It’s completely retarded. I am not at all opposed to America making the most of our natural resources. There is certainly new drilling which makes sense to do. But this placebo band-aid that the Republicans are pushing for is completely wrong-headed.

First of all, demand for oil is rising and supply is nearing its peak. The speculators are right! The price of oil, in the long term, is going nowhere but up. Little band-ads like releasing oil from the strategic oil reserve or increasing off-shore drilling will not change that or even meaningfully postpone it.

Second, we have a real opportunity for leadership. Leaders get people to understand difficult issues. They keep people’s feet on the ground. Life is not a fairy tale. There are ugly realities. One major ugly reality is the fact that we have an unsustainable appetite for oil. This takes our eye off the ball, the very important ball, which is that we can invent and innovate ourselves out of this problem! There is no shortage of energy on Earth. What there is a shortage of are leaders willing to push us, kicking and screaming if necessary, to the energy opportunities of tomorrow.

Congress has a bill to grant tax incentives for companies that invest in solar and wind power. The Republicans stopped it, as I noted in a previous post, because they objected to “delaying a tax break for multinational companies and preventing hedge fund managers from deferring some overseas profits.”

The Republicans are crying like little babies because Pelosi wouldn’t bring the off-shore drilling to a vote and at the same time they undermine solar and wind energy to protect the richest of the rich in this country?

How can anyone support this viewpoint?

The Democrats are just as lame at these games as the Republicans but at least their agenda is based on the viable and necessary goal of true energy independence. The Republicans are still fixated on oil and low taxes for the richest of the rich. It’s an antiquated agenda that makes no sense.

“What Senator McCain neglected to mention was that during those thirty years, he was in Washington for twenty-six of them. And in all that time, he did little to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” Obama said. “So when Senator McCain talks about the failure of politicians in Washington to do anything about our energy crisis, it’s important to remember that he’s been a part of that failure.”

Lest anyone think I am blind to Obama’s failings, I think it is lame that he softening on the strategic oil reserve and off-shore drilling. Neither of those are solutions to our problems.