Obama’s Energy Plan anything but strategic

“In a reversal, Barack Obama is proposing tapping the nation’s strategic oil reserves to help drive down gasoline prices, his campaign said Monday,” according to the AP. This is the sort of thing that has increasingly made me nervous about the Democratic presidential nominee, Obama.

What part of “strategic reserves” does Obama not understand? Apparently his plan “supports releasing light oil from the emergency oil stockpile now and replacing it later with heavier crude more suited to the country’s long-term needs”.

“Long-term needs?” Nothing in Obama’s plan is about long-term needs. If he is worried about “long-term needs” then there are some solutions worthy of consideration, including:

• Allowing more off-shore drilling – did you know that we have lost a ton of oil that has naturally seeped into the coast off of Santa Barbara? “Seeps off of Coal Oil Point near the University of California at Santa Barbara put an average of 150-170 barrel of crude oil and 5 million cubic feet of natural gas into the ocean every day. This activity leaves a large and visible sheen on the ocean surface,” according to the Western States Petroleum Association, which also informs us that “more than one million barrels of oil have seeped off the coast of Southern and Central California since 1980.”
• Encouraging American auto manufacturers to design more fuel-efficient products and alternatives. Detroit is in the dumps because American auto manufacturers kept on making giant trucks even as oil prices were rising. That sort of stupidity needs to stop – and if these auto companies go down there should be NO bailouts!
• Getting our military out of rich countries like Japan, Korea and Germany – these countries can afford to protect themselves – by paying to defend them we allow them to undercut our manufacturers. All of these countries invest in their manufacturing sectors because they don’t have to pay to defend themselves.
• Getting our military out of Iraq – why hasn’t the Democrat controlled Congress been able to move this issue? We are wasting billions of dollars, much of it on natural resources, in Iraq, while over in Afghanistan it looks like the Taliban is back.

How high do oil prices have to go before the Democrats will be open to more drilling???

Obama’s energy plan includes a “10-year, $150 billion spending plan focusing on clean coal technology, further development of plug-in hybrid cars, commercialization of wind and solar power and other measures.”

Wind and solar power currently account for less than 4% of our electrical energy production. How is Obama going to change that harsh reality?

Are plug-in hybrid cars the solution, when they use electricity that comes from coal-fired plants? Aren’t hydrogen fueled cars a better option?

McCain’s energy plan “includes building 45 new nuclear power plants; offering a $300 million prize for major advancement of low-cost, plug-in hybrid or electric car technology; and “encouraging the market” in wind, hydroelectric and solar power. Both he and Obama would cut use of fossil fuels to combat climate change.

Nuclear power plants? How can McCain promote the nuclear option when we still don’t know what to do with the waste? Are we going to use the French system which recycles the nuclear waste? Does McCain have a clue?

And McCain is also infatuated with electric cars – but as I stated that is not a great option. Electricity is NOT clean fuel.

What does Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr have to say about energy? “Government intervention, whether through more regulations or more subsidies (or both), hurts consumers in the end. The free market, driven by consumer choice and reflecting the real cost of resources, should be the foundation of America’s energy policy. The federal government should eliminate restrictions that inhibit energy production, as well as all special privileges for the production of politically-favored fuels, such as ethanol.”

Is it just me or does Barr’s approach to solving our national energy crisis make a lot more sense than anything the red and blue parties have to offer?

“Obama said Friday that he would reluctantly consider accepting some new offshore oil drilling.” Is that really what we need? A President who is reluctant to act?