On the Contrary

While mainstream Republicans pound the drum to drill more, drill more, T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore had a big idea.  Their idea is to capture the solar and wind power in the Midwest and fuel this countries thirst for energy with these renewable sources.  It is really kind of funny if you think about it.  Republicans can’t seem to get their arms around the idea that oil and our dependence on it is what created this problem.  They just think if they go after more, somehow that will solve the problem and the problem is not just the cost of gas, it is that we are going broke feeding our addiction to oil, sending our wealth to the Middle East and paying for this by selling our souls to the Chinese.  And of course, you can drill away, oil will become an ever scarcer commodity.  So just how is drilling for more going to help when no responsible scientist or economist will tell you that the effort will do anything for oil prices.  Well if it won’t help the prices, why are we doing it?  So we can face this crisis again down the road?  Why is it that these Republicans and many Americans still think drilling our way out is the right thing to do?

I hate to tell you this but a lot of it is about how the issue has been framed and our automatic responses to a narrative or a frame that we don’t prescribe to.  Alternate energy has always been associated with tree huggers and environmentalists.  Even more damaging in the Republican mind is that it is associated with climate change, which most of them still deny.  “It is those loony liberals trying to force a solution on the free market that will just end up costing us a fortune and not solve the problem.  Next they will want us to all hold hands and sing Koonbyya.”   If you are low on something, you go get more and drilling looks like you are taking affirmative steps to solve the problem.  People want to believe that things will get back the way they were.  They still talk like somehow we are going to lower gas prices or this is somebody’s fault and all we need to do is fix it.  So who is going to stand up and educate them that drilling and more oil is not the solution because it just keeps us focused on using more oil and world supplies may have already peaked?

Well two people step up to the plate, T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore.  Now we have been hearing from Al for a while, but the Republicans write him off as a climate change alarmist.  Then up steps T. Boone Pickens, a respected Republican oilman,  and he tells us we can’t drill our way out of the problem.  What is a good Republican to think?  But T. Boone has framed this argument in a way that will appeal to Republicans, national defense.  You don’t have to associate with those crazy tree huggers, and you don’t have to buy their whining about global warming (Al Gore).  We need to build this because we are sending money to our enemies and breaking our own bank and this is the way to fight those Arabs that are undermining our country and bankrupting us.  Note we buy more oil from Canada than anywhere else, but facts are not the issue here, framing of the argument is.

When T. Boone was questioned about how similar his plan and Al Gore’s was, T. Boone quickly distanced himself from Al.  This has nothing to do with climate change, it about the security of our country.  And that is true because Al’s plan foresees electric cars for their reduced impact on the environment, and T. Boone foresees cars running on natural gas which he thinks we have plenty of and keeps the oil companies happy.   The really big thing is that T. Boone understands that government has a major role to play that the marketplace is not going to fulfill and that is building the transmission lines to distribute this power around the country.  No business can afford this kind of capital investment so he sees an import role for government in his energy plan.  And you know what?  By framing his argument this way he may just break through the cloud of Republican marketplace dogma, framing, and narrative that has blocked this solution.   Because Republicans have always seen Democratic ideas as hindering the marketplace, either through regulation (like regulating the environment) or through inefficient government programs (anything government does, it does badly), anything that smacks of government involvement, they are against.  But when T. Boone raises the national security card, convincingly from one of them, he may just get their attention.

The funny thing is we do have a global warming problem.  We also have an economic problem in that as oil prices go up, our economy goes down.  And finally we have a security problem in that the money we are sending to the Middle East is funding countries and their bad intentions toward us.  Developing a full throttle program to transition to alternate energy is a good idea across the board.  But sadly for conservatives, the only argument that they can hear is the security one.  But at least T. Boone has framed it in such a way, that this time there could be change.

Meanwhile in La La land in the Republican Congress they are selling snake oil.  “We have to take action and start drilling to supply our own oil (yeah another drop or two);  drilling off shore is perfectly safe, these are different times (when have we heard that before); even though oil companies have 38 million acres of offshore leases they are not developing, we need to give more.”  Here is the one I love the most:  “Don’t you think if the oil companies could get oil out of those existing leases with the price of oil where it is today they would be drilling?”  Come on Congressman, certainly you took Economics 101.  Let’s see, I should invest hundreds of millions of dollars in drilling more oil so I can lower the price per barrel so the rate of return on the oil I already have will go down?  They will increase supplies only as it maintains a stable price and ensures a profit to their stockholders.  To do otherwise would be to be an impudent business person.  You think you guys in Washington would get that.  Maybe that is why you all have failed so miserably at governing.  You don’t really understand the marketplace.