BACK • 
Negative on Everything
The White House announced its energy policy a little more than a week ago, and the president has since then been out, taking his case to the people. We haven’t really had an energy policy in this country for the past eight years, so this is something of a novelty brought on by an increasing sense of urgency over the nation’s energy supply.
The report that the president had developed by his cabinet tax force says that our country is facing the worst energy crisis since the 1970s. Therefore, the president has called for increased energy efficiency and production of renewable fuels as part of his comprehensive energy plan. He also offered proposals ranging from tax credits for the production of fuel efficient vehicles, to lowering the amount of power used by household appliances. The president’s proposals contain a host of measures for increasing production of energy resources, but also calls for ten billion dollars in tax credits for conservation efforts and the development of alternative fuels. That part is conveniently ignored by most of the media and the Democrats, who choose to paint the president as pandering to the oil interests. Well, then the question arises, if the president is pandering to oil interests, who was the White House pandering to for the past eight years when we didn’t have an energy policy? If your answer is, "White House interns," the general media would consider you very unfair.
The 163 page document offered by the president heavily emphasizes increased production of oil, natural gas, electricity and coal, and recommends stripping away regulatory barriers to boost all energy supplies. It also endorses studying nuclear power and building anywhere from 1,300 to 1,500 new power plants over the next 15 to 20 years. Most people who seem to understand the nation’s energy problem right now, say that it appears to be a fairly even handed proposal prepared by people who actually understand the energy business.
The crybabies in California are upset because there are no special emergency breaks handed out to them, and frankly I can’t feel too sorry for them. California has enjoyed a booming economy for the past 10 or 15 years, what with Silicon Valley and all that high tech stuff, but in the meantime, over that same decade or so, Californians have not built one power plant of any kind. They don’t want power lines above or underneath the ground, they don’t want drilling, they don’t want mining, they don’t want to hear or see anything that smacks of energy exploration. All they want is for the rest of us to help them in their own little fantasy world. Well, that apparently is not going to happen because that just isn’t the way the real world works.
My guess is that the president will get some, but certainly not all, of his energy proposals, through this fairly evenly divided Congress. I think his willingness to avoid market tampering/quick fix "gimmickry" is a plus. Like California, we’ve spent a good deal of time getting ourselves nationally behind the energy eight ball, and therefore, solutions would reasonably tend to be long-term in nature. In the meantime, the next time you feel sorry for yourself for the high cost of gasoline, consider this; a recent survey by the energy department reveals that the equivalent of a gallon of gas in Italy costs $3.72, and in France, roughly $3.75, as it is in Belgium. In Germany it’s $3.77, the Netherlands pays $4.17 for a gallon of gas, and the United Kingdom pays $4.18.
Now, honestly, I don’t enjoy paying almost $2.00 a gallon for gas any more than you do, but I think we have to understand that these are inflated numbers. For example: the first time gasoline hit a dollar a gallon in this country was in 1971. However, today, a 1971 dollar is worth about 22 cents. Therefore, even at $2.00 a gallon, gasoline, adjusted for inflation, is half the price it was 30 years ago. Aside from high technology computers or something like that, I can’t think of an awful lot of products or services that we buy that can make the same claim.
(Tom Butenhoff is a First Vice President with J. E. Liss and Company, Inc.
in Milwaukee. The views are his, and not necessarily those of Liss
Financial Services or the Job Connection/Hiring
Network.)