occured in less than one year.

My impression is that Democrats, through environmentalists, want to source and utilize alternative forms of energy. I’m OK with this and think it’s a good idea, but I’ll also point out that it’s unrealistic to believe that any new energy source is going to be plentiful and economically viable in the next three to five years. That means that we should have two goals. The first being to seek out and develop an economically viable energy source that we can integrate into our society. The second being to alleviate the economic stranglehold that other countries have on us due to our dependence on their oil.

I don’t see why they have to be mutually exclusive and I certainly don’t understand why we have to impact the economy so severely in the interim. One person I spoke with said that if we don’t do this then there isn’t any incentive to develop new technologies. I suppose that is entirely possible but I’d also speculate that we are well beyond that as many companies have too substantial of an investment in alternative energy sources as to forget about them. Furthermore, that mentality is an “ends justify the means” mentality which I’ve never been very fond of.

What I really find astounding are the people that vote in the existing congress, and then get mad at what’s happening to the economy due to the soaring price of gasoline. Yet, they still don’t want to allow drilling on our land and off shore. Obama says that he is not upset at the price of gasoline, but that it rose so quickly. Not upset? It was almost $5.00 / gallon when I was just in CA. The trickle down effect is amazing and yet the nominee for President says everything is chill.

And if the environmentalists are so concerned then why do we allow foreign countries like China to drill off of our own shores and capitalize on our resources while we stranglehold our own companies? China has got one of the absolute worst track records of environmentalism of any country.