Human Events, DC
06-22-07
Liberal's Energy Policies Are Flawed
by Mike Franc
It’s not surprising that the marquee energy bill moving through the Democraticcontrolled Congress is really a global-warming bill in disguise. After all, in a
recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, a plurality of Democrats said global
warming will “pose a more serious threat to the world” in the decades ahead than
global terrorism. Republicans and Independents, by contrast, see terrorism as
the greater threat.
Indeed, during last week’s Senate debate, there were, at last count, 227
references to the need to combat global warming, outnumbering by two to one
the references to increase production from traditional energy sources such as oil,
gas and coal.
The Democrats’ rewrite of our energy laws is a high-stakes riverboat gamble.
Americans would be forced to get more energy from the wind, the sun, the tides
and the farmer’s field, and less from oil, natural gas, coal, hydro and nuclear.
Renewable fuels such as ethanol, wood chips and agricultural waste are in; fossil
fuels are out.
The Senate version relies on the heavy hand of government to force this new
regime on consumers and includes the following major initiatives:
• Cars and, for the first time, SUVs would have to meet more stringent fuel
efficiency standards. The permissible fleet average would increase from 27.5 to
35 miles per gallon by 2020 and continue to rise for another decade. Americans,
environmentalists assume, would continue to drive the same number of miles in
these more efficient vehicles (an assumption belied by previous experience).
Thus, overall fuel use and, by extension, greenhouse gas emissions would
decline.
• Drivers, by 2022, would be required to use gasoline containing 36 billion gallons
of renewable fuels (corn-based ethanol) each year, a sevenfold increase, and
another 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels (non-corn-based ethanol).
• Utilities would be required to generate at least 15% of their electricity from
unproven technologies that use wind, solar, wood chips and agricultural waste.
Environmentalists beat back an effort by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) to allow
utilities to meet a 20% standard by using nuclear power (which generates zero
greenhouse gases) and power generated from “clean” coal.
• Consumers could purchase only those home appliances that meet the most
rigorous energy efficiency standards. If you rue the day you bought that “lowflow” toilet that you have to flush twice, prepare for similar experiences when you
wash your dishes or clean your clothes.
• Finally, Senate liberals would bestow more than $30 billion in new tax subsidies
on favored fuel sources and technologies while increasing taxes on the
production of oil and natural gas by the same amount.
Proponents argue that these new mandates will result in lower energy prices.
The bill’s renewable fuel mandate, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says, would
“save the consumer … a net $69 billion at the gas pump.” Increasing the federal
fuel efficiency standard to “40, 45 miles a gallon,” is win-win, according to Sen.
Barack Obama (D-Ill.), because oil imports from Middle Eastern nations would
fall to “zero” and “that means gas prices go down at the pump.” Calling their bluff,
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) offered an amendment that would have created a point of
order against any bill that would raise the cost of gasoline, but his amendment
was soundly defeated by a cadre of liberals, including Obama and Feinstein.
But when Uncle Sam picks winners and losers, and restricts consumer choice,
prices go up, not down. Consider a recent Iowa State University study where
researchers found that the current ethanol mandate, by diverting so much corn
from the food supply, has already increased food prices by $14 billion. Imagine if
Congress increases the mandate sevenfold.
My Heritage Foundation colleagues examined how these new layers of
regulation would affect the price of gas and found that by 2016 gas would cost an
astronomical $6.41 per gallon, on a par with the cost of gas in stagnant European
economies such as Germany ($6.70), France ($6.44), Denmark ($7.00) and Italy
($6.44).
To the average consumer, that translates into $1,445 in additional energy costs
annually.
Liberals refuse to acknowledge the dirty little secret that there’s no politically
painless way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Class warfare won’t work;
carbon emissions, after all, are far more equitably distributed across all segments
of the population than is income. There is no convenient “wealthiest 1 percent” of
the population upon which liberals can impose all the burden and costs.
The consequences of liberal energy policies will be harsh -- and will be felt by
average Americans everywhere.