Want to make a pile of dough over the next ten years? Find a London bookie who will take your bet that ten years from now our imports are up, not down by one third as Obama promises. Why is that a good bet, let me show you.
Here’s his master plan. First he will force the oil companies who own leases now in the US to drill where they know there is no oil. He doesn’t plan to open new areas for leasing where there is oil, just use this as another hollow promise that has zero chance of working, except with the gullible who hear him say he is stepping up domestic drilling. He will get nothing from this.
He is stepping up ethanol usage. Since ethanol uses a barrel of foreign crude to get a barrel of ethanol, he will accomplish nothing here either. Except, raise corn prices and starve some hungry people in less developed countries.
Next natural gas, he pledged to step up efforts to make sure new technologies for finding natural gas are safe. Translation, he will cut the production of the only good thing we have going.
Nuclear must remain on the table. Translation: with even more regulation in nuclear, due to Japan, it will take even longer and cost even more to put a new plant on stream. Result, nothing changes.
He will demand more energy efficient vehicles. Translation, Americans will buy what they can afford and will not buy what the dictators tell them to buy.
Every president since Nixon has pledged this as a goal. All have failed. This president is more inept than Carter, who failed the most, so place your bet. It is a can’t lose bet. Playing politics with energy strategy has become a presidential game. This is the lamest effort yet. With the biggest goal.