Control of the Weather

My last post "The Culture Wars Resume" was published on March 16, 2012. For those who may want to re-read it, just click on the title above and it will appear.

In response thereto I received a message from Pearl Duncan of Manhattan, NY which read:

You columns are fabulous. Your column about the culture wars was not only insightful and enlightening, it was educational, especially for young people who just started voting and were too young to have noticed the last go round. Keep writing. 

And then added:

Because I write about culture and you express such keen political insights in your article, I forward them to my nephews and nieces who are in college and to other readers and young people on my list. Keep writing. Your insights and analyses are very valuable. 

Let me say that this comment is particularly appreciated, because I get so few comments of encouragement and it is very hard to keep researching and writing without a clear indication from my readership that my efforts are appreciated and that they serve the purpose of being informative and mentally challenging. But I particularly appreciate the kind words from Ms. Duncan, because she holds the distinction of being a published author of poetry and short stories, has been written up in the New York Times and is a recognized expert and lecturer on the use of DNA in research on genealogy. Other references to her work appear here and here and many others references which a search through Google quickly reveals.

This post’s title, “Control of the Weather,” will undoubtedly cause the reader to wonder what the weather has to do with a column that concerns itself with politics. I chose this heading to illustrate the irrationality of the voter going back to 1858. The story is told about Queen Victoria and the then Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, as related on the following web site. I want to quote from it because it is so apt.

Queen Victoria tells Disraeli that she is proud to have him as her friend. Dizzy tells her that he is afraid that he will not be her Prime Minister for long. No, not because of his health. The nation has had five bad harvests in a row and the voters can't forgive the party in power for not being able to control the weather. Victoria says that this means that she may have to put up with you-know-who:  that opinionated, half-mad, fanatical, old man Gladstone. Disraeli says the worst part of it is that Gladstone believes God has put him in charge. 

But I guess that is a lot of verbiage to make my point, that in fact in often made by our punditry; namely that the President will be blamed for whatever is amiss in the country, regardless of whether it is in his control or not.

Right now much is made of the rising price of gasoline and the media has pointed out that as the price of gasoline goes up, the President’s approval rating goes down. Republicans, led by their putative candidate, Mitt Romney, have made every effort to reinforce such irrationality and as I have pointed out in my addendum to my post "Social Security – An Honest Evaluation."

The reader should note that in 2008, near the end of the Bush Presidency, gas prices were higher than they are now. They then dropped precipitously at the beginning of 2009, just as Obama took office, as a result of the recession. As the economy recovered the price went back up, so that now it is almost as high at it was before the recession.

What we can quickly see from this is that the price is tied to demand and supply like all commodities. When the economy is strong demand goes up and so does the price of gas, when the economy tanks demand goes down and so does the price.

But of course the demand/supply is not limited to the US. It is a worldwide phenomenon. Whether we give more drilling rights to the oil companies, or build more pipe lines, may some day have an impact on oil prices, but it is, and always has been far in the future. The fact is that oil production in the US has increased substantially since Obama became President, as can be seen from the graph below which can be accessed on the web along with a good discussion here.

The credit for this increase in production cannot be claimed by the Obama Administration, though it has granted more permits than the environmental community feels comfortable with. There is always a substantial lag of time between permits granted and actual production, but it does show, that increased production does not necessarily produce lower gasoline prices. In fact, strange as it may sound, the opposite is true. When prices are low many wells are not profitable. When prices rise such wells become profitable and more oil is produced.

As for the Republican drive to gut environmental laws, this recognizes the importance of energy to our economy, but it ignores that as important as energy is, the purity and availability of our water supply is far more important. We are even now running into clean water shortages and this is leading into fights between cities and farming communities vying for the diminishing supplies of clean water, even as our aquifers run down and in some places run dry. As for the purity of our air, it is hard to imagine anything more important. Just one aspect of the Clean Air Act, which by the way was the proud achievement of a Republican Congress led by President Nixon (oh how times change) would according to Earth Justice prevent up to 8,100 premature deaths, 5,100 heart attacks and 52,000 asthma attacks every year, and that is just from cleaning up industrial power plants and that does not even begin to address the dangers faced by future generations from global warming.

Can anything be done about the high price of gasoline at the pump? The PBS Newshour had an interesting discussion on this, which you can find on the web here beginning at 2 minutes and 11 seconds into the video or of the reader prefers set forth in the transcript, where Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute, (a Right Wing Think Tank) sets forth how prices at the pump could be lowered. He summarizes this as follows:

About 75 percent of the price of gas is the world price of oil, reflects the world price of oil. But there's a federal gas tax that can be changed. There are EPA requirements for specific fuel blends that can be changed. So it's not quite true to say the president has no power, but it's not as big as some people might like.

First it should be noted that he agrees that the President's power to effect the price of gasoline is limited. But then he sets forth two ways that the price of gas can be effected and he is absolutely right. As he says the: “federal gas tax that can be changed.” That tax is now 8¢ a gallon so the repeal of the tax would lower the price of gas by 8¢, not a huge reduction, but it would help and in fact Ron Paul advocates this repeal. See here. But first of all it is not within the power of the President to repeal the tax – the power lies with Congress, but more important this tax is designated to go into the highway trust fund and it is falling short of its need, or as USA Today says in its headline: “Gas tax falling short in paying for transportation needs” See here. So while this could be done it is not desirable to do so.

As for the second suggestion: “There are EPA requirements for specific fuel blends that can be changed” this is again true but the effect on prices would be small and the impact on the environment large.

Which summarizes the situation better than anything that can be said by the Administration.

For those who might be interested in reading more extensively on this subject I would commend an article which an be found here and another that can be found here.

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.