About Damn Time

The age of oil must end.

by Jeffrey C. Billman

On June 2 — just three days after BP's "top kill" maneuver to stem the massive oil leak caused by the April 20 explosion of its Deepwater Horizon rig failed, and one day after the Justice Department announced it was opening criminal and civil investigations against the company — President Barack Obama finally spoke the unpleasant truth undergirding this calamity in the Gulf of Mexico. During a combative 40-minute speech in Pittsburgh, he told the assembled crowd of small-business owners: "[W]e have to acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth, and these are risks that are bound to increase the harder oil extraction becomes. We also have to acknowledge that an America run solely on fossil fuels should not be the vision we have for our children and our grandchildren."

There is a good bit of rhetoric here, and it's not wholly unlike the rhetoric we saw on the campaign trail two years ago. As another campaign season approaches, Obama knows as well as anyone that the longer this mess plays out, and the more his administration is seen as impotent, his poll numbers will suffer. And, to be sure, if there's one thing this president is undeniably good at, it's rhetoric.

So, his speech in Pittsburgh was, through this prism, the opening pitch of the White House's political season. But his diagnosis of the reality is so intrinsically correct that it needs to be seared into our collective consciousness: The age of oil must end.

This is our crisis, too. It's also our chance to get it right. In the end, it won't matter how angry the president is, or how angry the media is that he's not angry enough. It won't matter which congressmen whip themselves into a righteous lather of indignation, or what blue-ribbon dog-and-pony show assigns blame where, or how punitive the eventual punishments are.

What will matter is whether we seize this opportunity for change or let the status quo pull us back into the oil-drenched mire.

Last year, the House of Representatives passed by a razor-thin margin an ambitious energy bill that included a controversial "cap and trade" provision, which would cap the amount of pollutants that companies can dump into the atmosphere over time. That bill, even stripped of that provision, has languished in the Senate. The White House has, for much of the last year, focused elsewhere.

But finally, with the BP oil spill as a backdrop, the president has made his case. At long last: "The time has come to aggressively accelerate that transition [from fossil fuels]." That means, in short, eliminating tax breaks for Big Oil, using that money to invest in clean energies and instituting a cap on carbon pollution.

The energy industry basically owned the Bush White House: The latter's 2005 energy bill granted the former some $14.5 billion in tax cuts and reduced royalty payments, including for offshore drilling — like in the Gulf of Mexico. It even bequeathed Big Oil $50 million a year in research money. According to the Cleantech Group, taxpayers subsidize energy conglomerates to the tune of between $15 billion and $35 billion every year, thank you very much.

In 2008, the General Accounting Office found that, of 104 jurisdictions worldwide, only 11 received a smaller portion of oil revenue than the U.S. In other words, we're getting screwed, and screwed hard — but we're complicit in our screwing.

Last year, Obama asked Congress to remove $31.5 billion in tax breaks for Big Energy; Congress didn't oblige. Of course, this had something to do with the $9 million that industry PACS showered on candidates, and the $175 million Big Oil spent last year on federal lobbying. But it had more to do with our lack of moral fervor and our willingness to dodge the tough choices — capping carbon pollution will increase energy bills in the short term, especially until newer, cleaner alternatives become more viable. No way around that.

Yet, these things need doing. If they don't happen, it's because we've chosen to shirk the necessary sacrifices.

In this year's budget request, the administration asked Congress to end $38.8 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas companies. The BP calamity notwithstanding, the upcoming fight won't be easy. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he'll press the energy bill this summer, but that will be an uphill climb.

If it fails, we'll have only ourselves to blame.

(jeffrey.billman@citypaper.net)