The other day, I read a disturbing column by Bret Stephens, the Wall Street Journal’s deputy editorial page editor, entitled “The Great Global Warming Fizzle.” In the column, Stephens compares concern about global warming to religion and characterizes such concern as “…another system of doomsaying prophecy and faith in things unseen.”

He goes on to say:

As with religion, it is presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge that promises to make the seas retreat and the winds abate.

Mr. Stephens, in one fell swoop, is equally dismissive of religion and science. What kind of hubris causes one to have no use for either the knowledge gained from empirical evidence or the faith that has pushed mankind to rise above his base instincts?

This type of egotism seems to be running rampant among those—particularly in the right-wing media—who profess to be conservative. I believe this unfortunate phenomenon is the by-product of traditional conservatism being shoved aside by a radical, libertarian-inspired ideology that is deeply antithetical to traditional Burkean conservatism.

This ideology elevates personal freedom and financial gain far above all other values, and in doing so, empowers its followers to dismiss or even belittle anything that does not directly serve those parochial ends.

One of our nation’s most authoritative conservative voices was Russell Kirk, an author and political theorist credited with giving rise to conservatism’s intellectual respectability in post-World War II America. President Reagan called him “the prophet of American conservatism.”

In his seminal book “The Conservative Mind, From Burke to Eliot,” Kirk pointedly described how the nation deviated from true conservatism in the 1920s. He wrote:

The United States had come a long way from the piety of Adams and the simplicity of Jefferson. The principle of real leadership ignored, the immortal objects of society forgotten, practical conservatism degenerated into mere laudation of ‘private enterprise,’ economic policy almost wholly surrendered to special interests—such a nation was inviting the catastrophes which compel society to re-examine first principles.

These words are no less applicable to the situation we have today.

Just listen for 10 minutes to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or Mark Levin and you will hear private enterprise exalted with the level of reverence and passion typically afforded religious belief, and the accumulation of monetary wealth promoted as the ultimate measure of human success.

Ambition is good and necessary, but as Kirk put it “ambition without pious restraint must end in failure.”

Other influential conservative thinkers, such as Alexis de Tocqueville and Richard Weaver, also have emphasized the dangers of, as Weaver put it, having all other “virtues subordinated to successful gain-getting.”

When you listen to the policy focus coming from the right, such as a gluttony-driven energy policy that eschews conservation and renewable energy but favors aggressive fossil fuel production, it sounds a lot like 1960s liberalism’s credo: “if it feels good, do it.”

Any restraint on material appetites, even efficiency measures that make a dollar go further, is the enemy of a political ideology that places a premium on material gain and immediate gratification. This is not conservatism. There is nothing conservative about waste and gluttony.

Kirk underscored this when he wrote, “The American conservative will endeavor to exert some intelligent check upon material will and appetite.”

The climate debate exemplifies how the right has veered dangerously away from traditional conservatism. Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, regarded prudence as “first in rank of the virtues political and moral.” It is no more prudent to ignore the extensive research and conclusions of climate scientists than it is to ignore the diagnosis of a doctor. You might get a second opinion, or even a third, but you would not dismiss the views of every doctor that rendered the same diagnosis. Nor would it be prudent to delay treatment and continue doctor shopping in search of a physician who might tell you what you want to hear.

Stephens’ views on climate are typical of those who subscribe to what I refer to as “pretend conservatism.” His views are driven by a dogma and an egotism that results in a closed mind. There is no piece of evidence likely to alter his preconceived notions.

Conservatism requires decisions to be made on the basis of a clear-eyed and unbiased analysis of fact, and an adherence to values that have stood the test of time, not emotions stemming from a rigid political dogma.

The hostility towards faith exhibited in Stephens’ op-ed is as disconcerting as his egotistical dismissal of fact. It should serve as a wakeup call to religious conservatives.

The libertarian-inspired ideology that is masquerading as conservatism today is just as dangerous to religion as the secular humanism we find on the left. Traditional conservative values are being cast aside, such as humility, reverence, responsibility, stewardship and other moral principles—most of which stem from Biblical teaching.

The most fervent adherents to this doctrine, while giving lip service to traditional values, family and religion, will only accommodate them until they become inconvenient to their more immediate goals of gain and personal gratification.

The pro-life issue is one case in point.

A pro-life position is embraced in the abstract in order to not offend religious conservatives, but these pretend conservatives are not inclined to advance the pro-life cause if it would mean a departure from the “mere laudation of private enterprise,” to quote Kirk again.

In fact, many on the right support policies that contradict a pro-life position and would result in harm to unborn children.

Mercury is a well-known toxic pollutant that bio-accumulates and works its way up the food chain. It is highly hazardous to human health and poses a particular threat to the development of the child in utero and early in life.

Industrial emissions, especially from coal-fired power plants, are the leading source of environmental mercury, but there are many so-called “conservatives” who are trying to block Clean Air Act standards that would significantly reduce the amount of mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants.

One supposedly conservative Congressman even went so far as to claim—against all medical evidence—that there is “no medical negative” to mercury emissions from power plants.

Why? Apparently because the coal industry is opposed to the standards—citing cost concerns and fear that it will lose market share to cleaner, natural gas-fired power plants.

Mr. Stephens’ op-ed is just one of many examples showing that what passes for conservatism today is a far cry from the real deal. Real conservatism may not be dead—most Americans still retain its core values—but the word “conservative” is being quickly redefined by the media on the left and right to describe a radicalism that betrays traditional conservatism.

Facing so many challenges that require taking the long view, including energy security and climate change, our nation cannot afford to have pretend conservatives in the driver’s seat. It needs real conservatives who are guided by traditional conservatism’s ethic of responsible stewardship, prudent forethought, and protecting the interests of future generations.

That will only happen if we start a whole new discussion about who and what is—or is not—conservative.

On a recent campaign stop in Florida, Michele Bachmann waded into a political swamp by saying that she would drill in the Everglades if that “is where the energy is.” While she gave a cursory nod to drilling responsibly, it’s clear she had no clue about the environmental or political consequences of what she was proposing.

The Florida Everglades is a treasured natural resource that provides drinking water and other ecological benefits to much of South Florida. The state of Florida and the federal government have spent hundreds of millions of dollars restoring the Everglades—much of that at the direction of GOP Governors Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist. In 2002, the administration of President George W. Bush bought back oil and gas drilling rights in the Everglades for $120 million.

Bachmann apparently does not realize that oil drilling in the Everglades has been studied and that there is broad bi-partisan consensus that it would be foolhardy—very little oil, very high ecological risk.

Even one of her Tea Party colleagues in Congress, Allen West (R-FL) complained that she had committed an “incredible faux pas” by suggesting Everglades drilling. Still, Bachmann stands by the remark.

Bachmann’s drill-the-Everglades brain splat is just one in a long string of whacky, ill-informed and irresponsible comments Bachmann has made about energy and the environment.

She recently claimed that if she were president, gasoline would fall below $2 per gallon. Either she is planning on instigating a massive economic depression, or she is totally ignorant of how the global oil market works. With only 2 percent or so of the world’s proven oil reserves, U.S. production simply cannot impact the price of oil that much. Plus, the U.S. has no control over demand in other countries that puts upward pressure on prices.

Even if Bachmann blindly assumes that our unproven resources are vast, she fails to take into account that those remote and costly-to-produce resources could only be economically produced if the price of oil (and gasoline) were high. Should the price of gasoline drop below $2 per gallon, U.S. oil production would fall off a cliff because producers would seek out less costly OPEC reserves.

Bachmann likes to say that the U.S. is the “big daddy dog” of energy.

One thing she barks about in making that claim is “oil shale.” What she is actually referring to is kerogen, a low-grade hydrocarbon locked away in sedimentary rock. Not only has producing this stuff not been proven practical or commercially viable, it is a poor feedstock for conversion into motor gasoline, which accounts for some 40 percent of U.S. oil consumption.

The wackiness doesn’t end there. Bachmann also is under the erroneous impression that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has “been busy locking up” our supplies of oil and natural gas. The Department of the Interior, not EPA, is the agency responsible for oil and gas leasing and permitting on federal lands and on the Outer Continental Shelf. EPA is responsible for issuing air permits for drilling rigs, but obtaining these is not typically a problem. Furthermore, the number of U.S. drilling rigs in operation has actually increased over the past three years, not decreased.

On another energy issue, Bachmann has repeatedly claimed that a 2007 efficiency standard for lighting bans incandescent bulbs, when simply reading the law and visiting the lighting aisle of any Home Depot clearly proves otherwise.

Of course, Bachmann has infamously pledged to eliminate the EPA. It apparently matters not that she would be undoing the environmental legacies of fellow Republicans Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.

Reagan’s action to combat smog as governor of California was a model that the federal government followed when Richard Nixon established EPA and Congress passed the Clean Air Act by sweeping bipartisan majorities.

Reagan was proud of what he had accomplished. During a presidential radio address in 1984, he said:

I’m proud of having been one of the first to recognize that states and the federal government have a duty to protect our natural resources from the damaging effects of pollution that can accompany industrial development.

President Reagan, a vigorous proponent of federalism who emphasized the states’ role, was clear in his belief that safeguarding our environment nevertheless requires a strong federal role. He said:

Those concerns of a national character–such as air and water pollution that do not respect state boundaries…–must, of course, be handled on the national level.

While Bachmann scapegoats EPA as a “job killing agency,” she offers no evidence to back up the claim. EPA has been busy during times of both boom and bust. Over the 40 years that EPA has been working to safeguard our air and water by enforcing the nation’s environmental laws, our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown by 200 percent while common pollutants have been reduced by 63 percent.

For anyone concerned about our nation’s future, particularly as it relates to clean air and water and energy security, it should be terrifying to think that any reasonably serious candidate for president—and Bachmann is not alone—can be so ill-informed about energy and so oblivious to our basic stewardship obligations.

It is hard to see anything truly conservative in allowing a rigid ideology or political posture to close one’s mind, cloud judgment, and trump basic facts.

Another Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, warned his fellow Americans against following those leaders who may be well-intentioned “but whose eyes are a little too wild to make it really safe to trust them.”

In the coming months, Republican voters would do well to consider good ole TR’s advice.

Partisanship in Washington has been extreme lately. So has the weather. Might there be a connection? It certainly looks that way.

Let’s talk about heat. As anyone living in Washington—or in about three-fourths of the nation for that matter—has surely noticed, this summer has been unusually hot. In fact, July’s heat was unrivaled in 140 years of Washington, D.C. weather record-keeping.

This year’s record heat across much of the country is not the only sign that something is amiss with our climate. This year, we have also experienced record-breaking droughts, flooding, and storms.

A word of caution: Reputable climatologists don’t ascribe individual weather episodes to the buildup of heat energy trapped by greenhouse gases. Weather is short-term, climate is long-term. One heat wave does not prove that the climate is warming, nor does a mid-winter cold snap prove that it isn’t.

However, the more heat energy that is trapped in the lower atmosphere, scientists tell us, the greater the odds that what we think of as extreme weather will no longer be extreme. It will be the new normal.

Or, to put it another way, there is no way to link a case of lung cancer to a particular cigarette. Yet the more one smokes, the greater the odds that the smoker will contract lung cancer.

Let’s talk about science. Conservative climate researcher Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University says that the buildup of heat energy is “loading the dice” for climate extremes. A National Research Council report that she had a hand in writing projected global warming impacts by degrees of temperature increase – if temperatures rise 2 degrees, X will happen. If temperatures rise 3 degrees, even more of X will happen.

One of the projected impacts of rising temperatures is more incidence of what we now call extremes. Dry areas getting drier. More intense precipitation. Longer, hotter heat waves.

The higher temperatures increase, the more extreme the extremes. Example: Boost temperatures by 4 degrees C (7.2 degrees F), and in most places, nine out of 10 summers would be hotter than the hottest summer experienced during the last decades of the 20^th century.

Now, what do temperature extremes have to do with political extremes?

The politics of environmental stewardship, and climate stewardship in particular, is as polarized as it has ever been. The sober warnings of climate scientists are attacked and ridiculed by radicals who know a lot less about climate science than they think they do. As then-Congressman Bob Inglis quipped at a House hearing last year: “They slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night and they’re experts on climate change.”

In the 1980s, when some of these same radicals similarly pooh-poohed warnings from scientists about the link between depletion of our stratospheric ozone layer and certain industrial chemicals, we had a conservative president who chose prudence over radicalism and addressed the problem forthrightly.

In siding with the experts and pushing through the Montreal Protocol, Ronald Reagan was being a true conservative and a no-nonsense leader. He was wise enough to separate ill-informed opinion from reliable, science-based information. As he once said, “Facts are stubborn things.”

So, as you walk around stewing and sweating in this summer’s record heat, you might consider getting steamed up a bit at the radical pundits and politicians who are increasing the likelihood that you will be doing more of the same in future summers.

There is no looming ban or phase out of incandescent bulbs. The entire hullabaloo is based on a fictitious claim manufactured by Barton.

All major lighting manufacturers, including Philips, Sylvania and GE, currently produce and sell incandescent light bulbs that meet or exceed the new standards (with no compromise in functionality). In fact, the lighting industry helped craft the 2007 legislation with the full understanding that they could produce incandescent bulbs that meet them.

Unfortunately, these easy-to-prove facts have not prevented Barton, Bachmann and others from pushing legislation to scuttle the new standards. Barton’s legislation, dubbed “The Better Use of Light Bulbs Act” (H.R. 2417), is scheduled for a floor vote in the House of Representatives this evening.

The bulb ban rhetoric is a deliberate misrepresentation of a provision of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (ESIA) that sets efficiency standards for general-purpose screw-in incandescent light bulbs. The new standards—for what the industry calls “medium screw-based bulbs”—are set to take effect in January.

Major lighting manufacturers helped draft the new standards so that they could avoid a patchwork of state standards. They are fighting the repeal proposal because it threatens to strand the investments they have made to retool and produce lighting products that meet the standards.

In addition to claiming that the incandescent bulb is being banned and that we are all going to be forced to use compact fluorescent lighting (CFL), Barton is also saying that bulbs meeting the new standards are cost prohibitive.

Again, not true. A Philips incandescent bulb that meets the new standards currently sells for $1.49, lasts about 50 percent longer than older incandescent bulbs, and saves consumers more than $3.00 in energy expenditures. For four bucks you can buy an incandescent that lasts 3000 hours and nets you more than $10 in energy savings.

If you want to save even more energy you can buy CFL or LED bulbs. While LEDs cost more, the energy savings are about $150 per bulb and they last so long you might want to bequeath them to your children.

Barton’s irresponsible and embarrassing legislation would accomplish nothing good. It would provide consumers with inferior products that burn out faster and result in higher energy bills. It would threaten the lighting industry’s investment dollars. It would waste energy and result in more pollution.

And for what, a fanciful narrative about how the big bad government is taking away our lighting choices?

The actual genesis of this narrative was last year’s battle over who would chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Barton, who wanted a waiver to serve another term as chairman, decided to misrepresent the lighting standards in an attack on Fred Upton, his opponent, for helping craft them. Barton passed this accusation along to his pals on talk radio and the rest is history.

The total lunacy of Barton’s legislation caused one bright bulb in the GOP caucus, Roscoe Bartlett (Md) to fire off a Dear Colleague letter urging other members to oppose the bill and pointing out in bold type “There is NO BAN on incandescent bulbs to repeal.”

Legislation establishing common-sense efficiency standards for energy-using equipment has traditionally enjoyed overwhelming support from conservatives. The first such legislation was signed into law 25 years ago by President Ronald Reagan. Thanks to the legislation enacted by Reagan and similar laws signed by his successors, Americans are saving billions of dollars on their utility bills.

Waste is not conservative, and voting to pass Barton’s whacky BULB Act, which is based on a totally fictitious premise, would be indefensible.

Barton has already managed to bully Upton into pulling a Pawlenty and reversing course. It will be interesting to see how many other Republicans are willing to suspend reality and venture into Barton’s fantasyland.

Using rather effective sarcasm, McKibben makes the case that the spate of recent extreme weather events should be a wake-up call on the urgency of addressing climate change. He correctly points out that climate scientists have been predicting for years that carbon loading in our atmosphere will create droughts, floods and other extreme weather events.

Does that scientific concurrence absolutely prove cause and effect? No, but it does distinguish McKibben’s hysterics from those of climate deniers who point to every cold snap or snowstorm as evidence that global warming is a hoax.

Because “climate” represents long-term trends, and day-to-day weather relies on multiple variables, it is wrong to say that any one weather event or abnormal season either proves or disproves climate change. However, weather trends that are demonstrated over time, and that track with other well-documented scientific evidence, should indeed be a wake-up call. We ignore them at our own peril.

The more important question that McKibben’s op-ed begs is: How much evidence will it take to convince the American public and its elected representatives that action on climate change is warranted?

It is hard to imagine that most Americans who have been watching news reports over the past few months of numerous extreme weather events—the unusually powerful tornadoes wreaking havoc across much of the South and Midwest, the record-breaking flooding along the Mississippi River, the extreme droughts in the Southwest, and the record snowfalls in the Midwest and Northeast—have not begun to suspect that something is amiss and that climate change may be responsible.

The problem is that action to address climate change not only requires the belief that it is happening; it also requires the belief that we can do something about it. This is where the climate change deniers—along with some narrowly focused folks in the oil and coal industries—do their most damage.

As the deniers’ assertion that climate change is a hoax begins to falter under the weight of reality, they have begun to pivot to the argument that climate change is a natural occurrence that mankind cannot alter, only adapt to. It is an argument designed to lull people into a state of complacency—similar to the tactics totalitarian regimes use to lull their subjects into passivity and government dependency.

Perhaps President Reagan recognized such tactics when he rejected the arguments of those who were trying to forestall action to address another climate problem, ozone depletion. He consulted with climate scientists, looked honestly at the evidence, accepted mankind’s role, and took prudent action to solve the problem.

Reagan faced ozone depletion with the same clear-eyed realism that he faced the threats posed by the Soviet Union and communism.

In an interview last year, Reagan’s Secretary of State George Shultz recalled that the President believed action on ozone depletion was necessary because he recognized the huge potential for damage. Shultz noted that Reagan viewed acting on the best available science in the same light as taking out an insurance policy.

Reagan’s leadership resulted in the Montreal Protocol Treaty, which began the phase out of chlorofluorocarbons.  Today the threat from ozone depletion is greatly diminished and our stratospheric ozone layer is healing.

Reagan once said, “Facts are stubborn things.”

With today’s climate threat, let’s hope that like Reagan, we are wise enough to face the facts honestly—and courageous enough to accept our responsibility to act.

Tweet

This largess—billions of dollars in special tax breaks and subsidies—has suddenly become a liability for a party that has made fiscal responsibility the centerpiece of its policy agenda.

The first sign of trouble came courtesy of a recent ABC news interview with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Put on the spot, Boehner had trouble defending the oil subsidies saying “I don’t think the big oil companies need to have the oil depletion allowances…We need to control spending…And they ought to be paying their fair share.”

It was a good response for someone properly focused on getting spending under control. Unfortunately, the Speaker started backtracking from the statement as soon as he remembered that the President and other Democrats support ending these subsidies.

As Boehner was backtracking and Republicans were circling the wagons in defense of oil subsidies, Exxon and Shell reported huge quarterly profits that were up over 60 percent from the same period last year. Exxon reported $10.6 billion in profits for the quarter and Shell reported $8.78 billion.

In light of those profits, the GOP mantra that removing the subsidies and special breaks would result in a higher price at the pump sounds more like the utterings of a blackmail victim than it does lawmakers focused on sound public policy.

As Boehner and company were probably hoping the issue would go away, news surfaced that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) had expressed support for ending oil subsidies at a recent town hall meeting. When asked about oil industry tax breaks Ryan said:

We’re talking about reforming the safety net, the welfare system. We also want to get rid of corporate welfare. And corporate welfare goes to agribusiness companies, to energy companies, financial services companies. So we propose to repeal all of that.

It will be interesting to see if Republicans can be persuaded to go along with such a proposal—particularly in light of the campaign cash oil interests ply them with and the insistence by libertarian radicals like Grover Norquist that ending any tax break, regardless if it has outlived its original purpose, amounts to a tax increase.

For anyone who is truly in favor of the free market and fiscal responsibility, special corporate tax breaks and subsidies should not be the norm, nor should they be championed as the functional equivalent of lower across the board tax rates.

Special corporate subsidies and tax breaks, to the extent that they are used at all, should be temporary and targeted towards a very specific policy goal that is in the nation’s long-term interest—such as giving breaks to jumpstart renewable energy and new technologies, or encourage energy conservation.

If Republicans can garner the courage to make a clean break from their habit of subsidizing oil companies, they will not only strike a blow for intellectual consistency, but they will be helping our nation to break its oil addiction and give cleaner, more domestically available, alternative fuels a fair chance to compete in the market place.

If not, its special interest driven contortions will repel voters—just as they did in 2006.

Tweet

After the Exxon Valdez barreled into Bligh Reef and spilled more than 11 million gallons of crude into the pristine, wildlife-rich, waters and shorelines of Alaska’s Prince William Sound, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requiring use of double hulled tankers and setting liability limits. The spill also led to Congressional and Presidential moratoriums on drilling offshore along most of the nation’s Outer Continental Shelf.

After the worst oil spill in U.S. history, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout that spewed 260 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and made the two earlier disasters seem like mere dribbles in comparison, virtually nothing has changed.

President Obama did a few things. He split up and renamed the Minerals Management Service, instituted a temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling, and established a bipartisan commission that spotlighted what co-chairman and former EPA Administrator Bill Reilly called a “culture of complacency” at all of the key corporate players at Deepwater Horizon– BP, Transocean, and Halliburton.

However, Congress has been unable to agree on strengthening safety requirements, Republicans and oil state Democrats have been clamoring for fewer restrictions on drilling, and polling shows that the American public has pretty much shrugged off the spill over concerns about rising gas prices.

Obama appears to have bowed to political pressure by ending the temporary moratorium and stepping up the pace of issuing drilling permits. Some, if not all, of the new permits have been issued to companies whose spill prevention plans are dated 2009; the same pre-blowout plans that have been widely ridiculed for exaggerating spill response capabilities and borrowing liberally from Arctic spill response plans. Spot any walruses lounging on Mississippi beaches lately?

If that weren’t enough to curl your toes, Transocean, the incompetent owner of the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon rig, recently announced that it is awarding its top executives bonuses for achieving the “best year in safety.” The company filing about the bonuses stated: “Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record.”

If an exploding rig is “exemplary,” we would be curious to know what Transocean regards as mediocre.

It seems as if the lesson learned from the worst oil spill in U.S. history is throw caution to the wind and don’t worry about the consequences.

Meanwhile, alarming numbers of dead dolphins and sea turtles are washing up along the Gulf Coast. Researchers fear that the long-term ecological damage from the spill may be far greater than previously thought.

As disturbing as all of this is, perhaps the most troubling is the strong push by the Alaska congressional delegation and numerous Western or Gulf state Republicans to rush drilling in the remote waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off Alaska’s northern coast—without any reliable indication whatsoever that a spill in these arctic waters could be effectively responded to.

These are among the world’s most pristine and productive ocean areas. They support vital populations of marine mammals, including seals, walruses, and whales. The Chukchi is home to roughly half of America’s polar bear population. Millions of seabirds migrate to these food-rich waters each year.

A recent memorandum produced by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), projects that a blowout in these icy waters would spill approximately 61,000 barrels a day—similar to the Gulf spill. That is where the similarities end.

The spill response assets available in the Gulf were as massive as they were inadequate.

The Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are located more than 900 miles from the nearest U.S. Coast Guard base, there are only a few small airstrips, winter response in subzero darkness would be impossible, ice cover most of the year would hinder containment and cleanup, and bad weather could ground workers for weeks any time of the year.

The report issued by the Gulf oil spill commission noted “serious concerns about Arctic oil-spill response, containment, and search and rescue,” and recommended that before the federal government issues any drilling permits, it must ensure that oil spill containment and response capabilities have been “satisfactorily demonstrated in the Arctic.” That is a pretty high bar.

The likelihood that oil spill clean-up can be successfully demonstrated in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas under all likely weather and sea conditions is highly unlikely, as is the prospect that Congress will provide the Coast Guard the necessary resources to station and maintain an appropriate amount of response equipment nearby.

But heck, who needs spill response capability when our elected leaders are willing to so completely throw caution to the wind in their insatiable quest for every last drop of domestic oil. Apparently, no cost is too great.

Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, wrote:

Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.

As we sit here a year after the nation’s worst oil spill, prudence is sadly absent from those charged with overseeing oil drilling and managing America’s marine waters, as are many other virtues—political and moral.

Tweet

The ENR Committee was voting on S. 398, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman (NM) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) to strengthen energy efficiency standards for appliances and some other consumer products. This legislation, which has strong industry support and sailed through the committee last year, was thought to be non-controversial.

This year is different. Tea Party favorite Rand Paul happens to be on the committee.

Paul objected to the legislation, and speaking of the efficiency standards in the legislation he said, “I think that to be consistent with a free society, we should make them voluntary.”

Paul offered an amendment to remove the government’s authority to enforce the standards. Then, Paul escorted his colleagues into the Twilight Zone.

According to an account in Energy & Environment Daily, Paul launched into a sermon about Ayn Rand’s 1937 novel Anthem, which depicts a dark future where the concept of individuality has fallen prey to the evils of collectivism and socialism.

Paul described a scene from the novel in which the protagonist, called Equality 7-2521, discovers the incandescent light bulb. Paul recounts that Equality 7-2521 naively thinks that electricity and the brilliance of electric light would be an advantage for society. But when he takes the light bulb to the society’s elders, they crush it “beneath the boot heel of the collective.”

Paul then instructed his fellow senators that in the novel, “the collective has no place, basically, for individual choice,” and adds, “Now, I’m not suggesting that this collective is against electricity, per say, or individualism … but I am suggesting that we’re against choice.”

How long will it be before Paul is bringing blackboards into the Senate ENR hearing room and is drawing diagrams purporting to show that Senators Murkowski and Bingaman are agents of a Middle Eastern caliphate plotting to stop America from using its coal?

At least two of Paul’s fellow Republican Senators were belting down his tea. After Paul’s amendment failed, Mike Lee (UT), another tea party fave, and John Barrasso (WY) joined Paul in voting against the bill.

Assertions that efficiency standards restrict consumer choice are simply wrong. Extreme arguments that efficiency standards are the agenda of a supposed “collective” that seeks to impose totalitarian rule on America are the product of a cultish, delusional ideology that fails to connect to the real world.

Paul’s logic would seem to oppose virtually any mandatory standards. I suppose automobile manufacturers should never have been required to install seatbelts, asbestos should still be allowed for building insulation, and we should have wasteful high flow toilets even in the arid West where water is scarce.

In 1974, Governor Ronald Reagan signed into law the Warren-Alquist Act establishing the California Energy Commission and authorizing the commission to set appliance efficiency standards. Then on March 17, 1987, President Reagan established strong federal standards by signing the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act into law.

We have heard consumer choice arguments for years in rants by Rush Limbaugh and others against even the most modest increase in automobile fuel efficiency standards. Does anyone today really believe that consumer choice has been hurt by having these standards? It actually cuts the other way. Without these standards, consumers would not have available the many fuel-efficient vehicle options from which they can choose today.

Rather than restricting consumer choices, standards prompt manufacturers to invest in technology R&D that results in a range of better products. Manufacturers simply don’t behave like deer caught in the headlights, as some would have us believe. Prompted by standards, they innovate.

For example, the assertion that incandescent lighting standards will result in the Easy Bake Oven children’s toy being taken off the market is a false scare story. The toy manufacturer is coming out with a better product — an Easy Bake Oven with a built-in heating element that is more efficient than a 100-watt incandescent light bulb, which makes for a more efficient toy and one that is more convenient for parents and children (no light bulb to burn out and replace every 1,000 hours.)

What Senator Paul’s hand-wringing about the “collective” (and perhaps black helicopters) ignores is that we are not islands unto ourselves. Our energy choices have impacts on others, and on society as a whole.

Using energy wastefully increases energy demand, which in turn requires construction of power plants whose costs show up in all our energy bills. Using energy wastefully results in environmental impacts that harm public health and the environment, and using energy wastefully hastens an inevitable decline in the availability of fossils fuels.

There is nothing conservative or prudent about waste. Nor is there anything conservative or prudent about the notion that we do not need efficiency standards to help secure our energy future.

Radical libertarians, like Senator Paul, who want to champion individuality above all else, either possess utopian ignorance regarding the fallibility of man, or have taken   short-sighted, live-for-today selfishness to its liberal extreme.

Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, once wrote: “Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit.” His American protégé, Russell Kirk instructed that “Every right is married to a duty, every freedom owes a corresponding responsibility.”

If you happen to stumble upon a blackboard while walking the halls of Congress, I suggest you erase the conspiracy diagram and replace it with these wise words, or this, also from Kirk:

To check centralization and usurping of power … we require a new laissez-faire. The old laissez-faire was founded upon a misapprehension of human nature, an exultation of individuality (in private character often a virtue) to the condition of a political dogma, which destroyed the spirit of community and reduced men to so many equipollent atoms of humanity, without sense of brotherhood or purpose.

If Congress would heed the rational conservatism of Burke and Kirk, and ignore the ranting of the radical libertarian fringe, I’m sure a lot of American individuals would breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Tweet

The author, an economics professor at George Mason University (GMU) named Donald Boudreaux, makes the case that government estimates of “proven” or “proved” reserves are irrelevant because the estimates of “unproven” reserves are so much higher.

Different agencies and groups have slightly varying definitions of “proved” reserves, but the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sums it up nicely:

Proved reserves are those quantities of petroleum which, by analysis of geological and engineering data, can be estimated with a high degree of confidence to be commercially recoverable from a given date forward, from known reservoirs and under current economic conditions.

Estimates of “unproven” reserves mostly refer to “undiscovered, technically recoverable oil.” In other words, oil that geologists estimate might be in the ground and recoverable using existing or reasonably foreseeable technology. Such estimates are intriguing, but too speculative to take to the bank. They do not take into account the quality of the oil that might be there or the economic profitability of production.

Such numbers can change as we learn more. For example, while the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has dramatically increased its mean estimate of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation from 151 million barrels to 3.65 billion barrels, the same agency recently revised comparable estimates for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA) downward from 10.6 billion barrels to 896 million barrels—roughly 10 percent of its 2002 estimate.

Considering that the U.S. currently consumes roughly 7 billion barrels of oil per year, the notion that we can bank our energy future on unproven reserve estimates represents little more than an imprudent roll of the dice.

Then, of course, there is economics. A significant fraction of undiscovered oil reserves, assuming that they really exist, are in remote locations and consist of heavy oil, both of which are not profitable to produce if prices are low. How high does the price of a barrel of oil need to be before this oil could be economically produced? Is it $100 per barrel? $150 per barrel? We are not talking about cheap or easy oil.

Cheap and easy oil, to the extent that it remains, is mostly located outside of the United States.

Anyone who claims that unproven reserves are the answer to high gas prices is either uninformed or trying to hoodwink the public.

Mr. Bourdreaux, echoing a common refrain of petro-peddlers like Sarah Palin and Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX), contends that government restrictions are the only thing preventing our nation from producing all of the oil we could ever need.

It is a claim driven far more by special interests and political agendas than by anything approximating reality.

Unproven reserves are just that, unproven.

While the amount of proven reserves will fluctuate based on the price of oil, new discoveries, and technological advancements, the current proven reserves estimates remain the most prudent guide for making decisions about our energy future—along with the knowledge that oil is a finite resource.

In addition to being more certain, proven reserve numbers exist for all of the major oil producing countries.  We can see how we compare with other nations and better assess our economic and strategic vulnerabilities. That is not the case for unproven reserves.

In making policy decisions, we must evaluate  the risks of perpetuating dependence on oil and exposing our economy and security to price spikes and supply uncertainties caused by events over which we have little control.

Mr. Bourdreaux teaches at GMU, whose team nickname is the Patriots. I think that true patriotism requires us to pin our country’s energy future on something more reliable than unproven reserves.

Tweet

The current uptick in the price at the pump is not actually due to a supply crunch. It is due to market speculation that current turmoil in the Middle East will spread and lead to supply problems.

The notion that the U.S., which sits atop less than 3 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, can drill enough oil to drive down prices if the flow is interrupted from a region with 64 percent of the world’s reserves is a pipedream.

Over the past week a steady stream of Republicans, including Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (KY), House Speaker John Boehner, and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (MI), have taken to the airwaves to complain that the Administration’s cautious approach to domestic oil drilling has caused this problem.

They are calling on the Administration to tap our nation’s “vast” oil reserves. Vast?

Upton even went so far as to say that high energy prices caused the recession and that the Administration’s cautious approach to domestic drilling will lead to a 1970s style oil crisis.

They all neglect to mention that the U.S. is already disproportionately depleting its scant 3 percent reserves to produce 8 percent of current global production. To get that 8 percent we currently have over 530,000 active wells. Saudi Arabia, by comparison, pulls out more oil with roughly 1,500 wells.

The map below depicts the real problem by sizing countries based on the amount of proven oil reserves they contain.

The GOP’s real energy crisis is one of focus. Republican leaders are focusing their energy on keeping America overly dependent on a resource that is far more plentiful outside our own borders. They largely dismiss the strategy of reducing demand and seem content to have us suck our own limited oil reserves dry as quickly as possible. It is a phony solution that they think will play well politically.

Peddling geologic ignorance may score some points with voters who don’t know any better, but it won’t bring the promised relief at the pump.

Their energy would be better focused on real solutions, such as diversifying our fuel choices, making automobiles go further on a gallon of gas, and finding other innovative ways to use less oil.

Of course it is difficult to offer real solutions when politics trumps reality.

The latest political sleight of hand by GOP leaders is to connect the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) effort to limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants with the spike in gas prices.

Taking his cues from Upton, who is trying to pass his legislation to block EPA, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said:

If the White House has its way — and the EPA imposes a backdoor national energy tax — gas prices will only go higher.

Someone might want to inform the Speaker that the gasoline Americans buy at the pump is made from oil, not coal.

Tweet