True North

My representative, Michele Bachmann, is telling people that their anger over $4 a gallon gas should be directed at the political class, which makes sense since they're the people who've contributed most to the gas crisis. She's also telling people that we need to increase drilling domestically:

You may feel a quiet rage if you're tempted dwell on Big Oil's profits as you fill your tank to the tune of $4 a gallon. But Congresswoman Michele Bachmann argues you should redirect that anger at the folks who sit under the Capitol dome in Washington DC. "Congress is the problem. Congress put us in this mess," Rep Bachmann told reporters Monday.

She summoned the media to a Sinclair service station in Woodbury to say we could cut prices in half, all the way to $2.00 per gallon, if only the government would get out of the way. "We don't have a famine of energy," Bachmann declared, "We have a wealth of energy. Congress has just made it illegal to access this wonderful resource."

Bachmann has joined other Republicans on Capitol Hill touting a bill known as the "No More Excuses Energy Act." It would open up the Artic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling, and it would pave the way for more off-shore exploration in the continental shelves surrounding the US.

Environmentalists say that there's only a few months of oil in each of these reserves. Jeff Rosenberg even takes me to task on that issue in this post:

Because I like [fighting with conservatives] debating the issues, I posted a redux of my analysis of Senator Bush's energy bill as a comment on SCSU Scholars. I received the following comments from Gary Gross, who runs the ever-so-rational blog Let Freedom Ring.

"Ask yourself this: If an oil company was only going to get revenue from a reserve for 135 days, would they waste capital on harvesting it? Of course they wouldn't.

As for the 2.8 billion barrels, I'm betting that that's a typo. I'm betting that what he meant is that we could get 2.8 million barrels per day out of these reserves for the next 15 years."

This is such a great example of conservative math: "Well, the market is always right, so your math must be wrong. These other numbers I made up are probably more accurate."

First, I appreciate Mr. Rosenberg saying that LFR is an "ever-so-rational blog." That's always the goal.

It's more than a little sarcastic to say that conservatives think that "the market is always right." I certainly don't believe that and I'd bet few conservatives believe that 100 percent of the time. It's fair to say, though, that conservatives think that markets sort things out better than people with political agendas sort things out.

That being said, the most important points that must be made repeatedly are (a) conservation won't get us out of this mess and (b) drilling in now-forbidden areas must increase. Once people know, especially speculators, that we're getting serious about increasing supply, gas prices will drop significantly. How much it drops is anybody's guess but it's certain that the drop will be noticeable and appreciated.

Thus far, Democrats have stood in the way of increased energy production. They've also been joined by a few spineless Republicans who think they can vote against drilling with impunity. That was possible when gas was $1.25-1.50. That isn't possible with gas at $4 a gallon.

Predictably, El Tinklenberg has responded negatively to Rep. Bachmann's photo-op:

Bachmann's likely DFL opponent in the upcoming election, Elwyn Tinklenberg, called it an political gimmick. "I suppose the response should be that, well I can give us $1.75 a gallon gasoline in three years! But that's just irresponsible."

The former state transportation commissioner told reporters in Saint Paul that's it's not just a simple matter of upping the supply to meet the growing demand. "The Saudi's have added 300,000 a barrels a day to the supply," Tinklenberg said, "Now they're talking about adding another 500,000 barrels a day. It's had no effect whatsoever on the price of a barrel of oil."

Tinklenberg said the most optimistic experts estimate it would take at least seven years for that new American oil to hit the market, and even all of the nation's untapped reserves would still amount to only a small percentage of the world supply.

He warned that concentrating on exploration of new oil off America's shores and in the Alaskan wilderness will only take the focus off conservation, alternative fuels and efforts to reduced driving through mass transit. "All of those things can have the effect of reducing consumption, and if we reduce consumption of oil we will see the prices start coming down."

He said if more drilling in this country were really the answer to the energy crisis, the Bush Administration would've made it a priority before now. "It's only going to produce greater dependency on oil, greater dependency on foreign oil, and ultimately higher and higher gas prices."

That's some of the most flawed thinking I've ever seen.

Tinklenberg says that focusing attention on drilling will "take the focus off conservation, alternative fuels and efforts to reduced driving through mass transit" as though conservation, alternative fuels and mass transit have been successful in keeping gas prices down. Perhaps his campaign staff should point out that we're doing alot in each of those areas but we've still got $4 a gallon gas.

I'm not saying that these ideas are failures. I'm just saying that they haven't been huge successes.

Mr. Tinklenberg also says that "if more drilling in this country were really the answer to the energy crisis, the Bush Administration would've made it a priority before now."

NEWSFLASH TO MR. TINKLENBERG: The Bush administration tried repeatedly in increasing drilling but Democrats have filibustered that. During the runup to the 2004 nominating process, John Kerry vowed to filibuster against drilling in ANWR.

It's worth pointing out that Mr. Tinklenberg's statement that the increased Saudi production "hasn't had an effect" is wrongheaded thinking. Without that increased production, the price would be skyrocketing more than it already is. I'd say that's having an effect.

Finally, saying that "the most optimistic experts estimate it would take at least seven years for that new American oil to hit the market" is pessimistic. Nonetheless, let's stipulate for the sake of this discussion that that estimate is accurate. We know that we can't keep this situtation going where production is flatlining and demand is increasing. That dynamic will just keep prices climbing.

If we don't loosen the self-imposed bottleneck ASAP, prices will cripple the American economy. If that happens, the world economy will tank.

It's time that Mr. Tinklenberg and likeminded liberals got out of the way and let serious people solve this problem. This isn't the time for rank amateurs to be cowtowing to special interests that aren't serious about fixing this problem.

That's why I'm thankful that Michele Bachmann represents me.

Comments welcome at LFR.