I was just listening to Bill Nelson speaking on the Senate floor. At first, he was focused on terrorism and on how the US oil supply could be radically disrupted by terrorist acts. He talked about how "bandits" in Nigeria are destroying about 20% of daily oil output. Bandits. The good Senator had obviously not read the recent Vanity Fair article that I discussed in
this post entitled "This Is Modern Day Slavery".
That's the problem with conservative Democrats. They either don't know how to tell the good guys from the bad guys or they just assume that any disruption of "commerce" is evil by definition. Nigeria is one of the many front line battles between the tyranny of Big Oil imperialism and the indigenous population who knows all too well they and their country are being raped.
And Nelson went on to discuss Hugo Chavez and how he talks about cutting off oil supplies to the US. Senator Nelson apparently had no interest in delving into the imperial history of the US in South America and Central America.
So, there I was again, angered by yet another Democrat who seems either too blind or too complicit to recognize the real villain in the scenarios he was describing.
But then, turning on a dime, with "garbage in" as his input, he spins out this little gem: He said that the 35 MPG CAFE standard (by 2020) being proposed in the current energy bill is NOT adequate. He said we had warnings about oil cutoffs in the early 70's and then again in the late 70's. The push for better CAFE standards at the time was gradually weakened. The focus on energy efficiency eventually faded. He said the number one use of energy is transportation. And he said the number one use of energy in transportation was the automobile. He said we already have the technology to do better. He said that Senators Levin and Stabinow are pushing to extend the compliance date from 2020 to 2025 and that the Senate should NOT be "seduced" by their pleas. Atta boy, Bill!!!
Nelson is calling for a raise in the CAFE standard to 40 MPG. It won't happen because too many Democrats, like Dingell in the House, and Levin and Stabinow in the Senate, will join with the republicans to torpedo this badly need reduction in CO2 production. Sometimes it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys.