As Oil Touches All-Time Highs, Our Deparment of Energy Takes Us For Fools

Our oil whiz, Secretary Bodman of the Department of Energy, perhaps a distant cousin of "Heckuva Job Brownie" of Katrina fame, wrote a letter to the New York Times on March 30 rebutting points in an editorial, "Pain at the Pump and Beyond" from March 25, proceeding, I would imagine, on the assumption that everyone is as much out of the loop on oil issues as he is.

The New York Times editorial was a typical Times recitation of oil patch blather pinning high oil prices on "Soaring demand in fast growing developing countries like India and China and turmoil in the financial markets", and investors turning to commodities in lieu of stocks and the dollar. Never a mention of the machinations of OPEC, the vertical integration of the oil companies, nor the possibility of manipulated futures markets by hedge funds ("There is an orgy of speculation in the futures market. This is a 24-hour casino with unbelievable speculation" -- Sen. Byron Dorgan of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resource Committee), sovereign wealth funds and others who have a keen interest in high oil prices (see "Oil At $111 a Barrel. We Are Being "Sovereignly Screwed", March 17).

Then, with brilliant insight the Times editorial goes on stating that "not everyone is unhappy with oil at $100-plus a barrel", citing authoritarian governments in Iran, Venezuela, Sudan and Russia. Absent from their list of honor is that great democratic constitutional monarchy, Saudi Arabia and OPEC's de facto leader. Yet even more outrageously, in that it is closer to home, is the editorial comment that "the Bush administration can't be entirely blamed for the pain at the gas pump", a sort of left-handed absolution of an administration that couldn't be happier with the booming price of oil (please see "Bush's Hypocrisy, OPEC's Arrogance, The Oil Mess We Are Living", March 7).

Then Energy Secretary Bodman, as is his wont, couldn't leave well enough alone, as was the case back in October with oil prices still in the $80 barrel range, he volunteered either out of insouciance or malign intent that the U.S. economy was "remarkably resilient" in the face of surging oil prices, thereby giving free rein to a further surge to the current $111/bbl. Bodman responded to the Times with a vaguely chastising brief, advising them and the rest of us that he "strongly disagreed" with the Times' contention that the Bush energy strategy "is focused on one thing: getting more oil". Of course Bodman is quite right. The administration's primary focus is not getting at more oil. Far more importantly, it is laying the groundwork for and successfully rationalizing to a gullible public the ever skyrocketing price of oil, (please see "Cheney Greets King Abdullah in SaudiLand With High Fives As Oil Sails Past $100 Per Barrel", March 27)

As if to prove the point, the Energy Department this Friday past, announced they would continue to purchase oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the objections of such as Senator Dorgan: "Not only are taxpayers being fleeced by paying that much for oil, but the effect of taking valuable oil like sweet crude oil off the market has a disproportionate effect on oil prices". Far be it for Secretary Bodman and his Energy Department to understand the meaning of the signal that their ongoing purchases of oil at escalating prices sends to the markets and its important impact on the psychology of the marketplace.

One needs go back to Bodman's letter, because it gives a clearer and frightening picture of this administration and its Department of Energy's priorities and the inexcusable loss of near eight years of precious, precious time in dealing with what is perhaps the nation's most inexorable and threatening danger to its future.

Please sit down. Bodman nearly bursts with pride advising us and the Times that "since the start of this administration the federal government has spent more than $12 billion to research, develop, and promote alternative energy sources." $12 billion since 2001! That's a lot of money. Why it's even more than one third of the $29 billion Bear Stearns bailout last month. Of course there the administration had real money and real supporters on the line.

But it doesn't stop there. Mr. Bodman and his Department of Energy, certainly at the behest of their (our?) president and vice president, have sat idly on their hands as the price of oil escalated by some $85 a barrel (from around $25/bbl to over$110/bbl) during the last seven-plus years. This nation consumes about 21 million barrels of oil a day and now the additional cascade of American wealth flowing into the pockets of oil interests both here and abroad is approximately $1.78 billion a day ($85/bbl x 21 million barrels), or $564 billion a year. Not to speak of the trillions that have already been transferred to oil patch interests over the last seven years due to escalating oil prices given the benign tolerance of the hacks at the Department of Energy and our administration. Money that could have been used to expand our fleet of hybrid cars, pay for a major conversion to electric cars (please see "An Essential and Viable Energy Fix and the Renaissance of Detroit", April 4), developing hydrogen-powered vehicles, expand wind power and clean coal technology, seriously revisit nuclear power and much more. Where is the outrage, where is the push back when OPEC President Chakib Khelil pronounces as he did on Tuesday, with oil prices at $109 a barrel, that there was no need for OPEC to pump more oil?

Well don't despair. As referenced above, our administration and its factotums at the Department of Energy have over the years set aside $12 billion to deal with this issue of existential importance to the nation's future. Given their largesse we are asked not to look too closely at the extra trillions going to the oil industry. After all, this administration knows who their friends are.

Comments

[BlackbirdHighway]

If we just had more tax breaks for oil companies, that would make everything ok.

Please, everyone, empty your bank accounts, take out a second (or third) mortgage, get a cash advance on your credit cards, cash in your 401K, and send all the money to Exxon today!

[Robert59]

Mr. Learsy,

Don't just fault the current administration. Look at the 3 remaining candidates. Look at organizations like DFA or Move On. No one is pushing energy independence. It remains background noise when it should be the number one issue for this country.

Half a trillion dollars a year going overseas to pay for oil could be staying home paying Americans more money (heck even use it to pay the national debt).

Our entire nation's political leadership has their collective head in the ground. In their defense, however, do you see Americans demanding an answer to high gas prices? NO

[JoeBlough]

Is anyone willing to give up their SUVs and start walking to the grocery store?
Yeah, didn't think so. We get what we deserve as a nation.

[95flhtcu]

Wow. Summed it all up in 3 ignorant sentences!

[drkazmd65]

HuffPost's Pick

Never had (or wanted) an SUV,... and walk to the grocery with some regularity now,...

But then again,... I am wierd by American standards. Too bad the 'good' ones of us are going down with the bad.

[WilliePilgrim]

I thought it was the "department of energy", not the "department of fossil fuels". Check out the pitance they spend on developing alternative fuels and those that they do spend typically are indentured to big centralized energy schemes. Via alternate (DOD channels) it does look at last as if some funding is going into alternate fusion research while the Tokomak (a promising but conformingly centralized type of alternate energy) rests on the patient shoulders of Europe's research community. Imagine where our energy infrastructure would be in we'd spent 1/100th of what we spent on war, instead on research into alternate small scale energy production­..instead, what? Ethanol, orignally thought of as a way to process waste and surplus into some small local energy independence has become a huge government boondogle for ADM and a few other farmers who are cashing in with subsidized high prices resulting in higher food prices and taking conservation lands out of their fallow state and subjecting them to the plow where we find increased erosion of topsoil, decreased CO2 sequestering, methane production from over-fertized exposed soils and increased energy consumption to put those fields into "production"...Can the beaurocracy fo government do anything right? Name 3 things.

[PierreLeClerke]

This complacent cabal could change the course of this unbridled grip of greed on the neck of the Nation today.
Release and offer to domestic refiners only, 20% of the SPR at $45.00 per barrel.

Create competition in the market. Their past and present actions or lack thereof can not and will not be referred to as "benign tolerance" when the incitements are issued. The Bush administration is operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Oil/weapons industry.

[joebaggadonuts]

It's funny, really, that the rising price of oil is what will finally wean us from it. The best approach is to move quickly from it. See Amory Lovins: http://www.oilendgame.com/ Hear his talk at TED : http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/51

Not only is it doable but to remain competitive, America must take the lead. Was this Cheney's secret "strategery" all along? Nope, just a happy accident of fate conspiring against him.

[vippy]

We would have been weened away from oil had CHEVRON not bought all the batteries from
Toyota's RAV4, which was getting a 100 miles per gallon and they only could produce 1500 of them. Why aren't we addressing this issue and claim treason?
The new energy policy demand 35 mpgs by 2020 - can anyone even fathom that much
stupidity?

[Thermodynamics]

An Oil Company Motivational Incentive

Just outside San Antonio there is a game ranch for oil company execs. It raises quail in cages, just like chickens. The morning before a "hunt" the birds are released into fields, but they don't go far because, you know, they have always been in a cage. The execs fly in, ride out to the ranch, and blast away at the sitting duck quail. Somebody at the site dresses the birds for them and lines them up in a nice little box. The execs fly back to Houston, or New York, or wherever with their conquest and make them into dinner.

This is clear parallel to the way big oil is extracting excess profit from a captive consumer market in the US.

Incidentally, game farms are bad because the animals that do escape can end up spreading diseases. The mad cow deer disease in the midwest states originated in deer that were trucked in for game farms up there.

[Durango]

one of those "game farms" is exactly where Dick Cheney shot that old man in the face.

And Jon Stewart and the Daily Show were the only media outlet that caught on.

[terry54]

Jimmy Carter put the USA on the path to New Engery Sources just like J F K put the USA on the road to Technology with the space program.

Wasn't it nice of Regean to come in and start the destruction of our Alvernative Enger Policy that would have us free of the Oil Addiction.

[Durango]

And NOWHERE, I repeat, NOWHERE in the Corporate Media have I seen an explanation of where we would be today if Saint Ronald Reagan hadn't gutted the energy conservation plans of Carter.

[seawolf77]

Can't tarnish Saint Ronnie, no matter he was an empty suit that started us out on our road to destruction.

[WIpatriot]

Don't pop an eye looking, either.

[maschwab]

Peak Oil is here.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=peak+oil&btnG=Google+Search
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

[SamEllison]

Peak Oil isn't here, but Peak Carbon Footprint is!

[vippy]

don't you remember, we were told in 1929 that peak oil was here and the oil industry had to steal the election to get their way. sound familiar?

[pspidey]

Huh? I'm wondering what you're on about. As far as I know (have read) peak oil didn't have anything to do with the great depression.

And, there's plenty of evidence to support two premises, first that peak oil is an eventuality (plenty of oil fields have recorded data which shows peaking and production drop) and there's also enough data out there to indicate that we may be worryingly close to hitting global peak oil.

[pspidey]

Hmm, maybe what you're talking about was that we apparently hit peak oil *discovery* in the USA in 1929.

This however is not the same a 'peak oil', meaning of course peak oil *production*.

[cylindar]

Opec is good, Bush is bad. One more time--Opec is good, Bush is bad!

[LeftRight]

No, they are both BAD!!

[JacobSinger]

It doesn't amtter if OPEC is good or bad...they're here for the duration.

BushCo, on the other hand...well...I guess we'll know in November--a [hopefully] somewhat different route, or the fall of the US under BushCo v2.0.

[Soulsurfer]

All the talk about techno-spritzing our way out of our current mess is more than a little optimistic.....its delusional. The technology lag we will experience due to our media, government, and industry's denial, plus general greed and ignorance, will insure that we (well, actually, our children) will suffer for quite a while until technology actually catches up with our unrestrained stripping of the planet's fossil and geologic resources. Couple that with the exponentially growing population, fouling of water and air, and generally ornery disposition of our kind, and you've got a world of shit. Market driven changes my ass. We're at least 30 years behind the curve on developing alternative energy, and sustainable population/resource consumption practices. Some believe they will be insulated by their wealth.......think again, corporatists.

[darker]

With zero progress to date on ALTERNATIVE energy production and lots of bullshit self-congratulatory publicity and ads from Big Oil, the situation is a rotten joke on consumers. Big Oil created a FOR PROFIT SITUATION whereby they can financially rape USA consumers and issue Big Oil EXCUSES for doing so.

[rwe2late]

The mess we are in is almost unfathomable.
A now bankrupt government that has never wanted to adequately fund mass transit and bike paths (like in Copenhagen or Portland, OR ).
An alliance of auto manufacturers and land developers that promotes auto-dependent urban sprawl.
Religions, frozen in time, that encourage formerly acceptable, but now self-destructive, high birth rates.
Agri-businesses that are all too happy to switch to the more profitable bio-fuel production regardless of the impact on world food prices and water conservation.
Extractive industries that increase their profits whenever they can avoid accountability for the costs of their pillage of natural resources, whether oil, lumber, or fisheries.
A trilllion dollar military-industrial complex that has brainwashed a jingoist public into believing that it is better to be feared than respected.

And the solution is to develop alternative energy to support that wanton lifestyle??

[RnR]

windmills, soothing to the soul and the planet. If our government was truely dedicated to saving the planet every penny would be spent on windmills and solar panels, solar energy. Of course, the exxon et. al. boys don't like it, but hey, fuck them if they can't take a joke. They've been fucking us forever.

[Bluesman48]

Thanks Raymond, you are a real vox clamans in deserto!

[LadyXoc]

Nuclear.
Solar
Wind
Fuel Cell
Hydro-electric
Biofuel from agricultural waste

Someone should tell the POTUS

[marinade]

We're going to get nuclear and only nuclear. The government and its corporate masters have already decided.

[SolarPowerGuy]

Germany has demonstrated a power grid which can match consumer demand using ONLY solar, wind, bio-methane, and bi-directional hydroelectric (pump uphill for energy storage, release downhill to generate power).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR8gEMpzos4

Skip fuel cells, they cost ten times as much as any of the alternatives. Nuclear is also unnecessary, and only appears "cheap" if you factor in the taxpayer subsidies (e.g., the Price-Anderson Act), and discount the costs of radioactive fuel handling/disposal.

Geothermal and ocean power are also clean, viable, and underutilized energy sources.

Converting our vehicle fleet to plug-in hybrid power would be the cherry on top of the cream.

[Maschine]

Converting the vehicle Fleet to plug in ...forget Hybrid...is the one priority. TESLA has demionstrated a vehicle that has a range of 200 miles on a single charge. Add to that the car has a top end speed of 130 MPH and you have a real solution for everyday driving.

Now, once you agree with that , there is but one solution for energy, and that is nuclear in the interim. If the US had spent 12 Billion since 2001, and a few more since Three mile Island, I dare sya, every City in the country could have reactors providing the energy.

The real crime is stopping R$&D in nuclear, we lost 30 years. If you can put as man on the moon in less then 7 years, i am sure you can put a reactoor in my backyard in 30.

Don't be afraid of nuclear, it beats the snot out of any windmill farm/ethanol bullshit / biomethane garbage they are feeding you.

Replace 50% of the fleet with hydro and you will get oil prices at 10 bucks a barrel. The crime is they are making that technology too expensive but the consumer has the power to dictate the outcome......GO TESLA, you are paving the way

[flatus]

It seems as if the world is feeding on the American carcass. Scarey stuff, eh kids?
But don't worry about it. Relax. Someone will take care of our problem. I'm sure it will happen any day now.