Your power to end subsidies to oil cos. and fund clean energy

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SSimon @ Jan 17 2007, 10:04 AM) [snapback]376795[/snapback]</div>

Silicon... not silicone.

Sure the gov't should be supporting this kind of thing but unless that trust bit is really well defined the funds will just get siphoned off for random stuff. It's important to have thorough, well thought out legislation. This bill is not that.

I think that the subsidies are there, in part, to protect the rest of the economy. Oil is a strategic commodity. Price shocks have a significant impact on a wide variety of economic sectors. Personally, I'm shocked that during the coldwar we didn't do more to rectify the oil dependence. We've put ourselves in a position where we are forced to coddle the oil industry. That's the bloody problem. People are slowly realizing it but not fast enough in my opinion.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Jan 17 2007, 09:35 AM) [snapback]376740[/snapback]</div>

In a perfect world I understand your argument about supply and demand effect on price. However one of the reasons I bought a Prius is to stop giving as much money to the terrorists. The bigger question is not oil supply, but will we be here when the oil runs out. Unfortunately a large segment of US citizens are against the American oil industry and want it to dry up in favor of "whatever". A Bill like this one says all the "right" things but makes no regulations on what clean energy is, means and who is to administer the funds. I am not going to give my tax money to greenies who do not have my best interests in mind.

 

I believe the House passed this bill, or something very nearly like it, yesterday. At least, the description of the bill sounded similar. I'm a little surprised, to tell the truth. Not that I disagree with the underlying premise of nudging the US toward cleaner energy sources, or for that matter, the idea of not exploiting our domestic oil resources as fast as we can. I just thought the bill was not ready for prime time -- more an expression of intent than an actual piece of legislation. But I guess this was wired.

It's a little disappointing to see the Dems doing business this way. Hustling stuff through with near-zero debate became the hallmark of the other party. I had hoped that all this "first 100 hours" hype was just for show. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe that's the only way our goverment can get business done these days.

At least the version you referenced was reasonably clean, and doesn't have the usual giveaways to favored campaign contributors. It just expresses the intent to fix the error, raise the government royalty per domestic barrel as a tax, and use the resulting funds to subsidize clean energy.

At the minimum, you can understand what its supposed to do, which is lightyears ahead of most legislation.

It will be interesting to see what the Senate does.

If it passes, they'll have --- what -- $15B (?) a year to play with in this trust fund.

I know EXACTLY what they ought to do with it first. Follow the lead of Montgomery County (see the Green Electricity thread) and offer consumers a 1c or 2c/KWH rebate on green electricity. Leverage the money -- see if people will vote with their dollars for cleaner energy. Not that that's a make-or-break amount of money, but it will advertise the fact that a green option is available. And, obviously, the actual disbursements would work through the electric utilities, not via the 1040, with dollar amounts per person this small. You'd pay the utilities for every customer who took the green option.

The more I've talked to friends about this, the more I'm convinced that the main reason the available green energy options are not used more is that nobody knows about them. Anyway, a quick back-of-the-envelope says paying 1cent subsidy to all current residential energy customers would cost $13B. Clearly not all would take it, and clearly you'd be willing to pay more for customers on the dirtiest grids. But you could certainly make this happen if you had a mind to.

Anyway, if this is going to happen, I'd like to see them work through consumer choice, rather than dump bucks on producers. That tends to turn into a contest to see who can get their snout deepest into the trough. Maybe the Dems are different enough that they'll do something reasonable here.

Actually, what I really like to see them do is set up competitive contracts with marketing firms to promote the availability of the subsidy on a competitive basis, so that it actually will be agressively advertised. In other words, put some profit motive behind getting the word out. Hey, it works for SUVs, might work for the other side too. It would be interesting to see what would happen if some major players were given a strong profit motive to sell consumers on green energy.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SSimon @ Jan 17 2007, 03:06 AM) [snapback]377032[/snapback]</div>

I'm sure they'll now be more than happy to bribe (sorry, contribute to) the Dems to that extent. They just haven't gotten there yet. They really couldn't put the hard money down until the committe assignments were finalized. So, what we have here is at best a brief interlude between purchases, as industries figure out whether the new regime is going to stay in power, and then, how best to invest their funds for maximum return, ie., which partiular members of Congress they need to buy. So maybe, in light of my prior comment, I ought to be thankful they're hustling the legislation through. By this time next year it probably will no longer be possible.

 

I'm amazed that so many people are so focused on maintaining the status quo in terms of energy consumption instead of working on reducing consumption levels. When are people going to get it through their head that unchecked growth is not good at this point?

With cheap fossil fuels there is very little initiative to shift paradigms. Smart city planning, mass transit, reduced urban sprawl, ecological design etc.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SSimon @ Jan 19 2007, 02:31 PM) [snapback]377993[/snapback]</div>

Doesn't surprise me when soo many people are more concerned with their retirement fuds and stock rather than doing the right thing, the right way and investing in something else and push new ideas instead of relying on antiquated economic strategies that do not mix with ecological laws and processes.

 

The legislation passed in spite of pathetic attempts by some republican house reps:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/19/h...havez-oil-bill/