<get us off Arab oil in a clean way,>
Since Arab oil [or OPEC oil more generally] is the cheapest oil around, by a long shot [due to a really low cost of production], it's not too sensible to aim to use a more expensive source.
One way of getting the USA off Arab oil is to simply take it over and make it into American oil. Which is what has happened in Iraq.
One of the reasons to get the USA off cheap Arab [OPEC] oil is to increase the profits of King George II's buddies in the high-priced exploration and production industry. While cheap oil is on the market, they can't make the profits to which they've become accustomed.
BP Oil has expensive North Sea and North Slope oil. They don't want megamillion barrels of oil flooding the market. Especially not if they don't own it, which they don't in Iran, Iraq [though they have a grip on it now], Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela etc.
Be careful what you wish for.
A more sensible idea would be to charge a large import tax on oil coming from outside the USA or from certain terrorist-producing countries. That would fund government functions such as USS Enterprise, reduce the tax burden on USA production, give incentive for alternatives, make the greenhouse gas Kyoto worry-warts stop whining and make tax collection more efficient [hard to hide a supertanker and one piece of paper would cover the whole thing].
Mqurice |
