What Is This World Coming To?

Senator Barack Obama proclaimed last week that properly inflated tires and well-maintained engines “will produce all the savings we’ll need” - presumably as much as all the oil we could hope to obtain by all the drilling offshore, onshore, ANWR, and from shale.

“There are things that you can do individually though to save energy; making sure your tires are properly inflated, simple thing, but we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups,’ Obama said. “You could actually save just as much.”

The media, so mesmerized by Obama-speak that they didn’t notice how stupid that was until after they arrived home, and free from his charismatic spell, read what they had written in their notes. That’s right.

Could Obama’s national energy strategy really be mandatory tuneups and new tire gauges for all? Unsure if they had transcribed what they had heard, they put a lid on it and hoped Their Guy would come up with something a bit more, er, meaningful if they gave him time.

First, he says he’ll drain the US Petroleum reserves to provide immediate, short-term relief at the pump. Then he wants to tax oil companies windfall profits and then give $1000 to American drivers to help them pay for more expensive gasoline.

(So he’ll take money from Big Oil, give it to Joe Consumer, who will give it back to Big Oil. Giving Big Oil very little reason to look for more oil when it can make just as much by raising prices on the oil it already has.)

Secondly, keeping the price of gasoline artificially high will (somehow) result in the creation of new energy sources and get America off oil altogether. If not, then he says he’ll mandate that all cars in ten years will get 150 miles per gallon. (Why not just mandate oil fall from heaven like rain? )

Thirdly, he wants to create a $50 billion (yes, ‘billion’ with a ‘B’) to help jump-start the job creation for all those millions who used to work for the oil companies, refineries, gas stations, and industries from plastics manufacturing, to those making solvents, electrical tape, Cool Whip, non-dairy creamers, tennis rackets, adhesive (or any of the other 6000 products) made from petroleum. (Gee, is $50 billion going to be enough? )

Fourth, he’ll pressure oil companies to either drill on the land the government gave them, or he’ll take it away from them, the so-called “use it or lose it” option. So Big Oil either spends money drilling for oil where there might not be any, or they won’t get to drill at all.

Finally, Obama plans to tackle climate change as part of his energy policy by introducing an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

It sounds wonderful. All this without using a drop of oil. Someday. (By 2050 for sure). In practical terms however, the most sensible proposal on the list remains the first one.

You can afford a tire gauge and still afford to eat.