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Oil Addiction: Readers Respond To Bush - Part 1

Posted by: Abhijeet Chavan

9 February 2006 - 2:00pm

Readers respond to President Bush's statement that the nation is addicted to oil.

"How can President Bush chide the American public for its addiction to oil when his administration has done nothing but encourage and feed this addiction? At every turn, the current administration has steered away from alternative renewable energy development and automobile fuel-efficiency standards."

"It's funny. Every year in the State of the Union address, the president makes mention of tapping alternative sources of energy. And that's about the last we hear of it for another year."

"In 1980, my wife and I bought a Subaru station wagon that reliably got more than 35 miles to the gallon on the highway. Today, 26 years later, there are still only a handful of cars that get that kind of mileage."

"The next time President Bush flies to Crawford, Texas, he should go a bit farther, land in Mexico City and ask to ride in a taxi that runs on air. Yes, Mexico City has these [the e.Volution car built by Motor Development International in France]. No gas required."

Full Story: Oil addiction: Feds can help us recover
Source: The Oregonian, February 8, 2006
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More Political Rhetoric

Submitted by liger on Fri, 02/10/2006 - 12:03.

The worst aspect of the many programs offered up by the President isn't just that they waste taxpayer dollars or that they subsidize research that should be paid for by auto companies themselves. Rather, it's that they divert investment from more productive paths. For instance, while the Clinton administration was engaged in a similar undertaking called "The Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles" and producing nothing of consequence, Japanese auto companies — without significant government help — were busy designing the hybrid powered engines that are now all the rage within the auto industry. Had Detroit not gone down the road paved by a government subsidy, it might be in a better position today to produce the kind of cars the president now hopes to subsidize.

Strangely, the President Said, “Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil,” Another way of putting it is that American consumers are oddly attracted to using the lowest cost sources of energy to meet their energy needs. It's odd to call that sensible inclination an "addiction."

“…which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.” The choice today is between low-cost energy that occasionally spikes in price due to producer instability and high cost energy that is less subject to disruption and thus periodic price spikes. It's not obvious that the latter arrangement is economically preferable to the former.

“The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly 10 billion dollars to develop cleaner, cheaper, more reliable alternative energy sources — and we are on the threshold of incredible advances.”

And what do we have to show for that $10 billion? Nothing. The market share for non-hydro renewable energy (presumably what the president is referring to when he talks about "reliable alternative energy sources") is between 1-3 percent (depending upon how you define your terms). That's scarcely an advertisement for even more lavish subsidies.

Excerpts from:
Corner Extra: Energy Yack
by Jerry Taylor

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One major problem with the current focus is that parking demand is tricky to pin down, since demand itself is a function of supply, especially in urban places.
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