Democrats offer plan to cut US oil import reliance

[Eugene]

Democrats offer plan to cut US oil import reliance

By Chris Baltimore
Reuters
Wednesday, May 17, 2006; 4:31 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democrats on Wednesday offered a plan to cut U.S. oil
import dependence 40 percent by 2020 by requiring more use of alternative motor vehicle
fuels like ethanol.

About a dozen Democrats touted their new "Clean EDGE Act of 2006" at a Capitol Hill news
conference, less than a month after Senate Republicans withdrew their plan to counteract
high gasoline prices by giving $100 checks to taxpayers.

Lawmakers, including Democratic leader Harry Reid and No. 2 Democrat Dick Durbin, supported
a bill to require more "flex fuel" vehicles that can burn gasoline blended with ethanol.

Democrats want to cut U.S. petroleum use by 6 million barrels per day by 2020 -- an amount
equal to about 40 percent of projected imports.

<snip>

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/17/AR2006051701524.html

[rodeodance]

1. go dems go

[al bupp]

2. Repub talking point must be disabused

The article has this graph:

Republicans say Democrats have blocked many energy expansion projects that might have translated to more domestic oil supplies, including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Dems must hammer home the counter point that none of these "energy expansion projects" can ever make much of dent in the need for foreign oil.

Otherwise, I think the article outlines a good strategy for the Dems, although I'd like to see more done w/ efficiency standards, perhaps offering subsidies to factories that could facilitate their conversion to building more efficient vehicles.

[depakid]

3. :...cut U.S. petroleum use by 6 million barrels per day by 2020!"

These people live on another planet entirely.

Oh, we'll "slash U.S. oil use by '5 million bpd' by 2025" alright. LOL.

[creeksneakers2]

4. I don't see why they have to wait until 2010 or 2020

Flex fuel vehicles are on the road now. The problem is that not enough places are selling E-85.

Current list of flex fuel vehicles (can run on E85)


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[4dsc]

8. E85 is a waste of taxpayers monies..

That why we are not see more E85 pumpping stations. Corn based ethanol is not the alternative fuel that will replace oil!! Its all a myth be perpetrated by the corn growers of America..

[Judi Lynn]

5. Democrats Offer Alternative to Republican Energy Plan

Democrats Offer Alternative to Republican Energy Plan
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Published: May 18, 2006

WASHINGTON, May 17 — Senate Democrats on Wednesday fueled the debate over rising gas prices by introducing an energy bill they said would do more to wean the country off foreign oil than the plan advanced three weeks ago by Republicans.

The bill would cut domestic oil consumption to 12 million barrels a day in 2020 from about 20 million barrels, its supporters say. It calls for expanding the use of alternative fuels for vehicles, in part by requiring more federally owned vehicles to use them, and by ensuring that more service stations sell them.

The bill would also revoke subsidies for the oil industry, increase subsidies for the renewable fuels industry and restore aid to low-income Americans struggling to pay energy bills.

"We need lower gas prices and energy independence," the minority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said at a news conference with nine other Democrats. "Republican leaders have proposed the same old solution: drill, drill, drill. But drill, drill, drill is not going to deliver the results we need."
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/washington/18dems.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[truthisfreedom]

6. jeepers, the oil companies are going to be mad... and the US consumers are

going to laugh!

[Kolesar]

7. Article talks about ethanol--that is hardly the solution

"Democratic legislation would require 25 percent of cars sold in the United States be capable of burning alternate fuels like ethanol-blended gasoline by 2010, rising to 50 percent by 2020."

What we need is stronger efficiency standards. And less highway construction

[skyblue]

9. Help fund the death of troops! Buy Gas! ---Anything But Gas!

Basically, we buy gas and in so doing we are enriching groups who would attack our troops.

Democrats understand this.

Any other fuel and every other fuel is far better than a fuel that funds the death of troops!!

[mccoyn]

10. This is a good move, even though I don't have much faith in corn ethanol.

Even if our fuel supply is 100% subsidized by tax money at least it removes the foreign dependence. In the short term this will get a lot of votes for democrats. Gas prices are on everyones mind, and everyone laughed at the republican $100 plan. I'm excited to see democrats with a position that will really help them.

Edit: Silly typo.

[sweetheart]

11. cowardly act indeed

They should do the right thing, and set taxes on the cars that actually
equate to the total-cost of automobile culture; taxes that include the war
costs, the road costs, the subsidies and all that petro-freebies the taxpayer
gifts to that corporate corner.

If the full cost of the fuel were realized at the pump, other fuels
and power systems would be much more developed. But when you don't put
economics on to the problem, you're still fudgin', hand wringing and making
weak and silly token legislation.

[MadHound]

12. I've got a better plan

Ethanol is the wrong direction to take. We simply do not have the crop land to grow all the ethanol we need, thus we'll wind up having to import from Brazil and other countries. Not a good idea

Instead, let us fulfill all of our fuel needs domestically using biodiesel. Using oil bearing algae, we can fulfill all of our fuel needs domestically<http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html>. Mandate by law that within ten years, each and every new vehicle manufactured come equipped with a diesel engine. By the year 2020, the overwhelming majority of vehicles on the road will be running on fuel produced domestically. And unlike ethanol production, biodiesel is non-toxic(I've drunk some and was fine), and the only waste product produced during the refining process is actually usefull, glycerin, useful in soaps.

Ethanol is a chimera, it is a flawed solution at best. Rather than going from a largely flawed system, gasoline, to a smaller flawed system, ethanol, why not go with the flawless solution, biodiesel?

[RatRacer]

13. Actually, according to some...

...ethanol can still be the future because new technology is just around the corner that will allow us to utilize all the "waste" materials from corn and sugarcane and such, and even allow us to use things like prairie grass to produce a better ethanol that actually produces more power than regular gasoline...up to 10 times the amount of power that current ethanol has.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12676374/

[MadHound]

14. I've been waiting for lots of new tech

"That was just around the corner" for years and decades now, and the vast majority of it has yet to show up. Biodiesel is an off the shelf technology that is ready to go now. I'd rather go with an option that we can exercise now that continue to futiely await for whatever is "around the corner". This is starting to become a crisis situation, so we have to act now.