Kudlow: Striking out on energy

Lawrence Kudlow has written an interesting commentary on the energy crisis and his evaluation of the energy policies of Congress, the President, and Senator McCain. He notes that the Chairman of Exxon Mobil correctly calls for producing more domestic oil and gas by opening up exploration and development of oil and gas fields in U.S. coastal waters and on the outer continental shelf. He also agrees that President Bush is right in drilling for oil in Alaska.

The cost of gasoline has risen due to increased demand throughout the world and the failure to increase the supply of oil. Americans are apparently blaming the Republicans, despite the fact that it is overwhelmingly the Democrats who have consistently opposed the development of new sources of energy. Oh yes, they do favor government incentives and research into possible future new sources of energy, but once any energy source becomes viable, they tend to turn against it. In any case, none of the present Democrat-favored sources of energy is both commercially viable and able to produce significant energy. Apparently, the chimera of future new energy sources held out by the Democrats is enough to fool most Americans into placing the present blame upon the Republicans. Go figure.

Kudlow weighs into the problems and wrongheadedness of John McCain's proposal for a cap and trade energy program. McCain will have inspectors traipsing into every company in America and examining their use of energy. There will be massive new rules and regulations for 5 million businesses. The Congressional Budget Office guesses that this will cost at least $1 trillion. That is the cost to the government. The cost to business will be much greater than that. Way to revive the economy, John McCain! Yes, shoot us all in the foot in the name of an unfounded idea that there is significant global warming, that this is bad, that this is caused by man, and that any government program is capable of meaningfully addressing the supposed problem.

So, business will be forced to use less energy, at least certain types of energy. I suppose I will be allowed to use a hand-cranked generator to provide power for my x-ray photoelectron spectrometer! The Democrats will be talking about the new jobs they have created. I will have to hire 3 shifts of hand-crankers, who probably will insist on union breaks, so long data acquisition runs will soon be a thing of the past. It will be interesting to see what the likely voltage fluctuations will do to the quality of spectra. Well, maybe I am being pessimistic. Maybe the government will send a brilliant inspector to my laboratory who will offer a great solution to our newly mandated need to stop using so much electricity. Realistically Charles, when was the last time you encountered a brilliant government inspector?

Congress will be able to use this cap and trade program to generate huge amounts of new money for them to spend. The fact that it will come out of the pockets of every American and drive up the cost of hiring people and producing goods and services, is of no concern to them. It should be of concern to us however.

You can read Kudlow's commentary here.