AVOIDING A NEW ENERGY MISTAKE

If Congress cannot do what's right for U.S. energy policy, it at least should refrain from doing anything else wrong. Ever obedient to the environmental industry, the Senate has blocked an energy policy bill that would have allowed oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain. It is, of course, possible to have a successful energy policy without ANWR leasing. But no energy policy can succeed under a government willing to forgo development of domestic petroleum

Nov. 11, 1991

3 min read

If Congress cannot do what's right for U.S. energy policy, it at least should refrain from doing anything else wrong.

Ever obedient to the environmental industry, the Senate has blocked an energy policy bill that would have allowed oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain. It is, of course, possible to have a successful energy policy without ANWR leasing. But no energy policy can succeed under a government willing to forgo development of domestic petroleum resources every time the environmental industry objects.

TOP POSITION

ANWR holds top position on most rankings of U.S. exploratory prospects. Since it apparently will not be leased, the industry must accept lesser priorities. Yet most of those priorities-Offshore California and North Carolina, for example, and federal land in the U.S. West-are inaccessible for one reason or another, too. The environmental industry gets around. The only accessible prospects likely to yield discoveries big enough to make a significant difference in U.S. production lie in deep waters of Gulf of Mexico.

Thanks to a filibuster sponsored by the environmental industry, therefore, the Senate has declared that future large oil discoveries have low standing in energy policy. Evidently, this doesn't surprise major U.S. oil companies. Choking on unproductive environmental costs, locked out of the country's most promising acreage, and otherwise badgered into economic oblivion by the environmental industry, they're shifting operations and jobs overseas as fast as they can.

It might get worse. Congress might grant the environmental industry another favor by approving tougher corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for new automobiles. What a broad victory energy legislation then would be for the environmental industry! In one legislative blitz, Congress would have hastened the emigration of major oil companies, heaped a new layer of unproductive costs on struggling automakers, raised prices of new cars, and weakened individual choice as a factor in auto purchase decisions.

Tighter CAFE standards, especially imposed in a period of economic stagnation, don't cut oil use as much as their supporters say they do. By adding to the costs of new cars, they encourage motorists to drive old, less efficient cars longer than they would otherwise. Furthermore, motorists who do buy new cars may respond to mileage improvements by simply driving more miles. And there's an environmental drawback. Old cars, lives of which are prolonged by tighter fuel economy standards, pollute more than new cars do.

Besides kicking the auto industry while it's down, therefore, tighter CAFE standards would do little more than promote feelings of accomplishment in the hearts of people driven by the need to tell other people how to behave. The U.S. has too much social choreography. What it needs is an energy policy.

STIFFER STANDARDS

There's a sad irony here. A reason for failure of the cloture vote that would have rescued ANWR leasing was concern by senators from auto producing states about CAFE standards in the doomed legislation. Now, however, the environmental industry can deploy all its unparalleled lobbying power on behalf of even stiffer CAFE standards in a bill en route to the Senate floor.

Maybe Congress will come to its senses. After all, 50 senators voted to stop the anti-ANWR filibuster. That means 50 senators have the courage to tell the environmental industry no. Revival of the ANWR leasing debate may be an unrealistic hope. But it takes only 50 senators, plus a vice-presidential tie-breaker, to say no to a potentially grievous mistake on CAFE.