Obama Speaks the Truth about Gas Prices

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Paul McCartney’s Feel-good Environmentalism

From the Symbolism over Substance Department:

Former Beatle Paul McCartney has long been an outspoken advocate of environmental causes. He owns a high-end luxury, V-8 engine, top-speed-155MPH, “green” vehicle. The Lexus LS 600H is a hybrid vehicle that uses an electric motor at low speeds. McCartney recently had his environmentally friendly car flown to England from Japan on a cargo plane.
To read more click here.

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Tell Congress to Stop Subsidizing Multimillionaires with Your Money

from the American Conservative Union

Vote "NO" on the Farm Bill

In 2002, when Congress passed the last farm bill, wheat was at $2.84 a bushel. The price of wheat has risen 256% since then to $10.10. What is Congress' response in the Farm Bill of 2008? Increase subsidies for wheat! Other commodities like rice, corn, and soybeans that have seen similar price increases will see their subsidies increase or stay at the same level as 2002. At a time of rising grocery bills and runaway government spending, H.R. 2419, dubbed the Food and Energy Security Act of 2007, will increase spending by $20 billion over 10 years, continue to give subsidies to multi-millionaire farmers, and include special interest earmarks for powerful committee chairmen.

TAKE ACTION NOW. ­FILL OUT THE FORM BELOW TO CONTACT YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS AND URGE A "NO" VOTE ON THE FARM BILL!
WELFARE FOR MILLIONAIRES

Supporters of the Farm Bill claim they have "reformed" the subsidy program. But this bill will still allow married couples who farm and have adjusted gross income of $1.5 million to get taxpayer subsidies. Individuals who do not even farm but own the land and have incomes of $500,000 will also qualify.

H.R. 2419 also fails to reform the sugar program and actually increases government intervention to drive up sugar prices and, of course, the price of goods with sugar ingredients. To make this program even worse than it is, any excess supply of sugar, which could be available for food production, would be owned by the government and auctioned to ethanol facilities at a huge loss.

TELL YOUR LOCAL MEMBER OF CONGRESS YOU ARE FED UP WITH OUR ANTI-CONSUMER FARM POLICY AND TO VOTE "NO" ON THE FARM BILL!
A BIPARTISAN OUTRAGE

The failure to fix our nation's outdated and bloated farm policy is bipartisan. Although the Bush administration has threatened to veto this bill, leading Republicans as well as Democrats have vowed to work hard to override the expected veto. Only if they hear from their constituents will it be possible to stop this special interest steamroller.

Not only is this bill terrible policy, it is once again being used as a slush fund for special interests through earmarks. One of the worst examples is a secret provision inserted by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). It will allow the scandal-tarnished environmental group, the Nature Conservancy, to get $250 million in taxpayer money to purchase a track of land from the Plum Cree Timber Company in Montana. As is often the case with secret earmarks, this provision has nothing to do with farm policy but a way for some politicians to help some friends with your money.

YOU CAN TAKE ACTION NOW! LET CONGRESS KNOW YOU ARE WATCHING. TELL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS TO VOTE"NO" ON THE FARM BILL!

Comment: I have posted on this before. I share the outrage of the American Conservative Union. Our agriculture policy is just crazy. We subsidize millionaire farmers, drive up food prices, and undermine agriculture in developing countries. Please click here . This will take you to the ACU site. Fill out the form to let your views be known, or better yet write your congressman a letter.

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Hooray for High Gas Prices

What exhortations to love Mother Nature and change your evil ways couldn’t do, what feel-good environmentalist legislation couldn’t do, higher prices are doing. I know it is surprising to some folks but markets and prices really do work. Americans are conserving and substituting, new technologies are becoming more affordable, people are changing their energy habits, and smaller homes and smaller cars are becoming more desirable.

Just listen to what people around you are saying about rising gas prices or read your local paper and it is hard to escape the fact that high prices are causing beneficial results. Here is a sampling of recent news stories:

· Gas cost deflates prices on used SUVs, USA Today 5/9/08. The price of big used SUVs has dropped 17% from a year ago.

· Planes Fly more, emit less greenhouse gas, USA Today 5/9/2008. Airlines have taken many steps to curb fuel use, such as adding better navigational equipment, modifying wings for improved aerodynamics. From 2000 to 2006 fuel efficiency increased 22%.

· Gas cost squeezes daily life, USA Today 5/9/2008. People are changing their habits. They are combining errands. “February was the forth consecutive month in which miles driven in the USA declined, the first time since 1979 that that has occurred.”

· Developer bets that home buyers trade space for energy efficiency, The Tennessean 5/12/2008. Developer Randy Chastain has been a developer in the Nashville market for 30 years. Cheep materials, cheep land, and cheep gas led to bigger and bigger houses with little thought to energy efficiency, says Mr. Chastain. He believes higher energy costs are changing the market. Now, he is building homes that are 10% smaller than what he was building and considerably more energy efficient. He is building LEED certified homes.

· Demand for gas eases slightly as more carpool. The Tennessean 5/1/2008. This article notes that carpooling is increasing. It interviews several people who have started carpooling.

This is not to suggest that we are wining the war for energy independence or reducing global warming. We are not. But, for the first time, we are headed in the right direction. For a while, it seemed that the demand for energy was inelastic. However, it seems that just shy of the $4.00 per gallon mark is proving to be the price point at which people will conserve and change behavior.

Perhaps more important than the price of gas is the expectation that gas prices will stay high. According to the Gallup poll, in August 2003 only 33% of the public believed high fuel prices would last. The latest Gallup poll shows 78% believe high gas prices are here to stay. If people expect prices to stay high, it will influence where they live, how they work, and the car they drive.

Unfortunately, pandering politicians of both parties are promising the public they will do something about high gas prices. Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain have advocated removing the federal gas tax for the summer. Some smooth talking, lying politicians, such as Nancy Pelosi, have to gall to advocate lower gas prices and combating global warming in the same sentence.

We do not need to reverse the progress that is being made on the energy and global warming front. What needs to happen in order to break the American oil addiction is for there to be still higher gas prices and a reinforcement of the idea that high prices are here to stay. To expedite what the market is already doing, a revenue-neutral carbon tax could put us on the right track to begin winning the war for energy independence and reversing global warming.

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