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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cirrus who wrote (3279)	10/20/2006 6:05:12 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

If the US didn't have to import any foreign oil we would still have political and national security interests in the Middle East. Our allies would import oil from there. Terrorist would eminate from there. Israel is located there. And a disruption in supply would effect the price of oil in the US even if we didn't import a drop. Also if we reduce our oil use to the point where we don't need to import, there is still the fact the American reserves are much lower than some of the countries around the Persian Gulf. We could get to the point where we don't need to import and then our production would eventually decline and we would need to import again. Spend $200 billion to change from oil to hydrogen Something like moving from oil is not a problem where a Manhattan project type solution would work well. It isn't a well defined specific problem. Its a complex interaction of technology, economics and politics. Just developing the technology doesn't mean that it become economical. And even if it is cost effective when you ignore the sunk costs, you still have to deal with the fact that all the infrastructure that isn't ready. The cost would likely be trillions not just a couple of hundred billion, and if you could could roll out the trillions the problem would still be complex and would take time. If the national security need really is overwhelming (and that could be debated as well) it would be better to work with markets, and distort them just a bit, than to just set up a huge expensive government program. You could tax oil and/or refined products to a greater degree, and let the market decide how to deal with this extra cost. Note: I'm not actually supporting higher taxes in this area, just putting it out as a better idea than a massive government program.