Bush-Kerry Energy Ploys

August 19 2004
Counterbias.com
Frank Wallis
P O W E R S K E P T I C

        The energy policies of both presidential candidates are strikingly similar. While Mr Bush calls for less dependence on foreign oil, Mr Kerry calls for reduction of dependence on Middle East oil. Sadly for the people, both candidates are unquestionably operating under the influence of the fossil fuel industry.

         In February 2001, three months before the Bush-Cheney report, the United States Energy Association (USEA) published a fifty-six page wish list. There was no need for a Cheney energy report, because private industry had already detailed what they wanted, and what would eventually be set forth as federal policy. Members of the USEA who fashioned the report came from the Electric Power Research Institute, Nuclear Energy Institute, American Public Power Association, American Petroleum Institute, National Mining Association, American Gas Association, and the Edison Electric Institute.[1]

         USAE preached an end to “overly burdensome environmental regulations” and gave lip service to  reducing US dependence on foreign oil and reducing prices for consumers. Their goal: more drilling in Alaska and deregulation of the entire power industry.

         On the first page of the energy task force report, after Mr Cheney spelled out the basis of policy as integration of energy, environment, and economy (the same triad as sustainability), and after appropriate scare comments about dwindling oil supplies and the California electricity crisis of 2000, it stated “A fundamental imbalance between supply and demand defines our nation’s energy crisis.” The energy infrastructure had to be “repaired and modernized” and the US had to increase “energy supplies in ways that protect and improve the environment.” The electrical grid had to be rebuilt and expanded, and 38,000 miles of new gas pipelines, and 255,000 miles of distribution lines constructed. The US must build 1,900 new power plants over the next twenty years, mostly gas fired, but also nuclear.[2]

         The best way to increase supply was to increase production of domestic oil, gas, coal, hydropower, and nuclear power. (RONEP, p.12; also in USEA, pp. 7, 14.) This was a total repudiation of the potential for renewable sources, which face impossible competition from 1) federal regulatory and executive inertia, 2) economies of scale proving far more favorable to entrenched fossil fuel industries, 3) almost total lack of tax incentives, unlike fossil fuels which already get $12.5 billion in tax breaks from Congress each year.[3]

         The largest set of Mr Cheney's recommendations involved increased US investment in the oil sectors of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Algeria, Qatar, the UAE, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and India to build oil and gas pipelines, and drill. (RONEP, p. 144-45; also in USAE, pp. 10, 16, 17.) As for Saudi Arabia, the Bush family is entwined with the ruling House of Saud more closely and at greater danger to the US than any other family in America. Since the first contacts with George H. W. Bush in the 1970s, the Bush clan has received at least $1.4 billion from Saudi fossil fuel contracts, and deals with the Bin Ladin Group. Cheney is also linked to the House of Saud through Halliburton. That US energy policy is connected with an Islamist regime which has  coddled anti-American terrorists such as al-Qaeda is ironic at best.[4]

         It is fascinating to note the embranglement of Mr Cheney with Halliburton and Azerbaijan,  Kazakhstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan. All countries were locations of projects in which the US government subsidized Halliburton business deals. During the 1990s when Mr Cheney was CEO, Halliburton received at least $2.71 billion from Ex-Im, $1.11 billion from the World Bank, and $611 million from OPIC.[5]

         Controlling the Persian Gulf and its oil supply has long been the goal of neocons Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board, and Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense. The first Gulf War in 1990-91, in which Mr Cheney had been Defense Secretary, opened the door for US troops to base themselves permanently in all Gulf states except Iraq and Iran. As Robert Dreyfus pointed out central Asia is now the focal point for U.S. bases and allies running from the Mediterranean and Saudi Arabia into the Asian plains. It isn't about oil just for the US, it is about controlling the oil supply of Europe, America, and Asia.[6]

         Would the Bush-Cheney-Fossil energy plan as set down in the Energy Bill of 2003 reduce energy prices and cut US dependence on foreign supply? No. According to the DoE's EIA report of 2004, “On a fuel-specific basis, changes to production, consumption, imports, and prices are negligible.” This is the summary conclusion for economic models projected out to 2025.[7] The most pointed rebuke to Bush-Cheney's monstrous gift to fossil fuel corporations came from a Republican, Sen. John McCain, who denounced its myriad earmarks.

         Mr Bush has been blaming high gasoline prices on John Kerry, claiming that Mr Kerry will not sign the energy bill. Mr Bush tells us Americans need more supply, but in fact America has 250 years of coal reserves, and the world has between 60 and 125 years of oil reserves.[8] Renewables are limitless. The only explanation for the Bush-Cheney plan is a rush to grab corporate profits as soon as possible, and at taxpayer expense. And this would be in line with the corporate welfare theory of the Bush-Cheney collective of fossil fuel operatives, lobbyists, lawyers, campaign funders, PACs, trade associations, think tanks, CEOs, investment bankers, paid politicians, and of course the appointed government officials who are from  the collective, and who are crucial in effecting policies that enrich the fossil fuel corporations.

         If progressives believe Mr Kerry will introduce dramatically different energy policies, then they are mistaken. The Kerry campaign website expresses a difference of style, not of substance, on energy policy.  Mr Kerry pledges to “develop new sources of oil from nations like Russia, Canada and non-OPEC countries in Africa,” increase ethanol production, research renewables, drill in Alaska, gas pipeline from same, and use “clean coal.”[9] Interesting, but these goals are directly from the Bush-Cheney playbook. The fundamental question is not foreign oil, it is finding another energy source. We shall have to do it within two generations.

Frank Wallis runs Powerskeptic.net, a website "questioning authority and those who abuse power". He has a PhD in history from the University of Illinois.

Notes:

1. United States Energy Association, Toward a National Energy Strategy, Washington, DC, February 2001, henceforth cited as USAE.

2. Reliable, Affordable, and Environmentally Sound Energy for America’s Future. Report of the National Energy Policy Development Group, May 2001, pp. 7-10. Hereafter cited as RONEP.

3. Friends of the Earth, "Power Politics: Linking Congress, Campaign Contributions and Energy Policy," July 15, 2003, p. 1.

4. Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud. New York, 2004, pp. 3-6, 15,
199, 273, 281.

5. Kenny Bruno and Jim Valette, "Cheney & Halliburton: Go Where the Oil Is," Multinational Monitor, VOL. 22, No. 5 (May 2001) http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2001/01may/may01corp10.html

6. Robert Dreyfus, "The Thirty-Year Itch," Mother Jones, March/April 2003.

7. "Summary Impacts of Selected Provisions of the Conference Energy Bill,"
EIA Report # SR/OIAF/2004-02, February 2004, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/pceb/executive_summary.html

8. Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère, “The End of Cheap Oil?,” Scientific American (March 1998), predicted that world oil production would peak in 2004. They estimated a world oil resource base of 1.8 trillion barrels of recoverable oil. The USGS estimates for "ultimate recovery" of oil reserves is between 2.248 trillion and 3.89 trillion barrels. EIA has numerous projection models for peak years of oil recovery, anywhere from 2016 to 2067, but falling to 1960s levels by the 2040s to the 2090s, with total recovery by 2125. With expanding world economies, it is obvious that a replacement for oil must be found. US DoE, EIA, "Long Term World Oil Supply," April 18, 2000,
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/presentations...

9. http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/energy/sources.html