Lost Highway

Fire of Liberty

As most folks know, I'm pretty much in the opposition camp when it comes to President Bush's admission last week that we've developed a severe "addiction to oil" and need to seek fuel like ethanol from switch grass, corn stalks, or sugar because I believe that its impossible and is yet another expensive boondoggle to appeal to "green" who would move to Sweden before voting for a Republican (let alone a conservative one.). Anyway, I want to direct you to this column by Thomas Bray of the Detroit News who notes similar regards but does it far more gracefully than I can. Here's a sample:

Of course America is addicted to oil, in the sense that it uses a lot of the stuff. But as Bush also pointed out, the American economy is the envy of the world. There is a close connection between the two things. North Korea doesn'’t use much oil, but would you want to live there? What Americans are addicted to is economic growth.

Let'’s get real, folks. Currently there is no alternative to oil, as much as the Sierra Club might like us to believe otherwise. America has lots of coal, but among other things coal requires lots of coal mines – and we have seen lately what can happen in a coal mine. America has lots of wind and sunshine, but what little power it provides only exists courtesy of fat subsidies that enlarge the national debt. Nuclear power? Not in my back yard!

True, more than half of our petroleum supply is imported, often from highly volatile places. But that is nothing new. America'’s "“dependence"” on foreign oil goes back half a century. It has been increasing in recent decades, thanks in part to the refusal of the environmental lobby to allow any drilling in the United States.

Yes, there is probably an entrepreneur out there who will come up with a better idea. But it won'’t happen because government is throwing billions at the problem. Government already has thrown billions at ethanol, but that has more to do with subsidizing corn farmers than seriously reducing dependence on oil. Even Greens are dubious about ethanol, which would require plowing up millions of acres to make a dent in petroleum use – or else require us to forego our addiction to food.

I hope folks get a good understanding of what would be in our near future if our government goes down the expensive avenue of alternative fuel once again. For G-d's sake, leave this in the hands of the private sector where innovating technologies and ideas always emerge. When was the last time a member of congress invented such things?