One Possible Upside from the Disastrous Gulf Oil Spill

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People forget that not too long ago the largest exporter of petroleum was the United States. Now we import the bulk of what we use primarily for transportation. My hope here is the president uses the challenges here as an opportunity to shift consumption to a next generation of engines and fuels. The clearest and easiest path is natural gas and hybrid engines.

The president just gave a speech where he talked about natural gas so that's a promising sign he may take the opportunity to shift on his feet here. The capital outflows, the impact on the dollar, and the employment ramifications of a shift to natural gas would be more positive than even the $800 billion in stimulus Congress enacted a year ago. It's not a new spending program, it's an investment with an incredibly quick payback as well as guaranteeing more stable energy prices.

These things happen in increments so just shifting our trucking fleet a la "Boone Pickens" is a good start. Once infrastructure is in place nationally, it can expand to the rest of the fleet in the United States. Getting off of petroleum would also do a lot of the country's national security, and we'd be less subject to the whims of foreign dictators. Is it likely we'd be involved in less trillion dollar wars in the middle east if we were off oil? Probably. People don't factor those costs into the price at the pump.

People want jobs and this would create more jobs than any pork program Congress could come up with. I know I write a lot about cutting spending, but there are some place where we actually need to invest to stay competitive in the world market place. This is the kind of investment that eventually will allow us to pay off our debt more easily with an even stronger dollar.

Presidents care a lot about their "legacy". If President Obama actually got us off of oil, that alone would be an legacy that even those on the extreme right could not begrudge.

The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is horrible to watch but maybe it will piss off enough Americans that measures like a gas tax and shifting to new fuels and engines will get the push they need. We only need a little momentum to reach orbit here.
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