Oil On the Edge?

Now, part of what the pundits are saying when they say the Gulf oil gusher is your fault is that you like to drive your car inexpensively to work, and so you are part of a consumer market that motivates BP to drill. But it is grossly unfair to blame you, the worker, for the difficulty of getting to work by much more efficient rail or for allegedly rejecting electric vehicles powered by .e.g. wind farms.

The US government gives and has for decades given massive hidden subsidies to the petroleum industry that make gasoline seem far less expensive than than it is, and auto, cement and oil corporations successfully lobbied for taxpayer subsidies for highway systems rather than for rail and public transport.

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Back in the 1960s when the environmental movement got going, major US corporations responsible for much of the nation’s pollution decided to fight it by paying for television advertising that urged individuals not to litter, thus implying that pollution is produced by anarchic individuals rather than by organized businesses. It was a crock then and it is a crock now.

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The cost of licenses for offshore drilling have been mysteriously slashed by the Department of the Interior, a way of transferring your money to the oil companies and of actually promoting offshore drilling, with all its potential to harm you environmentally and economically.

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The subsidies for petroleum are unlikely to be lifted. This outcome is not because you will lobby congress and the senate to keep supporting big oil with your tax dollars. It is because of legislative capture. Too many elected representatives secretly run on the Big Oil Party ticket.

  Informed Comment

Democrats are eyeing polling that shows public ire focused on BP. They are pushing to expand the company's liability and to use the disaster to reboot their push for alternative energy, climate-change legislation and perhaps some kind of tax on oil or carbon that would begin to reduce the nation's reliance on oil.

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Talk about reducing the nation's reliance on petroleum has been ongoing since the Nixon administration, said Richard M. Abrams, a professor emeritus of history at UC Berkeley.

"Obama should call for a tax on carbon, he should call for a higher federal tax on gasoline, making it more expensive so people don't use gasoline the way they use water," Abrams said. "There's too much money to be made in oil, and the dragging of feet has resulted in our not being prepared technologically to replace oil in a major way."

  SFGate

I don't believe that for a minute. He's right about there being money to be made in oil – still, and so far. But he's wrong about not being prepared for something else. The same people who run Big Oil and other corporations are prepared. They already have alternative energy plans and have cornered anything related that can be exploited for profit. They're just waiting to be forced to go there. After all, why should they give up the oil game until they've squeezed every last nickel out of it? That wouldn't be smart business.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.