Congress and big oil: junkies blaming the pusher man

Maybe it was inevitable, with the closing of the frontier and the amassing of so much wealth, with the death of history teaching in schools and the idiocy inducing drug of television. Maybe it was inevitable with all this and more that America would become a nation of whining children.

Fresh evidence comes today with the theater of oil executives being called before "outraged" members of Congress to defend their obscene profits at a time when gasoline profits are so high. As the Washington Post reports:

Lawmakers seeking a way to deal with rising concern among motorists
took aim at the oil companies and the record profits they registered
last year amid record oil prices "I believe the laws of supply and demand when it comes to oil and gas are broken and completely malfunctioning," said Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.).

I hate to break it to the distinguished gentleman from the Constitution State, but the laws of supply and demand are functioning perfectly well.

Based on the society we have created, quite consciously and with much destruction, Congress should be giving medals to the oil executives. They have ensured that Americans have abundant gasoline at a time when that state of affairs should not be taken for granted.

Let me explain both propositions. First, over the past 60 years, America destroyed what was the world’s most extensive and reliable passenger railroad network, electrical trolleys in our cities. We paved over irreplacable farmland and wild spaces to create sprawl subdivisions that in total are probably larger than some nations. The result is a nation where most people must drive long distances in automobiles, often SUVs. Many apparently prefer this "lifestyle."

Second, oil production has stagnated and fallen back for several years. Production is a much more reliable indicator of the true state of petroleum availability than the reserves bandied about by oil companies. Many of these have proven to be fantasies. In fact, many of the world’s biggest oilfields are declining and not being replaced. The remaining oil is harder to get, in places hostile to the West, and producing a crude that is much more expensive to refine. Meanwhile, world demand is skyrocketing as other nations seek to replicate the American driving culture, and even oil-producing nations are exporting less so they can meet their domestic needs. If you want to avoid calling this "peak oil" so as not to be thought a crank, fine. But this is the reality.

This is the pickle Americans find themselves in. Waaaaaaaaaaaaa. Yet most would never question their own consumer choices in causing the problem.

It will only get worse — and we haven’t even gotten into the problem of global warming, heavily caused by burning fossil fuels, or local warming in places such as Phoenix, caused by sprawl and the destruction of farmland. It has major geopolitical consequences — our quagmire in Iraq and China’s protection of the Darfur genocide are only the beginning. Yet none of the presidential candidates dare address the issue besides empty calls for "green technologies" that will not replace fossil fuels and indeed may consume more of them.

Should Congress take away tax breaks for the oil companies? Probably. But spare us the "outrage." The only solutions are building the rail network and urban transit expected of a modern nation, and levying the true cost of sprawl so it affects, ultimately, the price of a house on the fringes. Then, providing incentives to rebuild and reclaim our cities (and their schools) and building transit-oriented development.

None of that will likely happen in America, which apparently feels entitled not only to keep burning oil like its 1950, but to continue its holiday from reality.