Climb01742
08-30-2008, 06:41 AM
maybe saturday night live and chevy chase did him a disservice. in the energy debate today, everyone points to jimmy carter as the first prez who warned of our dependency on oil. not so, apparently.
interesting piece from yesterday's nytimes. imagine a one-time congressman from michigan being this ahead-of-the-curve on energy.
jerry ford for president!!
the last line of the piece is sad but probably all too true.
"Sense and Reality on Energy
By FLOYD NORRIS
High oil prices have helped to bring down the American economy and to devastate Detroit. Politicians are talking about energy policy, although they seem to be talking past each other.
So it is now, and so it was in 1974, after the price shock that arrived after the Arab oil exporters started an embargo in retaliation for America’s support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and learned that they could sell oil for a lot more than they had thought.
From the perspective of 2008, what is most remarkable is that in 1975, the country had a president who actually wanted to confront the issue. The answers he proposed seem highly relevant now, even if the steps needed are much larger than would have been necessary if action had been taken back then.
The president, Gerald R. Ford, proposed to deal with the damage from rising oil prices by ... raising oil prices. That sounded radical then, and it sounds radical now. It also makes economic sense.
Can you imagine hearing the following statements from either Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama?
“To provide the critical stability for our domestic energy production in the face of world price uncertainty, I will request legislation to authorize and require tariffs, import quotas or price floors to protect our energy prices at levels which will achieve energy independence.”
“Increasing energy supplies is not enough. We must take additional steps to cut long-term consumption.”
“Obviously, voluntary conservation continues to be essential, but tougher programs are needed, and needed now.”
Those are excerpts from President Ford’s State of the Union address in 1975.
He wanted more oil drilling, and more use of nuclear power and coal, but he also wanted to hold down consumption. The man who had been a Michigan representative for a quarter of a century wanted to force Detroit to raise the fuel efficiency of cars. He wanted Congress to impose taxes to assure that the price of gasoline did not fall, and to pass a windfall profits tax to assure that the oil companies did not become too rich.
Instead of that, the campaign so far this year has featured partisan wrangling: Drill more. Conserve more. Tax the oil companies. Subsidize their exploration.
The candidates seem to agree on only one point, that the price of gasoline ought to go down. Senator McCain favored a temporary repeal of the federal gasoline tax. Senator Obama opposed that, but would like to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
There is a good chance that oil prices will fall for a while, although they are likely to remain well above the levels that seemed high a couple of years ago. A worldwide slowdown will bring down prices, as one did a generation ago. And the politicians will move on to other issues, leaving the United States without an effective energy policy, perhaps for another generation.
Frank G. Zarb has a better idea. You may remember that he was President Ford’s energy czar, and a man who had a role in formulating the proposals in 1975.
“If I were a candidate, I would take the high ground on this issue,” Mr. Zarb said this week. He would announce a goal of cutting oil imports in half. “I would say, ‘I have a series of ideas on policies, but I am not stuck on them. If someone else has other ideas, we can consider them, so long as they are designed to meet the same goal.’ ”
The set of possible policies is not that different from what it was in 1975. There must be a combination of increasing the supply of energy and reducing the demand for oil. That can include more drilling, and it can involve alternative energy sources.
One of the lessons that Mr. Ford understood was that it also needed to involve high prices. In recent decades there was far too little investment in energy, either in the search for more oil or in alternative sources, and too little effort devoted to conservation. Neither suppliers nor consumers acted as if they believed prices would stay high.
Mr. Ford understood that weak economic times were hardly ideal for raising taxes, and proposed offsetting the energy taxes with rebates and income tax cuts. That would leave the money in the economy, but still propel the needed conservation and investment.
His proposals were buried on Capitol Hill, and in due course the lessons of that era were forgotten.
“Scoop Jackson told me, ‘We’re not going to have an energy policy unless you can arrange another embargo,’ ” said Mr. Zarb, referring to Senator Henry M. Jackson, then the chairman of the Senate committee that handled energy legislation. “And he was right.”
Had we taken the steps Mr. Ford pushed 33 years ago, we would have paid more for gasoline, for a time. The 1980s boom, as gasoline prices collapsed, might have been more muted.
But with consumption down, we would have been in a far better position in this decade, when the growth of India and China pushed up demand for energy. Detroit would be producing vehicles more in tune with current customer needs, rather than asking for loan guarantees. Oil prices would almost certainly be lower, providing less money for the countries that export oil, among them Russia and Iran.
One sign of the progress, or lack of it, since 1975 is that Mr. Ford wanted to cut imports in half with a reduction of two million barrels of oil a day. Now it would take a cut of five million barrels a day.
Mr. Zarb says his proposal would be good politics for the first candidate to embrace it. “That candidate would take the high ground and make it a bipartisan effort,” he said. “The other side would be really short-breathed and wouldn’t be able to respond.”
My suspicion is that the other candidate would gleefully respond, particularly if the candidate discussed the need to raise energy taxes. The response ads would say something like: “My opponent thinks you are not paying enough for gasoline. If you agree, then vote for him. But if you think gasoline costs too much, and it is time for Washington to bring down the price, vote for me.”
I assume that both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain know that such an ad would be unfair, but think they dare not advocate long-term solutions that would involve short-term pain.
Perhaps they remember that a generation before Mr. Ford’s brief term as president, Adlai E. Stevenson sought the office, promising to “talk sense to the American people.”
He lost. Twice."
interesting piece from yesterday's nytimes. imagine a one-time congressman from michigan being this ahead-of-the-curve on energy.
jerry ford for president!!
the last line of the piece is sad but probably all too true.
"Sense and Reality on Energy
By FLOYD NORRIS
High oil prices have helped to bring down the American economy and to devastate Detroit. Politicians are talking about energy policy, although they seem to be talking past each other.
So it is now, and so it was in 1974, after the price shock that arrived after the Arab oil exporters started an embargo in retaliation for America’s support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and learned that they could sell oil for a lot more than they had thought.
From the perspective of 2008, what is most remarkable is that in 1975, the country had a president who actually wanted to confront the issue. The answers he proposed seem highly relevant now, even if the steps needed are much larger than would have been necessary if action had been taken back then.
The president, Gerald R. Ford, proposed to deal with the damage from rising oil prices by ... raising oil prices. That sounded radical then, and it sounds radical now. It also makes economic sense.
Can you imagine hearing the following statements from either Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama?
“To provide the critical stability for our domestic energy production in the face of world price uncertainty, I will request legislation to authorize and require tariffs, import quotas or price floors to protect our energy prices at levels which will achieve energy independence.”
“Increasing energy supplies is not enough. We must take additional steps to cut long-term consumption.”
“Obviously, voluntary conservation continues to be essential, but tougher programs are needed, and needed now.”
Those are excerpts from President Ford’s State of the Union address in 1975.
He wanted more oil drilling, and more use of nuclear power and coal, but he also wanted to hold down consumption. The man who had been a Michigan representative for a quarter of a century wanted to force Detroit to raise the fuel efficiency of cars. He wanted Congress to impose taxes to assure that the price of gasoline did not fall, and to pass a windfall profits tax to assure that the oil companies did not become too rich.
Instead of that, the campaign so far this year has featured partisan wrangling: Drill more. Conserve more. Tax the oil companies. Subsidize their exploration.
The candidates seem to agree on only one point, that the price of gasoline ought to go down. Senator McCain favored a temporary repeal of the federal gasoline tax. Senator Obama opposed that, but would like to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
There is a good chance that oil prices will fall for a while, although they are likely to remain well above the levels that seemed high a couple of years ago. A worldwide slowdown will bring down prices, as one did a generation ago. And the politicians will move on to other issues, leaving the United States without an effective energy policy, perhaps for another generation.
Frank G. Zarb has a better idea. You may remember that he was President Ford’s energy czar, and a man who had a role in formulating the proposals in 1975.
“If I were a candidate, I would take the high ground on this issue,” Mr. Zarb said this week. He would announce a goal of cutting oil imports in half. “I would say, ‘I have a series of ideas on policies, but I am not stuck on them. If someone else has other ideas, we can consider them, so long as they are designed to meet the same goal.’ ”
The set of possible policies is not that different from what it was in 1975. There must be a combination of increasing the supply of energy and reducing the demand for oil. That can include more drilling, and it can involve alternative energy sources.
One of the lessons that Mr. Ford understood was that it also needed to involve high prices. In recent decades there was far too little investment in energy, either in the search for more oil or in alternative sources, and too little effort devoted to conservation. Neither suppliers nor consumers acted as if they believed prices would stay high.
Mr. Ford understood that weak economic times were hardly ideal for raising taxes, and proposed offsetting the energy taxes with rebates and income tax cuts. That would leave the money in the economy, but still propel the needed conservation and investment.
His proposals were buried on Capitol Hill, and in due course the lessons of that era were forgotten.
“Scoop Jackson told me, ‘We’re not going to have an energy policy unless you can arrange another embargo,’ ” said Mr. Zarb, referring to Senator Henry M. Jackson, then the chairman of the Senate committee that handled energy legislation. “And he was right.”
Had we taken the steps Mr. Ford pushed 33 years ago, we would have paid more for gasoline, for a time. The 1980s boom, as gasoline prices collapsed, might have been more muted.
But with consumption down, we would have been in a far better position in this decade, when the growth of India and China pushed up demand for energy. Detroit would be producing vehicles more in tune with current customer needs, rather than asking for loan guarantees. Oil prices would almost certainly be lower, providing less money for the countries that export oil, among them Russia and Iran.
One sign of the progress, or lack of it, since 1975 is that Mr. Ford wanted to cut imports in half with a reduction of two million barrels of oil a day. Now it would take a cut of five million barrels a day.
Mr. Zarb says his proposal would be good politics for the first candidate to embrace it. “That candidate would take the high ground and make it a bipartisan effort,” he said. “The other side would be really short-breathed and wouldn’t be able to respond.”
My suspicion is that the other candidate would gleefully respond, particularly if the candidate discussed the need to raise energy taxes. The response ads would say something like: “My opponent thinks you are not paying enough for gasoline. If you agree, then vote for him. But if you think gasoline costs too much, and it is time for Washington to bring down the price, vote for me.”
I assume that both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain know that such an ad would be unfair, but think they dare not advocate long-term solutions that would involve short-term pain.
Perhaps they remember that a generation before Mr. Ford’s brief term as president, Adlai E. Stevenson sought the office, promising to “talk sense to the American people.”
He lost. Twice."