The peak oil crisis: The Secretary of Transition

[The2ndWheel]

http://www.energybulletin.net/44675.html

As gasoline prices go higher and higher and as the polls show voters more and more concerned about how they are going to fill their tanks, the Congress is starting to stir.

Now mind you, they have passed a couple of major energy bills in the last few years, but these of course were drafted in the accustomed manner. Hoards of lobbyists from oil, coal, Detroit, agriculture and even a few environmentalists were on hand at every stage to ensure that no serious damage was inflicted on the status quo. The major result from years of hearings, horse trading and administration threats were bills that redirected a significant portion of our food supply into our gas tanks and put meaningful conservation measures so far down the pike that they are completely irrelevant to what is about to happen.

In recent weeks, efforts to treat the symptom (high gas prices) rather than the underlying problem (oil production no longer keeping up with global demand) have become more and more bizarre. We naturally have had proposals to cut taxes -- by pennies at a time when prices seem destined to go up by dollars -- and actually passed a bill to stop loading a few miserable barrels (about a tenth of a percent of daily world consumption) into our strategic reserve. Then we have had bills to drill for oil everywhere and, my favorite, the one to sue OPEC for not sending us cheaper oil. In recent days, we have had bills to punish the Saudis by not selling them guns if they don’t send us enough oil and to restrict futures trading on the grounds that evil speculators alone are responsible for the unaffordable gasoline prices. All this says the Congress, in the main, is detached from reality.

[phantom power]

1. Secretary of Transition. I like that.

[depakid]

4. It does have a nice ring to it, eh?

Kind of like Queensland's Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation.

http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/about_the_epa/minister/

or the federal government's Department of Climate Change.

Unfortunately, what we've got in the states is a moribund, captured agency called the Department of Energy- which under the Bush Administration, ought to be more aptly named: "The Department of Ennui."

[GliderGuider]

5. "The Department of Ennui" -- I love it!

:rofl:

[pscot]

2. Congress is not merely detached from reality

There are numerous versions of reality, some diametrically opposed to others. They are like the six blind men of Hindustan, trying to determine the configuration of the elephant, except in this case there are 535.

[phantom power]

3. And, it's not an elephant. It's a bunny.