The President's Left Turn on Energy

The Wall Street Journal (and frankly, quite a few Republicans) are more than a little surprised at the President's left turn when it comes to energy policy:

President Bush has seen the energy future, and he has two words of advice: wood chips. Somewhere in his cardigan sweater next to a fireplace, Jimmy Carter is smiling.

That gets to the uncomfortable heart of Mr. Bush's startling turn on energy policy Tuesday night. An Administration that once promoted drilling in Alaska and other ways to expand domestic oil and gas supplies is now lecturing the nation that it's "addicted to oil" and extolling the merits of cellulosic biomass,a k a wood chips. This may not be as bad as 1970s-style price controls, but it's also a long way from a sensible energy policy.

If there is an unhealthy addiction right now, it may be the White House fixation on polls showing Americans are anxious about gas prices. This, and only this, could explain the decision to co-opt Democratic energy ideas in order to deflect their political attacks in the run-up to midterm elections. Karl Rove may believe he needs to do this to save a Republican Congress in November, but nobody should think it's going to do much for energy supplies or prices.

Many of us were very surprised that there was no mention whatsoever of drilling in ANWR, something which came very close to passing until a bunch of moderate Republicans killed it. Despite ANWR being a 10 year venture before significant oil could be pumped out of the region, it's still makes more sense than trying to run the country on "wood chips and switchgrass". That kind of talk is right out of the lefty playbook. And it's not like the MidEast wackos have all the oil:

The market is similarly working to increase supply, at least where the government allows. One overlooked energy story is the extraordinary capital the oil industry is sinking into new production. Oil sands in Canada's Alberta province hold 175 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia's estimated 260 billion. Shell Canada chief Clive Mather recently suggested there could be as many as two trillion barrels. Today's high prices make it economical to extract oil from sand, and Canada's oil sands are already producing a million barrels a day. Yet, remarkably enough, Mr. Bush made no reference at all to the limits that Congress has imposed on drilling in the Arctic, or in the Outer Continental Shelf, where there are vast non-Mideast oil and gas reserves.

If you think it's hard to fill up your car with $3 a gallon gas, just imagine what it will be like when you have to fill it up using a hayfork. The Journal is not pleased:

The truth is that many green groups, and the political liberals who follow them, don't object to imported oil because it comes from the Middle East. They are opposed to fossil fuels, and nuclear energy for that matter, on principle. They want to live in a world that runs on wood chips, and it's hardly useful to have a conservative President telling the country he agrees with them.

I think this may well have been a political calculation for the 2006 election, and one that just doesn't make sense.