Bush Is Right, Congress Is Wrong

The Senate is directing President Bush
to temporarily halt the shipment of thousands of barrels of oil a day
to the government's emergency reserve.

Both
Democrats and Republicans said such shipments make no sense when oil is
costing more than $120 a barrel and could better be used to add
supplies to a tight market and possibly lower prices. Senators voted
97-1 Tuesday to suspend the shipments until the end of the year.

Bush
has said the 70,000 barrels of oil being diverted to the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve is such a small amount that it does not affect energy
markets. Many senators disagreed.

To give you an idea folks, we use MILLIONS of barrels of oil a day. So Bush is indeed right, 70,000 barrels is going to do absolutely NOTHING to effect the price of gas. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is designed for emergencies, and while gas is indeed high, it's not "strategic" to use it to control the cost. It is used for when things get out of control. When your fill up costs $80 instead of $60, it's just an inconvenience. Don't like the high cost? Buy a hybrid, walk, ride a bike, take public transportation, car pool, there's a ton of ways to offset the cost of your commute.

It's just a shame that Congress is trying to do something so insignificant to effect the real, core problem of high fuel costs, that they want to endanger our reserves for a few political points, when they COULD be doing something worthwhile like telling auto manufacturers that they must come out with an all electric or a plug in electric vehicle within 5 years.

I'm telling you all, Chevrolet is really onto something here with their Volt. They are trying to get it out the door at around $30,000, but they are saying it might be closer to $35,000. If they really wanted to make an impact, sell it at a loss, while absorbing the costs in higher costs for their other cars. They'd sell more then they could possibly produce in a year.

It would launch their brand into the stratosphere, allow them to make a great commercial "American Made, American Ingenuity", and it would get us that much closer to being off of foreign oil. If cars like this take off like I think they would, the price of oil will plummet to almost the point where we were before the start of the Iraq war ($1.80 a gallon and $30 for a barrel of oil). It might even go lower.

You just have to want it that badly.

Travis
travis@rightwinglunatic.com