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 USA | UK | China | Middle East | India | Blogorama | Energy |
New York Times
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Dial M for Mother
Caitlin Flanagan
5/11/2008
The author says that when you come across a lost cell phone, the best way to return it is to scroll through the address book and dial "mom" so that she can bail out the person who lost it. She then looks at the complicated relationships people have with their mothers.
Caitlin Flanagan is the author to “To Hell With All That.”
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Change We Can Stomach
Dan Barber
5/11/2008
Now that oil prices have skyrocketed, small and mid-sized farms are gaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace and are growing tastier food in the process. He says chefs demand good food, food that is grown in good soil or created from pasture-fed animals. Links between farmers, chefs, and the consumers can create a return to more flavorful, nutritious food as long as people see the value in quality over quantity.
Dan Barber is the chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns.
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Is She A Trojan Rabbit?
Maureen Dowd
5/11/2008
Dowd muses about whether or not Obama should choose Clinton as his running mate for the Democratic ticket. In the end, whenever Clinton is around, she unnerves him and he is not at his best. He should choose a running mate that is in tune with his policies and that allows him to be at his best.
Maureen Dowd is a New York Times columnist.
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Saving the World in Study Hall
Nicholas D. Kristof
5/11/2008
Kristof looks at the youth of America who are leading with social entrepreneurial service projects, which he calls "piggy-bank philanthropists." He advocates service as part of high school requirements as well as a gap year abroad for service. Students today are more savvy about how to effect change and are doing more than his generation did. They should inspire us all.
Nicholas D. Kristof is a New York Times columnist.
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Call Your Mother
Thomas L. Friedman
5/11/2008
Friedman writes about his deceased mother and the qualities that she gave him in his lifetime. He said she was an optimist despite the hard knocks she endured in her life, and she was always interested in adventure. He says he knows she may have had dreams, but many of them did not come true because she never went to college. He marvels at her achievements, and says he wishes he could speak to her this Mother's Day, while urging others to call their mothers.
Thomas L. Friedman is a New York Times columnist.
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Party Like Its 2008
Frank Rich
5/11/2008
The reason the primaries have not turned out the way the pundits predicted is because 2008 and the political factors at work are far more complicated than people think, Rich says. The reason Obama is the man of the movement is that there is hope that he can put an end to the gloom that has been caused by the economy, the war in Iraq, and Bush's policy. As long as Obama keeps in tune with the fact that it is 2008 while the other candidates pander to the issues of the past, his chances are good to reside in the White House.
Frank Rich is a New York Times columnist.
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Six Ways Not to Deal with Hamas
Chuck Freilich
5/10/2008
In considering Israel's efforts to destroy Hamas, Freilich asks how one stops a foe whose tolerance for pain exceeds your willingness to inflict it. He details Israels strategies for thwarting the Palestinian group, noting the faults of each tact, and suggests that Israel start serious talks with them. He also says the US could augment progress toward an eventual settlement by pressuring Tel Aviv and bolstering Egyptian forces in the Sinai and Gaza. He concludes that Hamas is unlikely to be toppled or destroyed and is not a viable negotiating partner, but Israel should nevertheless reject illusory military fixes that would only make matters worse.
Chuck Freilich is a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for International Affairs, a Schusterman fellow, and a former deputy national security advisor of Israel.
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Is Nationalism Good for You?
Gustavo de las Casas
5/10/2008
The author notes that although nationalism is blamed for everything from unruly populism to genocide, it may be a positive force if utilized properly. What, he asks, if nationalism isn't the unevolved reflex so many assume it to be? The author considers the possibility that nationalism could help create wealth, fight corruption, and even lower crime.
Gustavo de las Casas is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University in the Department of Political Science.
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The Next Generation of Terror
Marc Sageman
5/10/2008
The author argues that the terrorists we should fear most are self-recruited wannabes who find purpose in terror and comrades on the Web. This new generation is even more frightening and unpredictable than its predecessors, but its evolution just may reveal the key to its demise. Alienated and nihilistic individuals plotting over the internet can both be identified and stopped. Moreover, they can also be reintegrated into their respective societies and made productive citizens. In the meantime, Sageman says the world's most dangerous jihadists no longer answer to al Qaeda.
Marc Sageman is Senior Fellow at the Center on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Homeland Security at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
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Prime Numbers: The Plastic Revolution
Ronald J. Mann
5/10/2008
The author writes that as millions of new consumers from China to Mexico are filling their wallets with plastic, the risks of over-extending consumer credit via credit cards are mounting as fast as people can say, "Charge it!" Global spending on credit cards has nearly quadrupled in the last decade, with a surprising amount of that growth occurring in the developing world. Banks in Russia, Brazil, and China now issue credit cards, but developing countries are particularly vulnerable to the risks of overextended consumer credit: Thailand, South Korea and Mexico have all endured crunches. The author concludes that as the rich world knows all too well, credit cards are as dangerous as they are convenient.
Ronald J. Mann is professor of law at Columbia Law School and author of "Charging Ahead: The Growth and Regulation of Payment Card Markets" (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
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The Coming Financial Pandemic
Nouriel Roubini
5/10/2008
The writer asserts that the US financial crisis cannot be contained. Indeed, he finds evidence that it has already begun to infect other countries and says it will travel further before it's done. He explicates how the crisis is likely to be ramified, from sluggish trade to credit crunches. The author shows how America's sub-prime lending implosion and resultant housing busts will increase stock market volatility to invariably spread the contagion of global financial turmoil.
Nouriel Roubini teaches at New York University's Stern School of Business.
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Think Again: Geneva Conventions
Steven R. Ratner
5/10/2008
The author examines the effectiveness of the Geneva Conventions in the context of the war on terror. The conventions, he notes, were designed to protect civilians and soldiers from the atrocities of war. Yet new challenges to these hard-won rules of battle have seriously eroded them. Indeed, they appear to be falling by the wayside: terrorists ignore them, and governments increasingly find them quaint and outdated. With every violation, he argues, war only gets deadlier for everyone.
Steven R. Ratner is Professor of Law at the University of Michigan.
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Financial Times
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Plans to empower Bank of England not bold enough
Andrew Large
5/7/2008
The author calls for the Bank of England to be given greater powers as the monopoly supplier of liquidity. There needs to be greater clarity between the Bank of England, the Treasury, and the Financial Services Authority over who calls the shots, as the cost to the nation of leaving the central bank with inadequate powers to act with precision and confidence at times of crisis is too great. Current remedies being proposed by the government do not go far enough. The role of the Bank could be adjusted without fundamentally changing the existing regulatory architecture or implementing the kind of radical changes being considered in the US.
Sir Andrew is a banker. He was deputy governor of the Bank of England 2002-2006 and chairman of the Securities and Investments Board 1992-1997.
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So Clinton was right about Beijing and jello
Richard McGregor
5/7/2008
McGregor writes that there has been a surge in anti-Western sentiment in China. Claims that French supermarket chain Carrefour has been financing the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile in India have led angry Chinese citizens to stir up protests via the internet. MacGregor says it had always been assumed that the internet would be the means through which US democratic values would spread, but this fascinating example shows that the Chinese have managed to achieve the very opposite. The Chinese authorities have allowed this patriotic protest movement to build and managed to bolster their own standing in the process.
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On the pot-holed highway to hell
John Gapper
5/7/2008
Gapper writes that US infrastructure is in dire need of investment, yet the country seems to lack the will to do anything about it. The state of transport and communications infrastructure is a symbol of a nation's economic development, and the US is starting to look like a third world country. Economic growth will suffer unless funds are found to address the problem, yet the pre-election talk among politicians is of tax cuts. Americans must face the fact that their economy will lose its dynamism unless improvements to infrastructure are agreed, properly funded, and implemented soon.
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Chinaview
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China jumbo passenger jet company to take off Sunday
Chinaview
5/10/2008
China's first jumbo passenger aircraft company will be officially inaugurated in Shanghai on Sunday. The company will be responsible for developing, manufacturing, and marketing the first made-in-China jumbo passenger jet. An aviation expert said the company should consider absorbing funding from private enterprises and foreign companies.
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Solemn spring pledge
China Daily
5/9/2008
The joint statement that Chinese President Hu and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda signed on Wednesday should help clear most of the doubts, as the two countries solemnly pledged all-round promotion of their strategic and mutually beneficial relations. It is heartening that Hu and his counterpart Fukuda did not shy away from the issue of history that has been a thorn in the bilateral relations. Both countries promised to "face it squarely". Only further cooperation between the two countries and among all the countries on earth can help in dealing with urgent problems such as energy shortage and climate change.
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Strong case for caution over RMB appreciation
Liu Junhong
5/9/2008
An appreciated yuan could ease the inflation pressure from the global market. However, if the yuan appreciates higher than its ideal level, the interest rate would be high, increasing the financing costs of businesses and weakening their competitiveness against their foreign competitors. For the Chinese banks, whose assets in foreign currencies are mostly in US dollars, the yuan appreciation against the US dollar results in a shrinkage of their asset values and a slide in their revenue.
The author is a researcher with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.
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Slow Waltz for Australian Ore, Chinese Steel
Caijing Magazine
5/9/2008
The state-run Baosteel has offered to buy a stake in Australia's third-largest iron ore supplier, Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), but an agreement hasn't been reached yet. Some industry experts are warning the Chinese that costs and risks involved in a potential FMG investment have risen significantly now that its stock price has reached record heights. Chinese state-owned companies have already missed several chances in recent years to buy stakes in FMG. When the Australian company put 20 percent of its shares on the table in 2006, the government agency said it wanted nothing short of 50 percent. 95 percent of the company's output has been reserved for the Chinese market.
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Beijing gets cold shoulder from developers
Caijing Magazine
5/6/2008
Since October 2007, the national market for undeveloped land has experienced a downturn. Some real estate developers were simply unable to increase their land reserves, while others with adequate capital hesitated to buy, claiming prices were too high. Under current market conditions, the government will be quite cautious to put land on the market due to concerns about the possibility of more failed bids, one industry insider said. On one hand, land-transfer fees are a major revenue source for local governments in China. On the other hand, control of land supply is important to curb surging housing prices.
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Z Word blog
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German Leftists Declare Solidarity with Israel
Elif Kayi
4/22/2008
Kayi notes that in a major policy change, German leftists have condemned Muslim anti-Semitism and reflex anti-Zionism. Gregor Gysi, joint head of the Linkspartei with Oskar Lafontaine, warmly congratulated Israel on its 60th anniversary and called on his party to "show solidarity" with the Jewish state. He claimed that solidarity with Israel is an integral part of Germany's "raison d'etat".
Elif Kayi is European correspondent of Z Word.
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Our World: Anti-Zionism at 60
Caroline Glick
5/5/2008
Glick takes issue with pessimistic appraisals of Israel's future. These are based on faulty demographic data, which exaggerate the population of Palestinian Arabs. They are intended to demoralize Israelis and to convince Zionists that they are powerless.
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Consensus in the US is anti-Iran
Francis Matthew
5/8/2008
Matthew analyzes the controversy regarding Hillary Clinton's remark that the US could obliterate Iran if it attacked Israel. Actually, all three candidates have a similar policy toward Iran. Significantly, Hillary Clinton wants to broaden the nuclear umbrella to include Arab states as well as Israel.
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Politics aside, a human rights crime is happening in Gaza
Jimmy Carter
5/8/2008
The Israelis are committing human rights crimes in Gaza by imprisoning the population there, writes Carter. Over a million people are being punished and bombed by Israel, he claims. According to Carter, the Hamas are willing to recognize Israel and abide by a peace agreement, but their repeated calls for a peaceful settlement have gone unanswered.
Jimmy Carter, a former president of the United States, is founder of the Carter Center, which promotes peace, health, and human rights worldwide.
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Lebanon has an 'Aoun' problem
Joseph A. Kechichian
5/8/2008
According to Kechichian, the Lebanese deadlock is due primarily to Christian politician Michel Aoun rather than to Hezbollah. Aoun has set his sights on the presidency and is manipulating the political apparatus to obtain it. Hezbollah tried to use Aoun as an ally in a bid for political integration and legitimacy but produced the current obstructionist scenario instead. Hezbollah should cut off funding to Aoun and Aoun should retire from public life.
Dr. Joseph A. Kechichian is a commentator and author of several books on Gulf affairs.
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Prepared by the MidEastWeb News Service
www.mideastweb.org
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India and the Sub-Continent >>
The Financial Express (India)
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Economic emergence for all
Malvika Singh
5/3/2008
It is tragic that the Indian State has been reduced to pliable putty, vulnerable and threatened. It needs to be overhauled and revitalised with a fresh set of rules and laws that will defend and dignify the people of India. Otherwise, says Singh, the socioeconomic perversities with rampant rape and murder, abduction, and extortion, are so stark that any further abdication of responsibility could push the country over the edge.
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The Nineties nightmare
Ila Patnaik
5/6/2008
In the mid-'90s when RBI dollar purchases resulted in high reserve money growth, it was unable to sterilize them through open-market operations because the government bond market was undeveloped. In recent years the RBI has found it easier to sterilize its forex intervention due to a better government bond market. However, says Patnaik, when the policy is followed for a long period of time, it becomes increasingly difficult to make the banking system hold more and more government securities.
The writer is senior fellow, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
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Cost of combating terrorism
Mushfiq Murshed
5/6/2008
Prime Minister Gilani has committed his government in the war against terrorism by claiming it to be Pakistan's war. At the same time, it is interesting that the silhouette of a tactical shift in the US assistance policy to Pakistan is slowly emerging, says Murshed. Emphasis on support for the democratic civilian leadership, as opposed to the military, is gradually taking shape. There is a realisation that broad-based support from civil society is indispensable in the fight against terror.
The writer is editor-in-chief of Criterion Quarterly.
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Deadly double game
Sajjad Shaukat
5/1/2008
With an inactive approach to the solution of the border dispute, India's recent agreement with China has been clandestinely supporting the Tibetan insurgents as part of its double game. The duplicity could be noted from a number of self-contradictions in this context, says Shaukat. India does not favor an independent Tibet and avoids any propaganda against China. On the other hand, the media left no stone unturned in exaggerating the casualties by manipulating China's recent crackdown against the militants of Tibet.
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PPP Isn't Convinced!
Ahmer Muzammil
5/3/2008
PPP's paranoia even after winning the election has a valid basis, writes the author, because Pakistan is a country in which an elected PM was hanged in broad daylight. But two things have changed that make the situations more affirmative. One, if they reinstate the judiciary then the judges would not be willing to court the army anymore. Secondly, the media in Pakistan has really broken shackles and, more than the judiciary, they will be the guard of all that is sacred and holy.
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How not to curb inflation?
Sisir Basu
5/3/2008
In India, the focus is on containing inflation to bring it down to within 5.5 percent. But it has not been easy, never more so than now when growth is slowing and inflation is picking up, says Basu. With policy prescriptions pulling in opposite directions--slowing growth demands a reduction in interest rates while rising prices demand a hike--the RBI has to make a judgement call about which one takes precedence while deciding its policy stance.
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Make the Parliament work!
Mariam Mufti
5/5/2008
The 2008 election may have brought the same political players back, but it is important to note that the context of the game has changed considerably, leading to a window of opportunity to correct the civil-military imbalance that has historically prevailed in Pakistan. In these circumstances, says Mufti, if politicians want to make the coalition government last, their best recourse to action is to actually make the parliament work effectively as the sovereign legislative body that it is supposed to be constitutionally.
Mariam Mufti is currently working on her doctoral dissertation on the party system of Pakistan at the Johns Hopkins University.
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Learn from Obama
A G Noorani
5/2/2008
Obama's rise and his travails in the US presidential race hold lessons for all Indians committed to secularism, particularly Indian Muslims, says Noorani. His concern for African-Americans is genuine, but it is part of his wider, equally genuine concern for the entire nation. From the moment Obama stepped onto the national political stage, he has paid much attention to far broader and serious issues.
The writer is a lawyer.
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The stopwatch's ticking
Pankaj Vohra
5/4/2008
Now, if the UPA government signs the nuclear treaty after the Budget session ends, there is nothing anyone can do to stop it, says Vohra. The Left may accuse the government of breach of faith, but as long as the government can explain effectively to the people that the treaty was for the nation's progress, nobody can prevent it from going ahead. So, a situation may arise in which the Left may want to insist on convening a special session and ask the government to test its strength.
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Food security concerns in East Asia
P. S. Suryanarayana
5/5/2008
The continuing globalisation process has had a dramatic negative impact on the prices of food, including rice, across 16 member states of East Asia. This keeps the East Asian focus on India, a major rice-exporter, in high intensity. Consequently, after having come under the spotlight on climate change and the civil nuclear energy deal, India may face a leadership test in the region over the rice crisis, says Suryanarayana.
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Blogorama >>
Blog: Matthew Yglesias
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Time to Get Mad
Matthew Yglesias
5/10/2008
One of several perverse elements of the US presence in Iraq is that the presence itself is a cause of violent conflict in Iraq, writes Yglesias. The insurgents' alliance with Al-Qaeda in Iraq commenced in the first place only because Sunni Arab groups wanted to take up arms against the American occupation and were seeking allies in that cause. Now our guns are aimed at the Sadrists because they want us to leave. And naturally, we can't leave until we've achieved "victory", defined as killing everyone who wants us to leave.
Matthew Yglesias is an Associate Editor of The Atlantic Monthly.
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Country Brief: Mexico, Part Two
Zach Rosenberg
5/9/2008
Rosenberg discusses the role of the Mexican Army, which has been oriented toward anti-drug domestic operations. He says that while corruption almost certainly means these resources are being used selectively against a limited range of targets, they are there. The strength of the drug cartels and level of support and terror they inspire likely mean that the status quo will not change drastically, but their effectiveness still remains to be seen.
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The Fleet Positions Itself For War
Galrahn
5/9/2008
The author is tracking the movement of US naval forces in and around the Middle East looking for clues as to when a strike force will be in position to attack Iran. He says a scheduling "coincidence" has generated a considerable amount of naval power availability this summer, and he notes that the first strike weapons are on the move. The next big sign is to wait and see what the Peleliu ESG does when the Iwo Jima ESG deploys. If both are in the Middle East at the same time late this summer, that is a pretty solid sign of a September Surprise.
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German Leftists Declare Solidarity with Israel
Elif Kayi
4/22/2008
Kayi notes that in a major policy change, German leftists have condemned Muslim anti-Semitism and reflex anti-Zionism. Gregor Gysi, joint head of the Linkspartei with Oskar Lafontaine, warmly congratulated Israel on its 60th anniversary and called on his party to "show solidarity" with the Jewish state. He claimed that solidarity with Israel is an integral part of Germany's "raison d'etat".
Elif Kayi is European correspondent of Z Word.
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Cautious Optimism in Kenya
Derek Catsam
5/7/2008
Thousands of Kenyans displaced by the post-election violence are beginning to return home, which is a sign that people are moderately confident that resuming their lives is safe, writes Catsam. He says the Kenya situation embodies the sort of crises Africans may face in years to come. While devastating, the post-election chaos did not devolve into a permanent state of war. Perhaps this marks progress of a sort in the post-colonial era.
Derek Catsam is an assistant professor of history at the University of Texas.
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The 'Children of Men' scenario in Japan
Eric Lindholm
5/7/2008
Lindholm warns about the future dangers of underpopulation. He says Japan is heading for demographic disaster with a steadily aging population and a dearth of children to populate the next generation. This combination means economic, social, and cultural disaster for Japan as they will have to allow large-scale immigration, probably from Indonesia and the Philippines. The face of Japan will transform when there are no more Japanese.
Eric Lindholm is a conservative from Massachusetts.
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PPP Isn't Convinced!
Ahmer Muzammil
5/3/2008
PPP's paranoia even after winning the election has a valid basis, writes the author, because Pakistan is a country in which an elected PM was hanged in broad daylight. But two things have changed that make the situations more affirmative. One, if they reinstate the judiciary then the judges would not be willing to court the army anymore. Secondly, the media in Pakistan has really broken shackles and, more than the judiciary, they will be the guard of all that is sacred and holy.
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Post-War Vet Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths
Jake Tapper
5/6/2008
The author cites an April 2008 study by the Rand Corporation that found that almost 20 percent of US veterans back from Iraq and Afghanistan have symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or major depression. He says only a little more than half, however, have sought treatment. 1.6 million troops have so far served in those two wars. More importantly, the Pentagon itself does not dispute these alarming figures.
Jake Tapper is ABC News' Senior National Correspondent based in the network's Washington bureau.
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Baghdad: Sunni ministers 'unqualified'
Cernig
5/6/2008
The Iraqi government has turned down all of the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front's candidates for ministries because they were "unqualified". The author contends that the Sunni nominees' qualifications are just a smokescreen. Having grabbed Western headlines with the news that the Sunnis were returning to the fold at a moment when Maliki needed to make a show, he can now take all the time he needs putting roadblocks in the way of their actual return. Eventually the Sunnis will withdraw again and get the blame in the Western press for not doing enough for reconcilliation.
Cernig is an independent management consultant.
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100 Years, Part II
Scott Paul
5/5/2008
The author interprets McCain's "one hundred years in Iraq" comment to mean that he is trying to rescue the neoconservative project. McCain is still clinging to the idea that US military force can fundamentally transform Iraq and the Middle East. Democrats and moderate Republicans need to take this argument at face value and shoot it down. Otherwise, McCain just might be able to bring neoconservatism back from the dead.
Scott Paul is Deputy Director of Government Relations at Citizens for Global Solutions.
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Energy >> |
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The Wall Street Journal
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Windfall Profits for Dummies
The Wall Street Journal
5/3/2008
With gas prices close to $4 a gallon, Hillary Clinton and John McCain say they'll bring relief with a moratorium on the 18.4-cent federal gas tax. Barack Obama opposes that but prefers a 1970s-style windfall profits tax (as does Mrs. Clinton). Neither proposal addresses the problem of energy supply, especially the lack of domestic oil and gas thanks to decades of Congressional restrictions on US production. We tried this windfall profits scheme in 19800. It backfired. The Congressional Research Service found in a 1990 analysis that the tax reduced domestic oil production by 3% to 6% and increased oil imports from OPEC by 8% to 16%. Mr. Obama nonetheless pledges to lesson our dependence on foreign oil. Someone should tell him that oil imports would soar if his tax plan becomes law. Also, Thomson Financial calculates that profits from the oil and natural gas industry over the past year were 8.3% of investment, while the all-industry average is 7.8%. And this was a boom year for oil. This tiff over gas and oil taxes only highlights the intellectual policy confusion--or perhaps cynicism--of our politicians. A group of Senate Republicans led by Pete Domenici of New Mexico just introduced the "American Energy Production Act of 2008" to expand oil production off the US coasts and in Alaska. It has the potential to increase domestic production enough to keep the US running for five years with no foreign imports. If not now, when?
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The half-won, half-lost war
Victor Davis Hanson
5/3/2008
The gloomy election-year refrain is that America is losing the war on terror. But how accurate is that diagnosis? The good news is that Iraq is starting to look better, we are at last beginning to get the right officers in the right places at the right time, and the despairing enemy seems to sense this as well. But is the war then nearly won? Hardly. That brings us to the bad news. We still censor ourselves in fear of terrorist threats. Even more worrying, Americans cannot find a substitute for imported oil. The result is that $110-a-barrel petroleum is slowing our economy, weakening our international financial clout, and sending billions in capital into the hands of our otherwise unproductive enemies. The way to shut down Iran's reactor or its subsidies for Hezbollah is not necessarily through bombing but by getting oil back down below $50 a barrel, which would cut the value of Iranian production by nearly $100 billion a year and weaken an already weak economy. In all our major wars--except the present one--Americans have won through a combination of military prowess, correctly identifying the enemy, and economic savvy. Only in this war has our profligacy empowered our enemies. Our politically correct diplomats and the American consumer are doing as much at home to empower radical Islam as those on the front lines are to defeat it.
Victor Davis Hanson is a nationally syndicated columnist, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal.
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Halt strategic oil buys
John Barrasso
5/4/2008
Growing world economies, particularly in India and China, are boosting world oil demand. Increased environmental regulations, geopolitical tensions, and the weak US dollar also contribute. Federal government policies should not make things worse. That's why Barrasso says he is sponsoring legislation that calls for the temporary suspension of federal oil purchases for the Strategic petroleum Reserve (SPR). Future federal acquisitions would be triggered when the price of regular unleaded gasoline is less than a nationwide average of $2.50 per gallon or diesel fuel returns to an average of $2.75 for four weeks. S. 2927, would also ensure that future government oil purchases are fiscally responsible. The SPR already contains 700 million barrels of oil in the salt caverns of Louisiana and Texas. Under current policy, the federal government acquires another 70,000 barrels of oil each day to inject underground. Energy Information Administration (EIA) modeling shows a reduction of 100,000 barrels of oil per day has an impact of $2 per barrel and 4 cents to 5 cents per gallon. Other analysts have argued that continuing to fill SPR could add as much as 10 percent to the price of oil. Also, when the federal government buys oil at today's prices, it is an expensive proposition for taxpayers. This suspension will not provide the full relief consumers are seeking, but it is an important step.
John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, is a member of the Senate Energy and Environment Committee and Foreign Relations Committee.
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Start Drilling
Robert J. Samuelson
4/30/2008
The truth is that we're almost powerless to influence today's oil prices, writes Samuelson. We didn't take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: start drilling. The US is the third-largest oil producer behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. By governmental estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven US reserves today) and 80 tcf or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves). What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies, and sheer stupidity. Americans deplore imports but oppose more production in the US. The result is a no-pain energy agenda that sounds appealing but has no basis in reality. The best we can do is try to exert long-term influence on the global balance of supply and demand. Increase our supply. Restrain our demand. (Yes, we need a gradually rising fuel tax to create a strong market for more-efficient vehicles.) It's hard for the US to complain that other countries limit access to their reserves when we're doing the same. If we don't start now, our future dependence and its dangers will grow. Count on it.
Robert J. Samuelson is a contributing editor of Newsweek and the Washington Post.
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The Gas-Guzzler Gambit
New York Times
5/1/2008
Senators John McCain's and Hillary Rodham Clinton's plan to suspend the federal gasoline tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day is an expensive and environmentally unsound policy that would do nothing to help American drivers. Leave aside the administrative nightmare and the increased demand for gasoline, the fact is that drivers would, at best, see only the briefest reduction in prices at the pump. Gas prices rise during the summer season of heavy driving as rising demand pushes refiners to produce virtually at full capacity. if a suspension in the excise tax reduced the price at the pump, it would encourage even more driving. This would simply push prices back up. Oil companies would be grateful, drivers less so. Certain realities need to be faced, even in an election year. Oil prices are likely to remain high for some time, and that is an urgent need to curb the world's CO2 emissions to address the threat of global warming. We know pandering when we see it. Fortunately, Mr. Obama has not caved to the rising calls for cheap energy and has refused to follow his rivals down this misguided path.
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Dumb as We Wanna Be
Thomas L. Friedman
4/30/2008
Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer's travel season. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering. Also, for almost a year now Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment and production tax credits for solar and wind energy. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power, we are squabbling over pennies. Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program; Japan has a 12-year one. Ours, at best, runs two years. While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America's premier solar company, First Solar from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany--540 high-paying engineering jobs--because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.
Thomas L. Friedman is a columnist for the New York Times and a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner.
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The Ship Turns
Investor’s Business Daily
5/2/2008
For users, higher prices mean finding ways to do with less. For producers, they mean finding ways to produce more. The confluence of these two forces usually results in lower prices. This is what's happening now with oil. For oil companies, it has meant drilling for more oil. World oil ouput has jumped by 11%, or 8.5 million barrels a day, since 2002. Contrary to the predictions of petro-paranoids, private oil companies are producing flat out--even though government entities such as OPEC and the US Congress work to keep prices high. The US itself has 656 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 112 billion barrels of oil on federal lands alone there for the taking if only Congress would allow it. But even without it, we're going gangbusters. That's the supply side. What about demand? US fuel demand in the first three months of 2008 was down 1.4% from a year earlier--the third straight quarterly year-over-year decline in a row. The tide has turned. One in five US car purchases is now a compact or subcompact, while SUV sales are off 28%. So even as Congress twiddles its thumbs, the private sector is doing its thing.
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Wind Power
John Krenicki
4/22/2008
It is clear that renewable energy must be an integral part of the 21st century energy mix. Currently the most commercially viable renewable energy technology is wind. Despite our impressive progress, we are far from reaching the full potential of our wind resources. Today less than 1 percent of our nation's energy is generated by wind. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has estimated we have the potential to drive that number as high as 20 percent. However, the continued growth of the US wind industry could be threatened by policy uncertainty. When the production tax credit expired at the end of 1999, 2001, and 2003, wind power installations declined substantially. By contrast, the repeated extensions in 2005 and 2006 have stabilized the policy environment, establishing the US as the world leader in annual wind power installations and stimulating investment and jobs. The current production tax credit is due to expire at the end of this year. Allowing that to occur would have a devastating impact on the US domestic wind industry. A recent report compiled by Navigant Consulting for the AWEA estimates that failure to extend the tax credit would cause a 90% drop in wind power installations and the loss of 76,000 job opportunities in 17 states in 2009 alone. Continued growth of this industry depends heavily on a stable, predictable policy environment. Without it, we will squander our leadership role in one of the most promising sectors for stimulating jobs, investment, and exports.
John Krenicki is president and CEO of GE Energy.
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Bring on the Right Biofuels
Roger Cohen
4/24/2008
Biofuels are being blamed for everything including your mother in law's toothache, writes Cohen. This is hogwash and bilge. Much larger trends are at work driving up food prices: the economic rise of more than one-third of humanity in China and India, the disintegrating dollar and soaring oil prices. Biofuels remain very much part of the solution. It just depends which biofuels. Brazil has enough savannah to multiply its 3.5 million hectares of cane-for-ethanol production by ten without going near the Amazon ecosystem. Right now the biofuel market is being grossly distorted by subsidies and trade barriers in the US and the EU. It makes no sense to have a surplus of environmentally friendly Brazilian sugar-based ethanol with a yield eight times higher than US corn ethanol and zero impact on food prices being kept from an American market by a tariff of 54 cents on a gallon while Iowan corn ethanol gets a subsidy. The real scam lies in developed world protectionism and skewed subsidies, not the biofuel idea.
Roger Cohen is an editorial columnist for the International Herald Tribune.
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