New Energy Clinton
Senator Clinton offered a powerful speech in favor of reducing our dependence upon oil. I heard it on public radio today, couldn't find a transcript, but pasted a news article below.
Overall her "program" suggestion was much more comprehensive than I could offered, partly because I accept every choice has tradeoffs and I'm not in a position of knowledge to advocate which solutions are best in the long run.
The biggest thing missing from me in her "hype" for change is basically COST. An "honest" speech to me would say "Alternative energy will NEVER be as cheap as what we're replacing and all have tradeoffs that will limit what we've become acustomed to. Everything we know today is at risk if we DON'T change course soon, but however dedicated we are to change we're ALL going to have to tighten our belts and adjust our lifestyles to survive the next 30 years."
I suppose no politician, maybe President Carter as the exception, can offer realism. To be fair she admitted that gas guzzlers have got to go and people should pay more for them, but she stopped short of offered an expanded gas tax as a necesary solution.
I can't imagine what reforms are realistic in politics given large money interests controlling the debate, and as well common citizens resistant towards sacrifice for the future. Whatever can get passed will as likely be throwing money at money and hoping for the best.
In my mind the problem is SO BIG that the best solutions will as often as not be for the government to "set the rules" and get out of the way and let local communities to respond to their own needs. Well, that's obvious in principle, but messy to know what it really means.
Clinton quoted a woman driving 30 miles to work each day as an example of suffering, but didn't make the "cold-blooded response" that this lifestyle will become more and more unviable. What can the government do? Sadly the medicine for me is to tax consumption and make it harder sooner for such decisions, and I know such solutions will be resisted.
She also supposed antiprice gouging laws, although to her credit she admits they are limited responses and implied in part at least we ourselves our to blame and only we can change our ways to reduce our dependency.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301968_pf.html
Clinton Lays Out Energy PlanSenator Wants to Halve Consumption of Foreign Oil by 2025
By Dan BalzWashington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 24, 2006; A0
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said yesterday that the United States should cut its consumption of foreign oil in half by 2025, and outlined a national strategy of tax incentives, an oil-profits tax and more funds for research aimed at spurring conservation and development of alternative sources of energy.
The prospective 2008 presidential candidate warned of dire consequences if the nation fails to curb its energy consumption habits, asserting that inaction in the face of rising oil prices and terrorist threats puts both national security and the country's economic competitiveness at risk.
"Our present system of energy is weakening our national security, hurting our pocketbooks, violating our common values and threatening our children's future," Clinton said in a speech at the National Press Club. "Right now, instead of national security dictating our energy policy, our failed energy policy dictates our national security."
Clinton's prescriptions included a series of targets, mandates and requirements designed to shift the country away from foreign oil. It marked the second time in as many months that she has delivered a major speech on domestic policy. Although she is concentrating on winning reelection to the Senate this fall, the speeches have begun to amplify her positions on national challenges that will confront whoever becomes president in 2009.
Clinton echoed what President Bush said in his State of the Union address earlier this year when he decried nation's addiction to foreign oil, but her solutions went further.
She also chided Vice President Cheney for having said early in the Bush presidency that conservation was not a viable solution to energy shortages. "The truth is that conservation is not just a personal virtue but an important part of any sensible energy policy," she said.
Clinton said she plans to introduce legislation to create a strategic energy fund, largely paid for by an excess profits tax on big oil companies, who she noted earned a combined $113 billion in profits last year.
She estimated that the profits tax and a repeal of other tax breaks for the oil industry could pump $50 billion into the energy fund over two years and pay for an array of tax incentives and for $9 billion in new research initiatives for wind, solar and other alternative energy resources. Oil companies could escape the tax if they reinvested profits into similar programs.
To speed the shift from foreign oil, Clinton proposed incentives for hybrid cars, improving household energy efficiency, accelerating development of ethanol made from plant wastes and installing ethanol pumps at gas stations.
Clinton joked that her 40-minute speech, which included references to "geologic sequestration" and "cellulosic ethanol," was "probably a lot more wonkish" than many in the audience had come to hear. She offered energy conservation tips from installing fluorescent lighting to keeping automobile tires fully inflated.
Her goal, she said, is to reduce the use of foreign oil by about 8 million barrels a day by 2025, but she set a series of interim targets as well, among them requiring that 20 percent of electricity be produced by renewable energy sources by the year 2020.
Clinton was notably cool to increased use of nuclear power, citing problems of cost, safety, proliferation and waste. She said she supports higher fuel efficiency standards for automobiles but warned against steps that would force U.S. automakers to move production to other countries.
Overall her "program" suggestion was much more comprehensive than I could offered, partly because I accept every choice has tradeoffs and I'm not in a position of knowledge to advocate which solutions are best in the long run.
The biggest thing missing from me in her "hype" for change is basically COST. An "honest" speech to me would say "Alternative energy will NEVER be as cheap as what we're replacing and all have tradeoffs that will limit what we've become acustomed to. Everything we know today is at risk if we DON'T change course soon, but however dedicated we are to change we're ALL going to have to tighten our belts and adjust our lifestyles to survive the next 30 years."
I suppose no politician, maybe President Carter as the exception, can offer realism. To be fair she admitted that gas guzzlers have got to go and people should pay more for them, but she stopped short of offered an expanded gas tax as a necesary solution.
I can't imagine what reforms are realistic in politics given large money interests controlling the debate, and as well common citizens resistant towards sacrifice for the future. Whatever can get passed will as likely be throwing money at money and hoping for the best.
In my mind the problem is SO BIG that the best solutions will as often as not be for the government to "set the rules" and get out of the way and let local communities to respond to their own needs. Well, that's obvious in principle, but messy to know what it really means.
Clinton quoted a woman driving 30 miles to work each day as an example of suffering, but didn't make the "cold-blooded response" that this lifestyle will become more and more unviable. What can the government do? Sadly the medicine for me is to tax consumption and make it harder sooner for such decisions, and I know such solutions will be resisted.
She also supposed antiprice gouging laws, although to her credit she admits they are limited responses and implied in part at least we ourselves our to blame and only we can change our ways to reduce our dependency.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301968_pf.html
Clinton Lays Out Energy PlanSenator Wants to Halve Consumption of Foreign Oil by 2025
By Dan BalzWashington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 24, 2006; A0
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said yesterday that the United States should cut its consumption of foreign oil in half by 2025, and outlined a national strategy of tax incentives, an oil-profits tax and more funds for research aimed at spurring conservation and development of alternative sources of energy.
The prospective 2008 presidential candidate warned of dire consequences if the nation fails to curb its energy consumption habits, asserting that inaction in the face of rising oil prices and terrorist threats puts both national security and the country's economic competitiveness at risk.
"Our present system of energy is weakening our national security, hurting our pocketbooks, violating our common values and threatening our children's future," Clinton said in a speech at the National Press Club. "Right now, instead of national security dictating our energy policy, our failed energy policy dictates our national security."
Clinton's prescriptions included a series of targets, mandates and requirements designed to shift the country away from foreign oil. It marked the second time in as many months that she has delivered a major speech on domestic policy. Although she is concentrating on winning reelection to the Senate this fall, the speeches have begun to amplify her positions on national challenges that will confront whoever becomes president in 2009.
Clinton echoed what President Bush said in his State of the Union address earlier this year when he decried nation's addiction to foreign oil, but her solutions went further.
She also chided Vice President Cheney for having said early in the Bush presidency that conservation was not a viable solution to energy shortages. "The truth is that conservation is not just a personal virtue but an important part of any sensible energy policy," she said.
Clinton said she plans to introduce legislation to create a strategic energy fund, largely paid for by an excess profits tax on big oil companies, who she noted earned a combined $113 billion in profits last year.
She estimated that the profits tax and a repeal of other tax breaks for the oil industry could pump $50 billion into the energy fund over two years and pay for an array of tax incentives and for $9 billion in new research initiatives for wind, solar and other alternative energy resources. Oil companies could escape the tax if they reinvested profits into similar programs.
To speed the shift from foreign oil, Clinton proposed incentives for hybrid cars, improving household energy efficiency, accelerating development of ethanol made from plant wastes and installing ethanol pumps at gas stations.
Clinton joked that her 40-minute speech, which included references to "geologic sequestration" and "cellulosic ethanol," was "probably a lot more wonkish" than many in the audience had come to hear. She offered energy conservation tips from installing fluorescent lighting to keeping automobile tires fully inflated.
Her goal, she said, is to reduce the use of foreign oil by about 8 million barrels a day by 2025, but she set a series of interim targets as well, among them requiring that 20 percent of electricity be produced by renewable energy sources by the year 2020.
Clinton was notably cool to increased use of nuclear power, citing problems of cost, safety, proliferation and waste. She said she supports higher fuel efficiency standards for automobiles but warned against steps that would force U.S. automakers to move production to other countries.
posted by Ares Olympus at 12:59 AM
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