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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Opinion

Democrats’ energy plan impossible

PAUL MULSHINE

People often ask what the purpose of national political conventions is in the modern era.

That’s easy. The purpose of conventions is for the party leaders to put forth positions on important issues, such as energy policy. And the Democrats in Denver have indeed made their energy policy clear: They’re going to lie their butts off and hope no one notices.

The fun began even before the convention when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared on “Meet the Press” Sunday morning. Pelosi was asked whether it is proper for her to be investing in natural gas at the same time she is pushing for a federal program that would require its use.

“I’m investing in something I believe in,” Pelosi replied. “I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels.”

Natural gas cannot be an alternative to fossil fuels for the simple reason that natural gas is a fossil fuel. Just like oil, natural gas is made up of the remains of lots of animals that roamed the earth long ago. And just like oil, natural gas can be recovered only through drilling. And Pelosi has opposed drilling, at least off the coasts where so much natural gas lies.

She thus became perhaps the first member of Congress in history to effectively rebut a charge of conflict of interest by stressing her own stupidity. The rest of the Democrats aren’t that dumb. But they think the American public is.

That became clear at the convention as the Democrats described how they will deliver us from high gas prices and also deliver us from foreign oil.

I’m sure you can see the problem: Gasoline is made from oil. The cheaper gas is, the more oil we’ll use. And the more we use, the more we must import.

Yet speaker after speaker has taken the stage to give American drivers a wink and a nod that says, “Don’t worry. We’ll bring back the days when you could drive as much as you like without worrying about the price.”

That’s a nice goal. But if you don’t have to worry about the price of gas, you won’t bother conserving it. And if you don’t conserve it, we’ll never achieve the energy independence the Democrats promised.

Yet there was keynote speaker Mark Warner telling us, “If we actually got ourselves off foreign oil, we can make our country safer. We’ll start to solve global warming, and with the right policies, within 24 months, we’ll be building 100 mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrid vehicles right here, with American technology and with American workers.”

No, we won’t. The leading plug-in hybrid project, the Chevrolet Volt, is running behind schedule and over cost. At the moment, the projected price for the Volt is $35,000 and rising. Would you spend that much for a hybrid in a world of cheap gas? I wouldn’t.

I discussed this with a guy who has studied the subject in some depth, UCLA astronomy professor Ben Zuckerman. Zuckerman is an ardent environmentalist and former Sierra Club board member who drives a Toyota Prius and in such a manner that he gets as much as 60 mpg. He has calculated how long it would take to earn back the extra $5,000 cost of his hybrid based on various gas prices.

“The payback time for the $5,000 is so much shorter when gas is $4 to $5 dollars a gallon vs. $2 to $3 a gallon,” he told me.

And it would be even shorter if gas cost $8 a gallon, as it does in Europe. If the Democrats truly believed in energy independence, they’d impose Euro-size taxes on gas.

“If you make it expensive, people use less,” said Zuckerman. “The Democrats are such hypocrites on such issues as this.”

Spoken like a true tree-hugger. The problem for the Democrats is that they want to appeal simultaneously to environmentalists and everyday drivers. So they promise the former that they’ll reduce greenhouse gases and the latter that they’ll have plenty of cheap fuel.

But in a world of cheap gas, Americans will never invest in expensive hybrids. Still, let’s imagine that two years from now every American bought one of those $35,000, 100-mpg plug-in hybrids. That would reduce oil imports by about 6 million barrels a day. Great. But we import 14 million barrels a day.

Even if every car in America were taken off the road tomorrow, we would still be importing oil. That gives you an idea of the extent of the problem. And it also tells you that anyone who assures you we can have cheap gas and energy independence is a lying lump of lard.

Keep that in mind next week when Republicans try the same trick at their convention.

Paul Mulshine is a columnist for the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. His e-mail is pmulshine@hotmail.com.