A quick fix won’t be found
No doubt members of Congress would love dearly to find some instant gratification way of dealing with high gasoline prices.
Unfortunately, one doesn't exist.
Among initiatives now being discussed to deal with fuel prices is a suggestion that companies holding the rights to drill and produce oil and gas on public land should be required to do so - or forfeit their privileges.
Another idea is to rescind a ban on some offshore drilling and production.
But neither idea, even if implemented right now, would have any effect on fuel prices for years. In the case of offshore drilling, it would be at least seven years before any substantial impact was felt.
But the problem with U.S. energy policy never has been in the short term. The problem always has been that Congress did not take a long-term view of the nation's energy needs and resources.
That failure now is catching up to Americans - and it needs to be rectified with a comprehensive, realistic energy policy for the future.
What's your view? Write to "Letter to the Editor," c/o The Messenger, P.O. Box 659, Fort Dodge, IA 50501, fax to 574-4529, e-mail to editor@messengernews.net or submit through Virtual Newsroom at www.messengernews.net.
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Anderson
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07-17-08 9:49 PM
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FDTROOPER: A trade union family and FORMAL EDUCATION made me a Democrat; work that began at age 6 (& IRS returns since age 12) including 8 years military, 23 years diplomatic with 2 years on Rusk's staff and 23 in all as a Labor Attache, political, political/military and economic officer at embassies in Europe and Asia plus 2 years on Laird's Vietnam Task Force, 8 more in international business and 5 in state govt SHOWED me that most liberal/socialist nostrums don't work & usually create more problems that they solve. EXPERIENCE thus made me CONSERVATIVE. The Republican Party is not "beloved;" it's just that too often the Democrat Party is captured by fault America for everything far leftists of the Wallacite McGovern, Kerry, and Obama stripe or by other, electable but empty suits like Carter & Clinton who have no national or international record to judge them by. At least they had executive experience as governors to temper their idealism and certainty a bit.
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LynnCJ
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07-16-08 2:47 PM
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I find it interesting thet Trooper find time to post on the site. After all, dosen't he spend most of his time looking for "chads" on some courthouse floor in South Florida?
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Anderson
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07-15-08 7:34 PM
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As said before, Congresses, both Dem & Rep, have subsidized oil use forever, directly and indirectly, making it difficult for alternatives to develop. Top that with environmental objections to every practical substitute for oil and the crisis predicted for 40 years is here. A stitch in time...but now you see ONE scapegoat; gross over simplification and unrealistic expectations will solve nothing. In Europe, gas costs $9-10 and always cost many times US prices, so they didn't ruin public transportation or scatter factories and themselves across the landscape. Conservation & subs for oil will now come but even partial substitution will take time. Practicality is needed now, not more Democrat daydreaming. We already suffer too many economic dislocations, which happens whenever governments intervene in what free markets do best, i.e. ration goods and services as price moves generate substitutes.
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FDTROOPER
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07-15-08 3:00 PM
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Anderson:Try as you may to shift blame away from your beloved Republicans, this White House makes tricky Dick look like a saint. The Collusion that has taken place under this administration and in Congress is disgraceful if not criminal. I agree that there is not magic bullet and did not imply that. As I have said before the US has 3 percent of the oil reserves and uses 24 percent of the world's oil. THE Multi-front effort begins by getting those bums out the White House and Congress and starting over with new people and new ideas.
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Anderson
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07-15-08 1:52 PM
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FDTROOPER: Did you complain when gas cost us a fraction of what others in developed countries paid, or did you benefit from all those subsidies without a peep as did most other Americans? Market forces (burgeoning demand/flat or declining supply), OPEC, and unrelenting opposition to nuclear power, coal mining, drilling for oil and gas, new refining facilities, and even transporting such products (e.g. MA's LNG port or coal trains thru Rochester MN) by environmental extremists and their political allies, NOT BIG OIL, caused our present energy price predicament. There is no panacea for ending it, Pickens' wind energy plan notwithstanding (he only has some $2 billion invested that would PROFIT mightily if his plan is adopted!) Everyone in commerce - farmer, grocer, car dealer AND Big OIL - speculates, much of the time against political idiocy, buying low and hoping to sell high. Only a long-term, multi-front effort holds promise of some MEASURED relief. THERE IS NO MAGIC BULLET!
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FDTROOPER
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07-15-08 10:45 AM
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Your editorial fails to mention VP Cheney had Secret meetings with all his pals from the oil industry to set the Bush Administration's Energy policy. As long as we have big oil controlling the White House you can bet the American consumer is going to take it in the End. The real problem is the Messenger is nothing more than Fox News propaganda in print. The people that read your editorial really would like the REST of The Story.
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