Energy Policy - Cheaper gasoline or long-term energy security – which is more important?
by Robert Parker
A bipartisan failure"The truth is we need a consistent energy plan in this country. It's been a bipartisan failure." That quote from Rep. Max Sandlin (D-Marshall) of Texas states the simple truth that almost everyone recognizes, but on which few are willing to compromise. With gasoline prices already at U.S. record levels and expected to go higher this summer, and large scale power outages in California and other states a painfully recent memory, consumers can hardly be blamed for worrying where the next crisis will emerge. Of particular concern is the country's national security vulnerability due to the significant reliance on Persian Gulf States oil.
Does oil alone really drive our energy policy?Energy policy is a massively complicated issue in which everyone has a stake. Some of the considerations in drafting such policy include electric reliability standards (modernizing production and distribution systems), streamlining administrative systems, job creation (or loss) and the economy, tax incentives, alternative energy creation and usage, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, motor vehicle fuel efficiency and perhaps the most contentious battleground, the environment.
Recent proposal fails to break partisan political impasseA new energy plan put forth by the Bush administration was recently defeated in the Senate through a filibuster led by Senate Democrats, after having passed in the House. Their main objection to the bill as it was presented in the Senate was protection for producers of the gasoline additive MTBE. Also, the subject of opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for drilling, while not addressed in the Senate version, continues to be one of many friction points. The administration's plan is said to represent the first attempt at a comprehensive overhaul of our energy policy in a dozen years. Yet it appears to be going nowhere in the all-or-nothing atmosphere of partisan politics.
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