An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right
GOP Generation Gap
One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers offers an inside look at “the gap.” In comparison, my “conservative family” seems rather mild.
18 Responses to “GOP Generation Gap”
Fascinating. I've been running into this myself. Furthermore, Adorable Child hears it from her junior high classmates as well.
I think that this person showed the kind of dismissive attitude toward the older generation's concerns that is part of the problem though. He/she seemed to think he/she was making some effort to be deferential to those concerns, but the conclusion of 'we'll have to ditch the old folks' was so easily reached that it comes across as a preformed conclusion that was purposely confirmed through these interactions.
The elders aren't going away that soon and younger conservatives will need to find new ways to assure them that their concerns won't be ignored.
The GOP has a huge problem with young voters. Good! The selfishness and greed of the so-called “conservative” platform has damaged their future and it is the other party that offers hope of turning it around. Drill-baby-drill = drain-America-now. Forget the kids, use it NOW, use it all NOW. That has been, and IS the platform of the right. The “right” of big business to extract every last resource right now to feed the greed, leaving nothing but a degraded planet and a mountain of debt for future generations.
When do you propose to use America's oil reserves, Greendreams? You keep repeating that it's selfish to want to drill them now, but I don't get it. If we keep waiting, then you'll keep using the excuse that current shortages won't be helped because of the lag time to get the fuel to market.
My proposal is to open up drilling but put a premium on it so that a portion of profits go to development of alternative energy sources. We're not ready to switch over yet and lots of investment is needed to get us there- why not leverage the current petro sources to bridge the gap?
CS – What an irony that “convervatives” don't want to conserve any domestic oil for our kids. The Saudis couldn't care less. Our oil is a drop in the ocean in terms of global reserves. No one has suggested we can even reduce gasoline prices significantly-if at all-with our paltry dribble into the stream.
So first, it's incredibly selfish. If you think of all the oil America has ever had as a six pack-including that which is difficult and expensive to develop-we've consumed 4 beers (2/3) and opened the fifth can. So-called conservatives are in a huge hurry to finish it all before our kids are even old enough to share the last can (which will cost a fortune as it's in shale and tar pits and deep depleted wells). Future generations will need oil to make plastics and thousands of other petroleum products. But you want to use it up right now rather than make a full court press for alternatives.
Second, it won't be onstream for a decade, so not a realistic solution to develop now while we're “waiting” for alternatives.
Third, it won't affect supply one bit. It's a trivial amount. We'll still gobble up all the oil OPEC will produce, even with the “new” US output.
Fourth, the oil companies have never agreed to, and do not now, devote American oil to American consumers. It goes right to the cheapest place to ship it and to the highest bidder. They have NEVER agreed and do not now, to charge us less nor to pay more tax in order to develop it.
Fifth, oil companies fight endlessly not to cover the cost of spills, which masks the true cost of developing it. I'd say, no more lawsuits and an iron clad binding agreement that ALL costs of environmental damage, even from storms or earthquake-caused breaks and leaks are automatically paid at once. Starting with the 30 year old unpaid damage from Exxon Valdez.
Sixth. No more subsidies. Oil companies are rich and hugely profitable. We're broke. No more federal or state help with exploiting our dwindling reserves. How about a depletion allowance instead?
Seventh. The oil companies have not explained why they do not develop the 68 million acres of leases they currently hold. Nor have they agreed that they would develop new leases if we grant them.
Eighth. Offshore drilling has risks that onshore wells don't, because spills are spread wider by the ocean. They do not agree to pay cleanup costs and they fight against paying when it occurs.
Come ON. You won't save the last can of beer for our kids? And your use of the term “leverage” is a red herring. We can't use our oil to “leverage” future research and development because there is no more oil in America with which to repay it, unlike leveraging with money.
Why will the kids be able to use it without also being called greedy and irresponsible?
And if the six pack is just about gone, then the only thing it is good for is a bridge to new solutions- which are not yet available at market and thus energy prices are extremely volatile in an economy where many people can't afford the jumps like we had last summer.
I don't support subsidies,and my proposal would be to levy high fees for new leases and oil royalties, with those funds earmarked for investment R&D. And stop with the canard about the oil companies sitting on leases- those are lands that they speculated on, explored, and came up empty (or found that the costs were not feasible to extract.)
I'd rather sell the last can of beer and use the proceeds to invest in something sustainable for the next generation. My kids don't need a swig of beer, they need energy sources.
It is not true that alternatives are unavailable now. Conservation is now more cost effective than new energy sources. Better fuel efficiency can save more gasoline than we have, even if we could summon it from the deep at this instant. You didn't address my 8 points. I hope you will seriously consider them.
And I cannot believe you are excusing your own desire to consume the last of it now by claiming that it won't be any more ethical to save some for the kids. I hope they will be more caring for their children and grandchildren that we apparently are.
but wait. I do want to commend you on not supporting subsidies. You lost a bit of conservative cred there. Sadly, now you've taken a position that not a single oil company would support.
Give up their subsides for the right to pay exploration costs on new leases and build new refineries (ours are at capacity)? No way. I haven't even found evidence that they WANT new leases. Have you?
PS. the beer is an analogy as you know. It's not a beer or energy. You want to drink their last can of petroleum and tie them forever to foreign oil to make plastics, pharmaceuticals, solvents and thousands of other products.
While I don't share the same level of concern that Greendreams does with respect to exploiting off-shore reserves, I believe he made several cogent points. More to the point though, I believe CStanley's proposal (which is not hers alone but the GOP's in general) — to wit: “open up drilling but put a premium on it so that a portion of profits go to development of alternative energy sources,” — is dead in the water (so to speak). One reason is that most of the off-shore reserves cannot be exploited profitably at anything much less than about $80/bbl. That alone makes it a non-starter at present, and more importantly makes the argument of putting a “premium on it so that a portion of profits go to development of alternative energy sources” one of future, not present, potential. I'm quite sure it will happen eventually, but that's not the point. The point is that we cannot wait until that time occurs to invest in alternatives. Alternative energy resources need to be pursued now. Waiting for another price shock to get our butts in gear is so terribly wrong for a variety of reasons.
What reasons? Here are a few (in no particular order)…
1. As Greendreams pointed out, oil is (more or less) a fungible commodity. Given the level of US domestic reserves (even if fully exploited no matter how insensitively) there is no way we (the US) could significantly affect oil prices. However, given that over 80% of proven oil reserves are vested in the hands of national, not private, interests , there are actors which could. And many of them are not particularly friendly to the US. That's something to keep in mind as we head into the future.
2. The price shock of 2008 was far more profitable to the national interests mentioned in (1) than it was to American companies (or Western companies in general). Thus, to tie the future of alternatives to the profits realized in a future price shock makes no sense at all. And that, in a nutshell, is why I consider the GOP/CStanley proposal foolish in the extreme.
3. The price shock of 2008 served to expose the soft underbelly of the financial infrastructure of the entire Western world. People with long commutes were the first to default on their homes, and that got the ball rolling. I don't intend to blame the economic meltdown on oil prices alone, but I think it's appropriate to recognize its role. And more importantly, I think it's important to recognize the generally deleterious effects that oil price shocks can have on the world economy. Thus again, to tie our migration away from fossil fuels to future price shocks strikes me as the height of folly.
4. Given (1), (2), and (3), to tie our migration to alternatives to oil prices is obviously deleterious to the trade dificit, to national security, and to the economy in general.
Does anyone really believe that a family living in Manhatten watches Fox News and does not want to read the NY Times. The articles is BS and is just to make a point.
I doubt that many black families were sitting around reading the NY Times, watching Meet the Press or discussing articles in the Economist but they still manage to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.
Sullivan wants to alienate most conservatives in a vain hope to pursue hip, urban voters who are have never voted for Republicans.
Have they been asked to give the leases back? Does someone else benefit from them? I'm sincerely asking- I don't understand the process that well and wonder if you do.
And I'm not excusing anything, just pointing out a fallacy in your logic. If the last drops must be saved, then when is it going to be OK to use them?
Really the only part of your arguments that made any sense were in regard to the need for petroleum for plastics and fertilizers- but I don't know what the solution to that is anyway, and I don't hear you offering one either. Again, if our domestic oil is almost out (from what I understand, the truth or falsehood of that depends on whether or not you count shale, and whether or not we should account for that depends on whether it'll ever be economically and environmentally feasible to extract it) but if we are almost dry, then someone's going to have to figure out substitutes for the non-energy functions of oil, and soon.
CS, glad you asked. Oil companies fought hard not to have to give them back. The Dems attempted to pass “use it or lose it” legislation in 2008. GOP universally opposed it, as did some oil state Dems. The oil companies clearly don't want to give up the leases they are stockpiling, nor do they want to be made to drill-baby-drill on them. All quotes from the Committee on Natural Resources report 2008:
Why aren't we giving these companies more leases? CS, just in the last 4 years they have stockpiled and deferred development on 10,000 new leases. These haven't been explored and discarded. Like the rest of the 68 million, they are sitting idle because the oil companies do not want to develop them at this time. Nor have they agreed to develop any new leases we give them.
CS, you are fighting for something the oil and gas industry doesn't even want and has not agreed to do: exploit it all right now.
“just pointing out a fallacy in your logic. If the last drops must be saved, then when is it going to be OK to use them?”
Well isn't that just the perfect justification of all forms of gluttony? All forms of instant gratification can be justified in exactly that way.
It would be fair to allow each generation to use a bit of what's left, leaving some for petrochemical production, which uses far less of it than vehicles.
“whether or not you count shale”. You really need to do some research CS, no offense. Oil shale, which is abundant here in Colorado, uses more water than exists to develop it. It's not that we wouldn't if we could. The water simply doesn't exist anywhere in the West in the quantities it would take. It's also so energy intensive that we would need a full scale coal fired power plant to drive each shale operation. Now you're drifting into science fiction territory.
“someone's going to have to figure out substitutes for the non-energy functions of oil, and soon.”
Well? How soon depends on how soon we deplete the oil, right? Which leads right back to my original point. We do NOT need to race to use it all up right now. For many good reason, we all, including CONSERVatives, should seek to conserve some. They're not making any more.
Greendreams,
Your eloquence (and patience) is something to be admired.
GD:
CS, you are fighting for something the oil and gas industry doesn't even want and has not agreed to do: exploit it all right now.
What, you were under the impression that I'm a lobbyist for the industry or something?
Look, I will do more research because some of what you are saying about the leases isn't ringing true to me. If I find that you are accurately explaining it, I'll be happy to concede those points- but it seems more likely to me that the issue of using leases or not using them, or asking for new lands to be opened up, is likely based on whether or not the existing oil reserves that could be exploited under each property would be cost effective or not.
Otherwise why wouldn't they have been exploited when oil was at record high prices?
And if the oil companies are actually doing what you are arguing we should do, then what's your gripe with them?
Well? How soon depends on how soon we deplete the oil, right? Which leads right back to my original point. We do NOT need to race to use it all up right now. For many good reason, we all, including CONSERVatives, should seek to conserve some. They're not making any more.
Which is why I said that that was the only part of your argument that made any sense, if the current remaining reserves would be enough to bridge till new technologies fill the gap, although then we're in the same boat with that situation as we are currently with energy needs, and I still don't see any solution in what you are suggesting. What is the political course of action that would hold in reserve the remaining oil and ensure that it gets used for that purpose, and as long as there's still some oil, where does the impetus for changing over to new materials come from?
And I don't know why you keep stressing the play on 'conserve' as a root of conservatism. There is a brand of conservatism that is very commited to rational environmental (and resource) preservation. Does it really surprise you to learn that there are people on the right who feel this way? I realize there's no organized movement, but speaking only for myself and my experience, it's a very common sentiment among conservatives that I know.
See, here's what I remember reading about that “use it or lose it” bill- which certainly make it sound like it was political gamemanship on the part of the Dems, who were being slaughtered in the polling over the drilling issue last summer.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=new…
What I was asking earlier was whether there was actually something to be gained from getting the oil companies to give up the leases, and you responded by suggesting that this bill was for that very purpose (but why?) If it wasn't just to make a statement to the public, to obfuscate facts by planting the idea that the oil companies didn't actually need new leases because they were sitting on the old, then what actually was the point of the legislation?
And then here:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/…
Is an example of what I remember hearing from the oil companies and some GOP:
Now, I'm not at all inclined to take the oil industry at it's word and presume they're not spinning this, but those statements pass the common sense sniff test as far as I'm concerned. Plus, the argument from the GOP that pointed out the gamemanship of the “Use it or lose it” bill was that the existing lease terms already do have time constraints, so they were just trying to enact a statement of how the leases were aleady structured.
I read the articles you cited already. Now the picture is even murkier. If it takes 10 years to locate the oil on a new lease, then 10 to get it producing, we REALLY have no justification for rushing it to production, especially if the rationale is to bridge our move to renewables. They're ready and cost effective now, and improving constantly. A wind energy expert at NREL friend of mine points out that if we spent the same money that will be spent to drill for gas tomorrow (at the current rate of drilling) on putting up wind turbines, we wouldn't need any of those wells. Ever. And long after the wells are dry, the wind will still blow.
Of course the reason I keep mentioning conservation and conservative is because of the paradox that today's conservatives oppose conservation in favor of maximal exploitation. It's all about the next quarterly report. We really need to think longer term. And i do know some conservatives are not attuned to the conservative base. T Boone Pickens comes to mind. But ever since Reagan tore down the solar panels on the whitehouse, conservatives have derided conservationists as “tree huggers” and worse. Thomas Friedman sums it up nicely:
http://greendreams.wordpress.com/energy-indepen…
I don't think the lag time is 10 +10 years- I think that spokesperson was just using the usual number of 10 years till production- which would include the exploration and the rest of it.
As for wind, I think there are other problems though- that's just electricity, not auto fuel- and for either use of wind power for heat/lights/ac or for cars if we convert the entire fleet to electric cars, there are grid related issues that have to be addressed.
There is much work to be done on renewables, to be sure, but many of these technologies are available today, especially in energy conservation, fuel efficiency and green buildings. The gas saved (our local power plant burns it, as do many) can fuel vehicles. It's already far cheaper to save a watt than to create one.
Plus, as Pickens points out, our current oil addiction is the biggest transfer of wealth in human history, from the West to the Middle East mostly, and to Russia, Venezuela and other unfriendly regimes. We can't break that cycle with more domestic drilling. It's very frustrating, and especially when I see intelligent conservatives like you buying into a myth.