President Bush signed into law last week legislation to promote energy efficiency and the use of ethanol fuel as a substitute for gasoline. The bill is being hailed as one of the most far-reaching accomplishments by Congress this year and passage was achieved when the Democrats were finally forced to DELETE a section loathed by Republicans that offered breaks for renewable fuels and paid for them by increasing taxes on oil and gas companies. Also DELETED from the bill was a requirement pushed by the Democrats that electric utilities get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind or solar. Also DELETED from the bill was a rollback of tax breaks for oil companies that has already cost the US over $100Bn since Bush started handing them out in 2001.
While these "tax incentives" are supposedly geared towards encouraging exploration and production. E&P budgets as a percent of revenues have dropped over 60% since 9/11 while unfunded renewable energy production has gone up 72%. Please Mr. Bush, let’s not give any money to clean energy companies or they may actually SOLVE the problem…
What the hell is wrong with you people?!? How do you allow your government to keep pursuing sensless, self-destructive policies that can only lead to the eventual downfall of our nation? How do we continue to back a government that fails to make pursuing an energy policy that would make this nation self-sufficient a real top priority? President Bush came on TV last week to placate the masses, telling you that he’s pleased that they have watered down the energy bill to the point where our entire energy policy is to get fuel efficiency to 35 miles a gallon by 2020.
13 years?!? 13 years to get mileage up to the level that 50 different car models are exceeding today? 13 years to match the existing standards of Europe, Japan and China – this is our PLAN?!? Replacing light bulbs by 2012 is also in the bill – 5 years to replace a light bulb? Well that answers the question of how many years does it take a corrupt, do-nothing Administration to change a light bulb doesn’t it?
Also, by the year 2022, we’re going to use 36Bn gallons (not barrels) of Biofuels. It’s important for the President to measure it in gallons because if you say it in barrels it’s just 857M, about 40 days worth of current US consumption. So wowie boys, you’re planning to replace 10% of our fuel in 15 years – why that’s a blazing 1% a year of progress (almost) – Imagine if Kennedy had promised to get us 1% of the way to the moon each year – we’d be halfway about now!
It’s almost funny except for the fact that, while Bush and his pals are lining their pockets with petrodollars, they are selling the future of this nation down the river. That’s fine with them as they are old and rich and selfish and really don’t care about any future that doesn’t offer them immediate gratification. For those of us who do care and can do math, here’s a couple of easy numbers: 20M – that’s how many barrels the US uses each day. 21Bn – that’s how much oil is in the United States. So that’s 20M a day times 365 days = 7.3Bn barrels a year. That means (and this is where the math gets tricky) by the time Bush’s "Energy Policy" begins to kick in in 2020 we will be SCREWED!
Can we think 3 years into the future people? It’s been a great party doing absolutely nothing for the past 7 years (see Al Gore’s 2002 take) and, as we hobble into the last year of the Bush Presidency I will call your attention to the map that literally shows you where the world’s power is:
Of course, the relationship between the Bush family and Saudi Arabia is well documented and they won’t be the first people in history to sell their country down the river in order to take up safe haven under a rising foreign power but they may be the first family that has done it while convincing so many people who they are leaving behind what swell guys they are. Forget the long-standing relationship George the First had with the Saudis, Junior’s been working with/for them since dropping out of the National Guard:
- "In 1979, Bush’s first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave Bush $50,000 for a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the time, Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden.
- "In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests. In fact, Bath has extensive ties, both to the bin Laden family and major players in the scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) who have gone on to fund Osama bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in the ’80s in what has been called the “largest bank fraud in world financial history” by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the ’80s, BCCI also acted as a main conduit for laundering money intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial support to the Afghan mujahedin to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair.
- "When Salem bin Laden died in 1988, powerful Saudi Arabian banker and BCCI principal Khalid bin Mahfouz inherited his interests in Houston. Bath ran a business for bin Mahfouz in Houston and joined a partnership with bin Mahfouz and Gaith Pharaon, BCCI’s frontman in Houston’s Main Bank. Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation. When Harken ran into trouble a year later, Saudi Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh purchased a 17.6 percent stake in the company. Bakhsh was a business partner with Pharaon in Saudi Arabia; his banker there just happened to be bin Mahfouz.
- "Though Bush told the Wall Street Journal he had “no idea” BCCI was involved in Harken’s financial dealings, the network of connections between Bush and BCCI is so extensive that the Journal concluded their investigation of the matter in 1991 by stating: “The number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken—all since George W. Bush came on board—raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son.” Or even the president: Bath finally came under investigation by the FBI in 1992 for his Saudi business relationships, accused of funneling Saudi money through Houston in order to influence the foreign policies of the Reagan and first Bush administrations.
- "Worst of all, bin Mahfouz allegedly had been financing the bin Laden terrorist network—making Bush a U.S. citizen who has done business with those who finance and support terrorists. According to USA Today, bin Mahfouz and other Saudis attempted to transfer $3 million to various bin Laden front operations in Saudi Arabia in 1999. ABC News reported the same year that Saudi officials stopped bin Mahfouz from contributing money directly to bin Laden. (Bin Mahfouz’s sister is also a wife of Osama bin Laden, a fact that former CIA Director James Woolsey revealed in 1998 Senate testimony.)
- "When President Bush announced he is hot on the trail of the money used over the years to finance terrorism, he must realize that trail ultimately leads not only to Saudi Arabia, but to some of the same financiers who originally helped propel him into the oil business and later the White House. The ties between bin Laden and the White House may be much closer than he is willing to acknowledge." —Wayne Madsen, 10/22/01"
I know this may be old news to most of you but this "Energy Policy" is nothing more than a plan to keep us rolling down the same path to destruction we have followed pretty much since the Reagan years. Yes Clinton and Gore are to blame too as they should have done more to reverse the tide that had built up in the prior administrations – before it became a deluge that would flood our nation. No one wanted to hear what Gore had to say in 2000 because it required hard work and sacrifice to make America energy independent by 2008 (his goal).
At the time, we still had 47Bn barrels of oil left in this counrty and Iraq was producing 2Mb of oil a day, above their OPEC quota and keeping the price of oil as low as $20 a barrel. Now this nation is over a $90 barrel and not every American family will be given the same exit strategy offered to the Bushes. While we eat their dust and choke on the fumes, it will be up to us left-behinds to salvage what we can in the next 4 years.
Biofuels cannot be the PRIMARY focus of US energy policy, they are a terrible solution as we are also running out of farmland and the net yeild on biofuels means we are simply substituting and oil shortage for a food and natural gas shortage. Replacing 10% of our fuel consumption by 2022 is a fairy tale you tell to children so they stop asking you when you are going to really address the problem. It’s like an alchoholic who says they’ll stop right after the next one. I thought we, the people, were smarter than that but to laud this administration for planning to do 1% above ZERO for the next 15 years is ridiculous! The President, who knows all about 12-step programs, has put us on a 100-step program to energy independence when we need something a lot closer to cold turkey.
Voting for a President will not be enough in this election cycle. As we saw with Clinton and Gore, no matter how well-intentioned the Executive Branch of government is they can be blocked by the Legislative Branch. The Judicial Branch is already stacked with "conservative" judges so it will take a sweeping majority to do what has to be done to UNDO the damage that has been vested on our nation. As far as incumbants go – don’t listen to the spin that comes out of their mouths, look at their voting records and see if you agree with what they do, not the BS they say they will do on their way to an Exxon fundraiser.
I don’t know if we can fix this problem before it’s too late, but I’m damn sure not going to go down without a fight – an neither should you!
