Ma Bush e' un ex petroliere o un ecoterrorista?

Lo staff editoriale del Wall Street Journal non ha apprezzato per nulla il discorso presidenziale riguardo alla politcia energetica. E ne hanno perfettamente ragione: se bisogna votare per gente con certe idee bacate, ci sono gia' i Democratici che ffanno un lavoro invidiabile.
La realta' e' che non esiste l'opportunita' per liberarsi della dipendenza dal petrolio saudita ed avere prezzi inferiori ai 70 dollari al barile, almeno nel breve periodo. Il tentativo di salvare capra e cavoli portera' soltanto a maggiore burocrazia e maggiori sussidi, con le opportuinita' di corruzione che possiamo immaginarci.

Tertium non datur e qui sotto se ne spiega il motivo:

Mr. Bush's proposed subsidies may be small, but he has started a political bidding war that will prove very costly before it's done. Every energy lobbyist with a K Street address will be lining up for another tax or spending subsidy: synthetic fuels, biodiesel, wind farms and, the granddaddy of them all, ethanol. That subsidy used to be limited to corn farmers, but Mr. Bush opened the door to make the fuel from cane sugar and switch grass. And this for a fuel that has been heavily subsidized since the 1970s and still can't pull its own market weight.

The truth is that America is twice as energy efficient as it was 50 years ago, and some of the greatest gains have come during periods of high oil prices. Yet some of the same politicians calling for limits on oil use now are those who happily basked in 80-cent-a-gallon gasoline in the 1990s.

The market is similarly working to increase supply, at least where the government allows. One overlooked energy story is the extraordinary capital the oil industry is sinking into new production. Oil sands in

Canada's Alberta province hold 175 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia's estimated 260 billion. Shell Canada chief Clive Mather recently suggested there could be as many as two trillion barrels. Today's high prices make it economical to extract oil from sand, and Canada's oil sands are already producing a million barrels a day. Yet, remarkably enough, Mr. Bush made no reference at all to the limits that Congress has imposed on drilling in the Arctic, or in the Outer Continental Shelf, where there are vast non-Mideast oil and gas reserves.

About the only idea Mr. Bush didn't steal from the liberal playbook was a call for greater fuel efficiency standards. But give it time: The "addiction" line will surely jumpstart calls for precisely those types of limits on consumer choice. Such rhetoric will also add to the political clamor for another gas tax, although with today's high prices this has so far been a political non-starter.

At least Mr. Bush bothered to mention nuclear energy, which is the only realistic substitute to fossil fuels short of a technological breakthrough. Then again, this country hasn't built a new nuclear plant since the 1970s, and the recent flurry of companies seeking licenses for new reactors has sent environmental activists around the bend. Companies have faced similar difficulties building new terminals to import liquified natural gas, a substitute for home heating oil.

The truth is that many green groups, and the political liberals who follow them, don't object to imported oil because it comes from the Middle East. They are opposed to fossil fuels, and nuclear energy for that matter, on principle. They want to live in a world that runs on wood chips, and it's hardly useful to have a conservative President telling the country he agrees with them.