Posted on May 30th, 2008 at 11:20 am by dr.hoo
The Big Picture has an interesting article on how the US energy policy has worked to drive up the price of oil.
It turns out that for the past 3 decades, we’ve had a George Costanza Energy policy — every decision we have made as a country has worked to drive energy prices higher. Had we made the opposite decisions, Crude Oil prices would be much lower than they are today ($130.17 as I type this).
What follows is a list of energy-related policies of the United States. On many of these, I have no opinion — but I wanted to list as many as I could to demonstrate why Oil is where it is
US Policies with an impact on Energy:
1. Limited areas available for offshore drilling;
2. Stopped the rise of CAFE standards for automobiles;
3. Restricted nuclear power generation of Electrical;
4. Federal Reserve policies since 2001 led to a very weak US dollar (raising Oil prices);
5. Energy conservation policies? None
6. Iraq and Afghanistan wars contributing to Middle East tensions
7. No major United States funding for R&D on energy;