Dammit Barack...

In case people can't tell, I'm a bit of a partisan for Barack Obama. I haven't delved too deeply into the presidential race because I didn't want my appearances on this blog to degenerate into a partisan back-and-forth, but my general political worldview probably makes it obvious to any regular readers who I'll be voting for in November barring any tectonic shifts in either my own thinking or those of the candidates. I've been more forgiving than many early Obama supporters of some of his recent tacks to the center and even the right (see: Israel, Jerusalem as undivided capital of). I will say, though, that I'm disappopinted at today's call to tap into some of the strategic petrolium reserve. To be fair, he proposes tapping the reserve as part of a larger, more sensible (albiet probably still too timid) energy plan, but it's a completely unnecessary adjunct.

For some perspective, the U.S. consumes somewhere around 20 million barrels of oil per day. Sit back for a moment and consider the enormity of that number. Now, consider that Obama has proposed allowing oil companies to bid to borrow 70 million barrels from the strategic reserve. That's a whole three-and-a-half days worth of oil! Wow. Crisis averted!

In all seriousness, though, this plan is worse than a bit of empty political pandering, though it is certainly that. Opening up the strategic reserve to calm the effects of high oil prices caused by a structurally-inevitable tightening of global supply hurts our ability to use it for it's real purpose: dampening the effects of an unforseen supply shock. Let's say, for example, that there was a revolution in Saudi Arabia. The oil in the strategic reserve would keep the U.S. economy going and give the government time to abandon all pretenses of international diplomacy, invade the Kingdom, and turn the tap back on. In other words, it's meant as a tool to manage a crisis, not one to manipulate the market.

One of the reasons I like Senator Obama is his willingness - at least when compared with his political contemporaries - to eschew the easy sound-byte in favor of telling people hard-but-necessary truths. Right now, that truth is this: oil prices are high because for the first time in history we can't drill enough oil for everyone who needs it to be able to buy it cheaply. This is going to get worse in years to come, not better. The days of cheap oil are over. The only way to get back to the days of cheap energy is to find a better, more sustainable way of producing it. This will be hard. This will take sacrifice. This will take time. Until then, there is no use buying into the delusion that some magical government policy will lower prices at the pump and make everything okay again. If Americans ask their leaders for such a policy, they are simply asking to be lied to. Any leader worthy of the name, though, wouldn't tell such lies.

I'm sure Mr. Obama could find a much more eloquent way of putting that.

I very much wish that he had.