IT’S LIKE DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN

“Did you Hear ‘em talkin’ bout it on the radio
Did you try to read the writing on the wall
Did that voice inside you say I’ve heard this all before
It’s like Déjà vu all over again” John Fogerty/Cody River Music 2004



When John Fogerty penned and published that song last year, he was talking about Vietnam and its parallel to the Iraq war. Recent experience supports the argument that he was just as readily addressing the energy funk we’re in now.

All over the country we consumers have sat back helplessly watching as gas prices spiral upward ever more quickly with no relief in sight, while our fearless (feckless) leaders have been telling us that we should not expect any from the new energy bill, You remember that bill. – it’s the one that just gave the oil companies tens of billions in tax relief over the next decade. It was the “Energy policy” we just had to have. It was the energy policy fashioned by Cheney and a group of undisclosed industry insiders back in 2001. That group was the one which Cheney resisted disclosure of - all the way to the Supreme Court – even though groups from both sides of the political spectrum (the conservative Judicial Watch, and the left-leaning Sierra Club) wanted to know who sat on the decision making committee.




For those who have been really paying attention, That’s when Nino Scalia – Mr. Piety on the Supreme Court – thumbed his nose at conflict of interest rules which have applied to lawyers for decades – by going duck hunting with his pal Cheney at some oilman’s private Louisiana reserve WHILE the case was pending before the Supreme Court. For reference point, imagine going to court to fight your next unjustly delivered traffic ticket, only to find the judge, the D.A. and the citing officer poring over a photo album of their most recent golf outing together, one which was hosted by the company who makes the radar guns favored by your city’s finest. But I digress.

What’s happening with gas prices in the country looks suspiciously like what happened to energy costs in California in late 2000 and 2001. And just like that event, the Bush administration is doing exactly what it did during that crisis. Nada. Zilch, Bupkiss. Because extra money for the oil industry – windfall profits for big oil – is not a problem for Bush and friends. Its payback. Not just for the work of Texas oil “Pioneers” and “Rangers” from his two presidential campaigns. It is also helping out his long time buddies from the industry who “suffered” so much in the 80’s when oil was selling for less than 30 bucks a barrel.

Oh yeah, there’s a war on, and the Iraq oil supply production machinery has been harder to get back up and running. This was, you may recall, the oil infrastructure that was going to yield all the money necessary to finance Iraqi Reconstruction. So said Under secretary of State Wolfowitz in testimony before Congress two years ago. This miscalculation got him promoted to head of the World Bank. Sweet. Maybe he can give Neil Bush a job there overseeing the loan department. Neil’s prior banking experience – at Silverado Savings and Loan – would come in most handy. But in addition to Iraq supply uncertainties, we continue to hear more familiar sounding excuses, like our refineries are too few in number, so we can’t get all this oil processed. Boy doesn’t that sound like the song that was played all over California by the Enrons and the Duke Energies just 4 years ago. But remember all of that was Gray Davis’ fault – it had nothing to do with deregulating the energy industry.



What nobody talks about in all of this mess is how much pure, unadulterated profit from this price per barrel goes right into oil company pockets. According to the U.S. Department of Energy
www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/usa.html , U.S. domestic oil production sits at 5.4 million barrels per day as of last year. Assuming an estimated per barrel price increase of $15.00 – very conservative by any standards, and U.S. oil companies are generating almost 30 billion dollars in extra revenues on domestic production alone – operations which are not themselves suffering from the increased costs of production one would associate with sabotage and global unrest ongoing near the infrastructure. Sounds like an industry that needs a big tax break, now, doesn’t it?

And if you listen to this administration’s justification for its new giveaway to the oil companies, I mean the Energy bill, they’ll tell you that we need to give them tax relief because those companies are going to help us develop long term solutions to energy independence. Sure, and we should give Philip Morris billions in tax incentives because they’re going to underwrite research to beat nicotine addiction and emphysema.