Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Mitt Romney's Energy Program Will Burn Dollars Mitt Romney's plan for enery independence would result in unnecessary record spending, and would stand in the way of private enterprise initiatives. He's likened it to the Manhattan Project and the Moon Program. Romney should consider foreign policy part of the solution.by DigitalBob
(Libertarian)
Sunday, November 25, 2007
In an interview with radio and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, Mitt Romney talked about his plans for the country as our next president. You can hear the whole interview here. For those who consider yourselves fiscally conservative, start listening at 0:10:58 for the next half minute, before picking your jaws up from the ground.
For those without sound, Romney's energy independence plan includes the equivalent of a Manhattan Project and an Apollo Program. These were both very expensive projects that ran for years. They were war-time expenditures, which had very specific goals, in their beginnings. They were funded out of our fear of the U.S. losing a war. And once both programs achieved their stated goals, they didn't go away. They just morphed into today's Department of Energy and NASA.
Maybe it was a slip of the tongue? But in a press release related to a speech he gave at the George Bush Library, on April 10, 2007, he said the following:
Our economic and military strength require that we end our strategic vulnerability to an oil shut-off by nations like Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, and that we address environmental concerns. To do this, Governor Romney has called for a bold and far-reaching research initiative- an Energy Revolution- to be our generation's equivalent of the Manhattan Project or the Moon mission. This will be a mission to create new, economic sources of clean energy.
You can find that press release at www.mittromney.com, his official campaign website.
As far as a foreign shutoff goes, we already have that covered. The DOE has a Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which can be dumped into the market if world oil supplies are shut off. There are about 694 billion barrels of oil right there.
The reason why the price of oil is going up is scarcity. Much of the scarcity is due to our foreign policy of going to war with any country we consider a threat, real or imagined.
There is plenty of oil in the world. The Gulf of Mexico is largely untapped, due to political considerations. There are shale oil reserves in the Rocky Mountains, which have enough oil for the next 110 years. With Canada, we can develop the Arctic Reserves. All we need are reasonable trade deals.
And if the price of fuel goes up, the market will then provide the incentive for the development of alternative sources of energy. Corn is the current staple needed for ethanol production. The recent price rise in corn for ethanol has the side effect of raising costs of meat production. Animals use corn as a feed. But sugar beets and Jerusalem artichokes also could be used as sources for ethanol. Farmers will need time to switch over to a different crop. Before they can do that, the prices have to stay high enough, long enough
However, there is a potentially cheap source of sugar right off the coast of Florida--Cuban cane sugar.
The embargo of Cuba has succeeded in destroying the market for its natural cash crop. Production costs of cane sugar skyrocketed during Castro's rule. The embargo against Cuba began in 1962, as a response to the Missile crisis. U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said it was a success, because it prevented Cuba from getting the funds that would have been used to attack other countries, including the U.S. Since the embargo succeeded, how about we try a different approach to Cuba in the twenty-first century?
What if that foreign policy included trading with Cuba and opening their markets? New capital and cost controls could result in a new ally much closer to home. Free market pressure would show the people of Cuba how centrally organized agriculture doesn't work. Farmers with a profit motive are the ones who can increase production and lower costs, not government planners.
The Hitler's Germany and Khrushchev's Soviet Union didn't bomb us, so I guess you could say that the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Program got the job done. But at what cost? We still have thousands of nuclear weapons, with few targets. We spend billions on space transportation, when it could be more efficiently done by the private sector.
If Governor Romney wants the vote of the fiscal conservatives, he is going to have to end the War on My Pocketbook.
Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 0 thumbs so far
2007 DigitalBob, all rights reserved.
Published: Sunday, November 25, 2007
Last modified: Sunday, November 25, 2007
The views expressed in this
article are those of DigitalBob only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. DigitalBob is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
What your article fails to mention is that while there is a large investment required in romney's plan, the return is huge! Think about running your car for $1 per gallon again, as opposed to $3 (and rising fast). Think about your electric bill going down by 1/3. That is what bringing nuclear power online and sequestering co2 as energy alternatives will do. In addition, these alternatives will have paid for themselves before they even come online as the foreign markets will realize they need to stay competitive, which will drive prices down.
Want to comment on this
article? Leave your comment here. Your email address is
required to track your comment. However, we will neither
publish your email address nor distribute it to other
organizations or persons. The only reason we might use
it would be if we needed to contact you regarding your
comment. All comments are subject to our
terms of use policy.
2007 DigitalBob, all rights reserved.