Understanding the Issues 2008: Energy

[FRPLG]

I am no economic expert on this stuff. I have a college level understanding of economics and zero targeted understanding of the energy market but I think in general what I'd do is:

- First off I'd abolish any current tax break that oil companies get. Let's start with a clean slate.

- Identify a reasonable timeline for becoming oil independent. This will require understanding what oil reserves we have and how long they would last us at certain levels of usage. The idea here is to figure out at what point we can raise the proverbial middle finger to the middle east and say "Hey, were good now. We've got enough to last us 50 years in reserve". I am guessing that would mean we'd need to reduce our oil usage to approximately 2% of what we use today. I have no idea how realistic that is. Or whether it is realistic at all. I suppose there will always be a need for oil at some level no matter what.

- Construct a roadmap to oil independence. This will be hard since we have no real solid idea what the key to oil independence is. Maybe it is corn or hydrogen. Maybe biodiesel. Maybe a mixture. Probably a mixture. But we need to be reasonable. How long would it take us if we started today with full funding to overhaul our infrastructure? Once we uinderstand what generally needs to be done we can figure out how long it would take and how it can be done.

- Structure an incentive to big oil to follow the roadmap or even outperform it. If we figure out we can be 50% oil independent in 10 years then structure a tax incentive, A MASSIVE ONE, over the next ten years that forces them from a busniess perspective to get it done. Then slowly reduce the tax incentive over the next however many years it will take to be 100% independent. At the end, the old oil infrastructure will be gone and we'll using whatever else we have. Then we can start simply taxing the hell out oil comsumption to inhibit any type of revival.

All it takes is for everyone to be honest and reasonable. We simply can't ram this down big oil's throat at the expense of their profits and expect it to work. The reason they have so much influence is because they have money and they will do every thing they can do to keep their money and influence. The only reasonable way to get them to go along is to make it more proftiable to NOT USE OIL as a source.