Mad-Hatter's Party
Stealing this link from Daily Howler. Somerby points to this as a great example of the press dissecting political spin for once. He also, rightly, notes that this is the kind of thing the 24 media ought to be doing. If the pols and executives (and anyone else with a microphone) are going to give us nothing but spin, why doesn't the media, rather than just regurgitating or enhancing that spin, dissect the facts from the spin? The facts are there for all to see, but most don't have the time to research the facts for themselves. I guess you could say Somerby is calling for the press corps do to some kind of "investigative" reporting. I realize they don't do this, but I think it's a growth area.

My primary thought on the US "lowering our dependence on foreign oil" goes something like this.

• First, why is foreign oil bad? Presumably because it comes from corrupt Arabian regimes that we prop up because they give us oil. But we're not talking about removing the US from the global oil market here, just reducing our intake by a few percentage points. If our foreign intake drops from 57% to 52% (now I'm giving ANWR the benefit of the doubt here to an absurd margin. Here's Grunwald, "The American Petroleum Institute's best-case scenario found that opening the refuge � which would presumably lead to exploration of nearby Native-owned land as well � could supply about 5 percent of the nation's oil consumption." The "best-case" (by the oil people so you can imagine how outlandish the "best" case is) "could" supply "about 5 percent". Want any more qualifiers, how about the "presumably lead to exploration of nearby Native-owned land"? Realistic estimate from a guy who knows nothing of the facts but was reared on political spin? 2%. Reduce our dependence from 57% to 55%. I can see the sheiks quaking from here. But wait, we "may import 67% by 2020." We may do a lot of things in 20 years, but one things for sure, drilling in ANWR will drop that figure to "may import 65% by 2020." I'm convinced.
• Second, what would less foreign oil do for the consumer? Will anyone realize an economic benefit if we import 2% less foreign oil? Do the US companies charge us less for their oil? Do we get a hometown discount? No. They are global corporations. We get the same price as the Japanese and the French. Reducing our "dependence" on foreign oil will have zero effect on the prices of anything in this country.

I'll set the environmental arguments aside since they are unnecessary at this point. You still have to make the case to me that drilling in ANWR is economically or politically sensible. If that argument is effectively made, then we'll talk about the "2000 acre" "footprint". See Krugman for round one on the footprint issue.
- posted by levinson @ 3/07/2002 07:52:00 AM