How high must oil go before we end subsidies?

Bush’s refusal to consider clean technologies could be repeated by McCain 7

oilwellSo, who said:

With $55 oil we don't need incentives to oil and gas companies to explore. There are plenty of incentives.

Yes, that would be our president, three years ago. And yet with oil at nearly twice that price, Bush still refuses to cut subsidies and shift that money to clean technologies. And he still claims that the solution to our energy and climate problems is "technology, technology, technology, blah, blah." But, as we've seen, that is all just rhetoric or sleight of hand.

Daniel J. Weiss, Director of Energy Strategy at the Center for American Progress, has an article on the urgent need for this switch in priorities: "Unbearable cost of oil: Record prices require Senate action." As Weiss points out, this will be one more chance for McCain to do the right thing:

On December 13, this effort to adopt a clean energy tax package failed by 59-40, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) absent. His vote could have made the difference. His spokesperson said that "he would not have supported breaking the filibuster." In other words, he would have voted against renewable energy and for Big Oil.

Let's see if McCain backs Big Oil again.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Joseph Romm is the editor of Climate Progress and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

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  1. Sam Wells Posted 11:27 am
    06 Mar 2008

    A little hstory hereForget the price of oil, what happened was two things.  First, ex-President Clinton had a royalty reduction program to create an incentive for deepwater drilling ... not sure on the specifics but Big Oil loved it.  Unfortunately it had a major flaw in the wording and Big Oil took advantage of it to the fullest.
    Next, MMS (the people who lease offshore oil & gas rigs) failed to account for what was in the law, however flawed, and let billions and billions of revenue go uncollected.  Several whistle-blowers were fired over this ... by managers close to President Bush who for once really like a Clinton policy.  
    That is perhaps a slightly twisted version of the truth because it's so complicated it is hard to know what was really happening.  I am surprised that John McCain, who claims to want to clean up crazy laws that allow legalized corruption (such as in election donations), would not pursue a reasonable solution to this horrendous flaw that continues to this very day.  /sammie

    Onward through the fog

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  2. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 11:34 am
    06 Mar 2008

    Green Turning Brown...Starting to Fall Off Branch

    The question to ask is: after 4 decades of funding "Green Technologies", why haven't they produced a single viable alternative fuel or technology?

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  3. sunsetbeachguy Posted 2:05 pm
    06 Mar 2008

    must not feed the nutjob trollNice strawman, even better linked citations.

    Sunsetbeachguy

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  4. layman2003 Posted 11:36 pm
    06 Mar 2008

    Oil Price RapeWell the time has come. We can now put all the excuses to rest. As Americans it is time to cut off the Middle East from our open faucet money drain know as oil purchase. For less than $100 a barrel we can extract oil from coal. Something we have more of than the Middle East has oil reserve. I am sure it would hurt, cause panic (for about 15 minutes) but we need to STOP buying the oil. On the short term go ahead and start pumping in those "pristine areas". It is certainly better than letting a few oil soaked countries bring our economy down. Even though oil would probably spike at 4-5 dollars a gallon for a short time if we just cut off the Middle East oil (this is a price we are heading for anyway if we continue to ignore OPEC). Once people realize that gas would probably settle to just under 2 dollars a gallon (if we lean on the oil to just make exorbitant profits rather than obscene ones) for coal extracted oil rather than the permanent 4 dollar (at least) price we are headed for anyway. This will allow the oil companies to keep on running the country and not risk their being put lower on the gouging totem pole than outright efforts for alternative fuels would.
    It is just stupid to ignore that the Middle East is ruining our country. Let them drink that oil for a while. For exported grain a bushel of grain should be tied to a barrel of oil. Do you really think that the gas stations in the Middle East are paying the same for a gallon of gas as the stations in the US? Let them make bread from the crud or pay 100 dollars a bushel for grain for a while.
    Jim Palmiter
    Macon GA

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  5. trock Posted 12:29 am
    07 Mar 2008

    I think they are 2 different thingsSam,
    I think some of the references here are to the 2005 tax reductions for fossil fuels and others.   That stuff with the very badly written loyalties laws and then non-collection by the US government is incompetence of our government (and maybe success of lobbyists who wrote the laws.)    The thing with these these tax breaks for fossil fuel companies was actual policy, however wrong or bad.  

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  6. Robco1 Posted 1:39 am
    07 Mar 2008

    The Heartland Institute Troll turning brownJabberllo:
    If you were not so busy playing pattycake with your mouth-breathing Heartland/Cato Institute/ExxonMobil /RNC buddies you'd know that the anemic "research funding" in clean energy tech has produced several effective alternatives to your paymasters' products in spite of the obstructions of the fossil fuel industry and their lackeys (like you) in the RNC. Just look all over Europe and the rest of the world where your group has no political clout and you'd see the geothermal, wind and solar producing healthy megawatts of electricity.
    Now I'm done suffering you and your ilk. Go away. You're wasting billable hours. Go jabber to Rush Limburger dittoheads who are susceptible to your drivel and lies.

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  7. crumbrye Posted 6:06 am
    10 Mar 2008

    McCain's Environmentalist VPIt makes my heart sink to think that McCain can speak so eloquently about our need for renewable energy sources and to stop greenhouse gas emissions one moment, then go silent on these issues now to court conservatives. How are we ever going to really accomplish anything if these politicians have no courage and no conviction. The only solace is that the two names floating around as possible VP choices by McCain have actually accomplished something on the environment.
    http://www.greenpieceblog.com/2008/03/mccains-environment ...
    You can sign the petition urging McCain to make his campaign carbon neutral here...
    http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/gocarbonneutral

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