I find it a bit galling that Obama starts off his Energy Policy section with the section below. Yes everyone has been hurt by speculation enabled by Phil and Wendy Gramm who canceled the depression era Glass-Steagall Act. This brought us ENRON and then all the commodity speculation after the dollar shed it’s value like a winter coat on a summer day. But DEAL with that! Double the oil companies taxes if you must, but do it up front. Windfall Profit taxes never produce any money and it is sooooo Jimmy Carter.
If you wanted bold energy policy why not announce that you were going to ban the sale of gasoline by 2015? That would drop the price of gasoline into the toilet, divert oil to our real needs which is pharmacueticals and restructure our energy future in one clean break. If you wanted real productive energy policy, follow that with a ban on using oil and natural gas in plastics. That would leave most of the oil and coal where it belongs…IN the ground. Instead we get this:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy_more#relief
Provide Short-term Relief to American Families
- Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families.Obama and Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. This relief would be a down payment on the Obama-Biden long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief.
- Crack Down on Excessive Energy Speculation. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will close energy industry market loopholes and increase transparency to prevent traders from unfairly lining their pockets, while driving up oil prices at the expense of the American people.
- Swap Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Cut Prices. With oil prices doubling in the past year, Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we have an economic emergency that requires a limited, responsible swap of light oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for heavy crude oil to help bring down prices at the pump.