Energy extremism has tricked its way into the mainstream. Three shades of it now control politics in the US. In an area where mistakes cost large amounts of money, the potential for error is high.
Triangular extremism has infused American politics with repugnance for oil and gas. It might be more accurate to say that extremism has pushed onto center stage a prejudice never absent from the political fringe. Either way, it threatens to radicalize energy law and regulation.
Aversion to fluid hydrocarbons is manifest in legislation that would raise taxes uniquely on oil and gas producers and divert proceeds to energy forms preferred by politicians-and energy providers receiving the money-but not by markets. It’s manifest in federal budget proposals that cancel funding for oil and gas technical research. It’s manifest in a US president who bewails an “addiction” to oil and presumes to know how much gasoline Americans should use, in congressional inquisitions of oil executives in times of high gasoline prices, and in a thundering failure of confidence in the ability of energy markets to dissipate stress.
Wasting money
The problem with antioil politics isn’t that oil and gas face any threat of losing their commanding positions in the energy market. Hydrocarbons dominate the market because they offer value that other energy forms-no matter how much the government spends on them-can’t match. The main problem with the current political mood is the amount of taxpayer and consumer money that the government might waste combating economic forces that never yield to political caprice. Another problem is the political mire accumulating before an industry that should be focused on meeting demand for its products.
Through political expression contradicted by consumption trends, the US thus is acting out a futile ambition to disengage from hydrocarbon energy, especially oil. For the sake of its operations and the interests of its customers, the oil and gas industry needs to confront the off-oil agenda head-on. It can best do so by addressing the three presumptions of antioil extremism: that oil destroys the environment, funds terrorism, and enriches a despised industry.
By its nature, extremism begins with some core truth then spirals away from reality. Antioil extremism is no exception.
The production and consumption of oil and gas do harm the environment. But they do so less and less as technology and regulation make industry operations diminishingly intrusive and petroleum fuels remarkably less polluting than they were in years past. Lately, global panic over climate change has preempted consideration of real environmental progress. In fact, however, the contributions of fossil energy to observed warming remain less certain and almost certainly smaller than a frenzied political discussion seems to assume. With extremists controlling debate, the political choice so far is between extreme response and no response. As long as people yearn to prosper, that’s a prescription for stalemate.
It is no doubt true as well that money from oil sales ends up funding terrorist groups. But such problems require diplomatic and military rather than economic solutions. Mandates for expensive substitutes for cheap energy hurt only Americans and impoverish no terrorists at all. They also reflect dreadful American xenophobia, insult oil exporters, and undermine US promotion of global trade.
And, yes, oil sustains an industry with scale and operations that many outsiders find incomprehensible and therefore suspect. The industry easily slides into the role of villain in rants by politicians too ignorant, lazy, or corrupt to provide constructive energy leadership. When uninformed hate becomes policy that blocks work essential to energy supply, national interests suffer.
Politics vs. economics
These extreme prejudgments have put politics in conflict with economics. While US political leaders profess to hate oil, their country consumes the substance at a rate that both leads the world and grows. The paradox is typical. Extremism always generates unachievable ambitions. It deserves neither the attention nor the expenditure it demands.
Energy extremism promises high cost and low supply. It belongs on the political fringe. Now, before politicians make any more mistakes, is the time to put it back there.
