Barack Obama's Energy Independence Plan Would Be a Disaster

On August 4, 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama addressed a crowd in Lansing, Michigan, outlining an energy plan of his that would "eliminate the need for oil from the Middle East and Venezuela in ten years." He also called for 1 million more "plug-in hybrid" cars on the road within the next few years. He also stated that while he supports domestic drilling to a limited extent, that "there are 68 million acres of land that the oil companies aren't even using for drilling, so let's lease them to someone who will." And then he more or less concludes that as Americans, we need to "end the age of oil in our time."

It's interesting to note that Obama stated as president, that he would authorize the federal government to spend $4 billion to retool the auto industry in order to produce plug-in hybrid automobiles, and issue a $7,000 tax credit to Americans wanting to buy them, while at the same time accused his rival John McCain of giving the big oil companies like Exxon-Mobil $4 billion in tax credits. While the idea of building more plug-in hybrid cars should be encouraged, the massive government spending he proposes to make them sounds impossible. If Obama wants to build 1 million more plug-in cars and issue a $7,000 tax credit per car, that's $70,000,000 in government subsidies. To pay for all this, Obama suggests making the oil companies pay out of their record windfall profits, of which he accused Exxon-Mobil of making "$1,000 a second." Without directly saying so, it would appear that Barack Obama wants to end the alleged $4 billion tax credits the big oil companies get now, and use the money to retool the auto industry. He goes on to lament the fact that McCain spoke to a room full of oil men who now support McCain because McCain now supports more drilling.

Barack Obama threw around billions of dollars in new government spending, at one point insisting that we needed to invest $150 billion in shifting our economy from one that uses oil, to one that uses alternative energy sources. He needs to be reminded that it isn't just the gas we put in our cars, but that it includes the oil we use to make tires, and for the ingredients we use to make cosmetics, just to name a few industries he might have overlooked in pandering to the union faithful in Michigan. How does he plan to pay for all this? Check out his well-published tax schedule for Americans if he's elected. In a campaign speech, Obama once said that "he would only raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans; the rest of us would be unaffected." His tax hikes go all the way down to someone making $30,000 a year, who would increase their rate of contribution to the federal government according to his table, from $4,500 a year currently, to $8,400. Is someone earning $30,000 a year rich?

Obama seems to have more of a hatred for oil. He talks about solar power and wind power, and in typical pandering fashion, claims that Michigan was among those states that had the greatest potential of any in the country to harness the power of wind to produce electricity. His talk about ending oil dependence on the Middle East and Venezuela had more to do with us as Americans cutting back on our consumption and need for oil. His claim that California hadn't increased their energy demands due to reforms in that state sounds patently absurd. Obama seems to be more upset that the big oil men aren't backing his presidency and seems determined to make them pay for that mistake. He cites the T. Boone Pickens ad that encourages us to invest in alternative energy sources like windmills, but then adds that Pickens says in that ad, that "this is one crisis we can't drill our way out of." Obama taps into the popular fear that every time there's a world crisis, we're at the mercy of Middle Eastern tyrants or the Venezuelan dictator, raising the price of oil on a whim.

What Obama fails to mention, is that only about 27 million acres of land are being used domestically in which to drill oil, and that of the remaining 4l million acres he likes to fault the oil companies for not using, that those remaining acres are bottled up in federal regulation according to the Bureau of Land Management and can't be used for drilling without authorization. He blames McCain's 26 years in Congress as evidence that "he did nothing" to alleviate the oil crunch that's been upon us since the 1973 oil embargo. He makes the comment that if we "opened up domestic drilling everywhere we could, we wouldn't see a drop of oil for seven years." Maybe if oil companies hadn't operated under such heavy governmental restriction, they could have drilled on all of those 68 million acres he claims were lying dormant and we wouldn't have a supply problem with oil.

In a nutshell, what all this appears to be about is pure politics. The oil men back McCain, the unions back Obama. If Obama gets elected, he plans to divert whatever federal money he can get his hands on, including whatever he can grab from the big oil companies, and use it to provide more union jobs in exchange for their support. The rest of the taxpaying public will pay for all this, and pay dearly. While it is certainly grotesque what the oil companies are making in terms of profit margins these days, allowing them to drill for more oil until more plentiful and cost-efficient alternative energy sources become available makes more sense. Obama even stated, that as part of his "compromise" on recent energy legislation passed, that he "went along with more offshore drilling," even though he firmly states that he doesn't believe that to be a part of the "long-term solution" that he seems to think he alone possesses. It's interesting to mention that, according to the Bureau of Land Management, new drilling on land incurs less bureaucratic red tape than offshore drilling. So Obama's willingness to go along with "offshore drilling" would appear to be a rather hollow concession. The man just hates oil.