Ben Lodmell Democratic Candidate for Congress in Alabama’s District 01 released this policy statement today.
They don’t call oil “black gold” for nothing. At $100 a barrel, which we saw earlier in the year, it is easy to understand that comparison. That’s seven times more than the price of crude oil 30 years ago! Which has some experts more than a little worried about how high the price may go if tension in the Middle East escalates, especially with Iran, or if instability in other oil producing countries gets out of hand. If such a scenario unfolds, they say, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” when it comes to the price of oil.
Even so, there are worse fears than that. Some oil industry experts predict there may not be enough oil to go around if increasingly industrialized nations like China and India begin sucking oil up faster than it can be produced and refined.
But you and I and our neighbors here in the 1st District don’t buy crude oil. So why should we be concerned if the price of gasoline, say, goes up another half-a-buck or so? Why? Because the cost of gasoline is only the tip of the American economic iceberg.
The fact is virtually everything we consume contains some kind of oil component. The fact is our economy is already faltering because of it.
Yes, experts are saying the price we pay for gas at the pump will probably jump to about $3.40 a gallon by spring and may be as high as $3.75 later in the year. But before that up-tick in gas prices puts an added crimp in the take home pay of working families, many will see at least a 33% hike in the price of heating oil. And that’s just the beginning of the inflationary spiral. The fact is that oil affects the cost of just about everything we manufacture and eat and anything and everything that’s shipped by truck or plane.
In short, oil has an ever-tightening strangle hold on the throat of America’s economy. It threatens the way we live, thanks in large part to our ever-growing dependency on foreign oil, which amounts to about 60% of our needs. Couple that with the all-for-oil approach by the Bush-Bonner gang in Washington, and we have a real recipe for disaster. What is the Bush-Bonner approach to the energy crisis? Damn the consumer! Damn the environment! Damn the world! Full speed ahead, with exploration, drilling and pumping, wherever there’s a buck to be made! To hell with polluting the earth and the atmosphere and despoiling the oceans! Give the oil producers what they want. Give them what they pay for with their unconscionable and corrupting political contributions. Give them subsidies and drilling rights, and protect their tax breaks. That’s what Bush wants. That’s what Jo Bonner has voted for time and again. That’s the Bush-Bonner plan. It gins up the profitability of major oil producers to unconscionable heights, while every fuel-sensitive industry in the country suffers and every man, woman and child America pays the ever-increasing price.
This near-criminal idiocy has got to step. Our country must get out of oil, plain and simple! And we must do it fast or watch our way of life erode away. What we must do is create a “clean energy economy” with the same kind immediacy and national commitment that enabled America to put a man on the moon in 10 years. The Apollo Alliance is a national movement with just such a goal. But to make that goal America’s goal, we must first change whom we send to Washington to make the rules. That means the Bush-Bonner gang has got to go, every last one of them. And when I get to Congress, you can bet that creating a clean energy economy will be one of my top priorities.