U.S. Oil Addicts Deny Need To Change Energy Policy

The addicts have spoken. Not only do they want more oil and gas drilling, anywhere and all the time. They also want to continue huge tax breaks for oil companies that are rolling in dough. For decades they have supported giant oil industry tax breaks like the oil depletion allowance. Now they oppose even short-term tax credits for renewable energy and energy efficiency — unless future generations pay for them by adding them to the federal deficit created by wasteful spending and tax breaks.

Like most addicts, they are fooling themselves, and trying to fool their friends and family.



It’s a dodge, for instance, when senators and industry representatives use the excuse of today’s oil prices to call for drilling on the continental shelf, everywhere in the Rockies, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

If they don’t know better, they should. The United States holds less than 3 percent of the world’s oil and gas, yet uses about 25 percent of its annual production. The addicts claim we need to drill ourselves dry as fast as we can. That’s addict-talk. We don’t need to get more addicted to an increasingly marginal, expensive resource. Instead we need to break the addiction.

Albuquerque Journal