Romney’s Energy Plan, not
It is amazing how the GOP just can’t bring themselves to explain anything that isn’t based on the KISS principle.
Energy independence is of course a worthy goal in the sense that we wouldn’t be held hostage by other countries or events beyond our control, but it doesn’t mean that energy would cost us less. It might cost oil companies less to transport, but that would go to their bottom line and we would still pay them world prices, and if anyone believes that money would all stay in the USA they are dreaming.
Also, Romney says nothing about what size the economy and demand will be by 2020, not to mention world demand. If he says that we can achieve today’s needs domestically by 2020, does he think the demand will be the same in 2020? In other words, this energy independence is a moving target and we cannot continuously keep increasing output if demand grows.
Of course there is a potential solution to this catch 22, which he totally ignores but every economist with half a brain understands, and that is to reduce consumption through alternative energy forms, and efficiencies, at the same time that we increase production.
Sadly, I suspect he won’t be taken to task for any of this by the press because sex and abortion is more fun.
Ridiculing a campaign document is like shooting unusually large fish in a barrel, but Mitt Romney’s new energy ‘plan’ is so fantastical and extreme that I feel compelled to fire away.
Let’s start first with the premise of the plan, which is also its promise: that energy independence is an achievable goal for America by 2020. Presidents have been talking about energy independence since Richard Nixon and haven’t come close. The simple truth, as President Obama has recognized, is that a country that holds less than 3 percent of the world’s reserves but consumes more than 20 percent of the world’s supply cannot drill its way to energy independence. More production will help, but true independence from foreign imports – not to mention fewer greenhouses gases and a safer climate, a subject Mr. Romney never touches upon – will depend on developing alternative fuels and more efficient vehicles.
Mr. Romney’s position paper says that independence can be achieved if we ‘partner closely with Canada and Mexico. ’ But that wouldn’t do the job either, even if Mexico and Canada sent every single barrel they produce to the United States—highly unlikely since they might want to use some of it for themselves.