Sane Energy Policy

Check out the NY Times editorial today regarding the insanity of a country with 2% percent of the world's oil reserves using 25% of the world's oil, most of it imported from a politically volatile region where the cost of our imports, under current inflated prices for crude oil, are just under $ 1 trillion annually. Consider that we pay the same amount to defend our access to the same original sources -- from Saudi Arabia to the Gulf States to Iraq -- and the completely irrational nature of our absence of a decent policy to transition to a non-petroleum-based energy system gains clarity. And so, frankly, does the idiocy of the House Republicans' declaration of war on the EPA, coupled with their call for drilling for oil anywhere and everywhere. Obama, for his part, has said all the right things, as is usually the case. Unfortunately, he quietly tip-toes away from the fight following his impressive oratory. The Times editorial correctly points out that inspiring words are not enough to ween us away from an addiction to other countries' oil and from a view of the energy future that is thoroughly irresponsible.

The President's approval ratings have been receeding again after the bump following the "compromise" on extending the Bush tax cuts. To be sure, he has a full plate: a Republican full-court press on the deficit as Public Enemy No. 1, not only on Capitol Hill but in the thirty states with Republican governors and state legislative majorities, a current crisis in Libya, the potentially catastrophic effects of the nuclear meltdown stemming from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. But even so, Republicans have calculated that the president can be rolled, and the evidence unfortunately seems to support such a view.

Politics ain't a walk in the park, and this president has walked away from too many promises made during his campaign for change. He promised to close down Guantanomo within a year of his inauguration; it's still open for business, and the Administration has stated that military tribunals can go forward with the enemy combatants still incarcerated there. He promised as well "to put on a pair of comfortable walking shoes and walk along with union workers" forced to strike by union-busting corporations, including presumably public-employee-union-busting governors in states like Wisconsin. But the President has been disappointingly silent on matters that were once litmus tests for Democratic Party leaders. Instead of the unimpressive crop of Republican presidential hopefuls for 2012, perhaps what this president needs is a challenge from a real Democrat within his own party. Anything short of that will not apparently get his attention: nice words are not enough!