Thomas L. Friedman on our Energy Policy

[tricky]

He says it better than I can, so I'll just post this.

April 30, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Dumb as We Wanna Be

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.
When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit.


No, no, no, we’ll just get the money by taxing Big Oil, says Mrs. Clinton. Even if you could do that, what a terrible way to spend precious tax dollars — burning it up on the way to the beach rather than on innovation?


The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.”


Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.


But here’s what’s scary: our problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite.


Are you sitting down?


Few Americans know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies.


These credits are critical because they ensure that if oil prices slip back down again — which often happens — investments in wind and solar would still be profitable. That’s how you launch a new energy technology and help it achieve scale, so it can compete without subsidies.


The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for by taking away tax credits from the oil industry. President Bush said he would veto that. Neither side would back down, and Mr. Bush — showing not one iota of leadership — refused to get all the adults together in a room and work out a compromise. Stalemate. Meanwhile, Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program; Japan 12 years. Ours, at best, run two years.


“It’s a disaster,” says Michael Polsky, founder of Invenergy, one of the biggest wind-power developers in America. “Wind is a very capital-intensive industry, and financial institutions are not ready to take ‘Congressional risk.’ They say if you don’t get the [production tax credit] we will not lend you the money to buy more turbines and build projects.”


It is also alarming, says Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, that the U.S. has reached a point “where the priorities of Congress could become so distorted by politics” that it would turn its back on the next great global industry — clean power — “but that’s exactly what is happening.” If the wind and solar credits expire, said Resch, the impact in just 2009 would be more than 100,000 jobs either lost or not created in these industries, and $20 billion worth of investments that won’t be made.


While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America’s premier solar company, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany — 540 high-paying engineering jobs — because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not.


In 1997, said Resch, America was the leader in solar energy technology, with 40 percent of global solar production. “Last year, we were less than 8 percent, and even most of that was manufacturing for overseas markets.”
The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.

[PETA]

exec summary?

[Dionysos]

Summary: our politicians have their head up Big Oil's collective ass

[PETA]

Friedman said that? Gambling? In here?

[umalak_]

xian, you don't like Friedman?

[PETA]

Like?

Friedman has, generally, a consistent pov that I usually do not share. It's got nothing to do with like and everything to do with agreement or disagreement.

[umalak_]

how about respect... do you respect him?

what exactly do you disagree with him on, can you give an example or two?

[PETA]

I'm not digging up old articles for you. If he wrote it - I generally disagree. I think he presents himself honestly and his analysis generally reflects decent thinking but he operates from a different perspective. I disagree with assumptions about what goals are to be esteemed and what assumptions can be plugged into an analysis. He's a classic "world citizen" type lefty. I am anything but.

[zerojunkie]

hrm, I have a great deal of respect for Friedman and find his opinions on issues pretty much right in line with my own. What do you disagree with him on, Xian?

Edit: nevermind. We're talking about the same Friedman? Pro-war, pro-free trade, pro-energy independent...that Friedman?

[PETA]

You're thinking George Friedman.... a guy I rarely disagree with (if ever)



in re Thomas: "One of Friedman's theses is that individual countries must sacrifice some degree of economic sovereignty to global institutions (such as capital markets and multinational corporations), a situation he has termed the "golden straightjacket". from wiki

a thesis I find fundamentally flawed

[umalak_]

well let's take the amount of respect and worldwide acclaim that Thomas Friedman has vs. what you have xian...

yeah, that pretty much sums it up

[PETA]

Originally Posted by umalak_

well let's take the amount of respect and worldwide acclaim that Thomas Friedman has vs. what you have xian...

yeah, that pretty much sums it up

Indeed... one brilliant post after another from you.


Fucking Castro has respect from millions world wide. Does that make my criticism of him and my disagreement with him invalid? No. It means you're a fool and a douchebag that cannot think. It pains you that you cannot formulate a reasonable argument on pretty much any theory or proposition you hold dear. That pisses you off. Because you know, in your heart - you really are a fool and you cannot change that no matter how many books you read and do not understand, no matter how many theories you bungle and trip over yourself trying to explain. You're bankrupt of tact, common sense and anything interesting to say.

[tricky]

Originally Posted by xian

exec summary?

Our energy policy, or more precisely, the lack of one, is fucking us over. The notion that we are going to cut the federal gas tax for the summer to lower prices is absurd. That will increase demand and force us to borrow more from China while funding people we hate (saudi arabia.)

A wiser use would be to stop debating the tax credits for solar/wind power/etc and give them, while taking the credits away from big oil.

"But here’s what’s scary: our problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite."

Originally Posted by umalak_

well let's take the amount of respect and worldwide acclaim that Thomas Friedman has vs. what you have xian...

yeah, that pretty much sums it up

ouch

Originally Posted by xian

Indeed... one brilliant post after another from you.


Fucking Castro has respect from millions world wide. Does that make my criticism of him and my disagreement with him invalid? No. It means you're a fool and a douchebag that cannot think. It pains you that you cannot formulate a reasonable argument on pretty much any theory or proposition you hold dear. That pisses you off. Because you know, in your heart - you really are a fool and you cannot change that no matter how many books you read and do not understand, no matter how many theories you bungle and trip over yourself trying to explain. You're bankrupt of tact, common sense and anything interesting to say.

hah!

[PETA]

Originally Posted by tricky

A wiser use would be to stop debating the tax credits for solar/wind power/etc and give them, while taking the credits away from big oil.

How mant cars and trucks run on solar or wind power?

I'm generally opposed to corporate welfare but tax credits granted for alternative energy exlporation and development seems a wise choice imo.

Originally Posted by tricky

"But here’s what’s scary: our problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite."

I think he forgets that we have oil dependant cars taking people to work and product to market... I'm w/him on long term planning but he seems to ignore the short term.

[tricky]

Originally Posted by xian

How mant cars and trucks run on solar or wind power?

I'm generally opposed to corporate welfare but tax credits granted for alternative energy exlporation and development seems a wise choice imo.



I think he forgets that we have oil dependant cars taking people to work and product to market... I'm w/him on long term planning but he seems to ignore the short term.

The long term planning should have started in the 90's, not now. The short term situation is quite problematic, there are no truly viable options.

What do you advise for the short term? The standard GOP response is "DRILL EVERYWHERE!!!" Meanwhile, it takes years and billions of dollars for these new fields to come into play for a limited and finite amount.