U.S. Energy Policy — And Getting It Right

by BWK ~ March 26, 2008

Energy Policy — Get It Right… or Else!

Energy policy — and getting it right — is a long-running theme for me. And if the U.S. does not get energy right, nothing else
really matters all that much. Bad U.S. energy policy will take down everything.

You name it. Pick your favorite issue: the economy, health care, Social Security, education, immigration, the environment…
Without assured supplies of good-quality energy — which will not come cheap or fast — all of these problems will just get much
worse.

If the U.S. could get energy right, the impact would improve a lot of those other problems. So we as a nation had better get it
right.

Hawking the Screens

Still — and with our eyeglasses firmly planted on our respective noses — every day I hawk the screens to keep up with critical
prices and other indicators.

I watch prices for gold, silver, oil and natural gas. I also watch prices for many other commodities, from copper to platinum, and
lumber to cotton. And I look at many different stocks, way more than are in the Outstanding Investments portfolio. We are always trying to make sense of it all.

It is not just, “What is the story?” It is, “What is driving the story?” I want to be a few steps ahead of everyone else so I can
offer the best advice to you, the reader.

The Screens Have Been Hopping

So what have we been seeing lately? Well, the screens have been hopping. Prices for just about every commodity have been
gyrating. And I don’t need to comment too much on the general stock market. Days of deep losses are followed by some days of
spectacular gains.

Every day, I open the newspapers or fire up the screen and wonder what new monetary disaster is going to surface. Will the Fed lower rates some more? Yes, indeed. That’s what this world needs — more cheap money (just kidding).

More Bad Policy

Or perhaps another silly piece of “feel good” legislation is working its way through Congress. Did you see that the Senate just voted to extend the ban on drilling offshore the U.S. East and West coasts? Whew! We dodged that bullet, huh? Thanks, guys.

I guess the politicians are waiting for physical oil shortages in the world. And don’t think that the rest of the world is not watching us. People in world capitals are asking, “Is the U.S. serious about its energy issues? Or is the U.S. just wasting time?

Are its people just collectively flattering themselves with their sense of exceptionalism?” The U.S. is a world-class laughing stock when it comes to its national energy policy.

Maybe when oil prices get to $250 per barrel, Congress will finally allow those evil oil companies to park some rigs offshore and drill that oil.

But don’t hold your breath.

If the U.S. started an offshore leasing and drilling program tomorrow morning, it might take 10 years for the first barrel of oil to make landfall. That would be… um… Easter 2018. I know I can’t wait.

More Bad News?

When I am not worrying about U.S. energy policy, I look to see which major bank will announce more bad news. Or what big brokerage house is on the verge of failing. (Maybe they shouldn’t have paid out all those big bonuses last December.) Or what part of the world’s energy supply chain got blown up overnight. You get the picture.

So let me offer some last words to this post. I work hard to give you the best ideas I can find. But I cannot control the larger investment climate or the bad energy policy of the U.S. We can just try to make good investments “around” that difficult climate and bad policy.

One of the biggest hurdles to the U.S. getting energy right is that the mainstream media infotainment circus has not prepared people to connect the dots of what they already know. Think about your own daily observations.

People “see” information that tells them how much oil, for example, is in the hands of the national oil companies of many foreign nations. But the mainstream media (MSM) — and a lot of U.S. politicians — corporately hate Big Oil so much that they won’t inform viewers and readers how little control the name-brand players have anymore.

Really, in a lot of respects, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Chevron are now bit players in oil. The MSM are stuck in the 1970s, in the thought processes of the disco era. Really, the MSM need to lose the polyester leisure suits.

The MSM could help the situation if they emphasized that we live in an era of less oil, higher prices and a lot more competition for the same old stuff. They could point out to viewers and readers that the developing world is… um…. developing. And we in the U.S. are not. We are just living off the past, drinking from wells we did not dig and running down the energy inheritance.

The world is changing so quickly that a lot of what the media know is quickly becoming obsolescent — if not already obsolete. The MSM have just plain missed the energy and resource story.

I guess it is over their heads. Zoom…

Byron King

Note: Byron King is a frequent contributor to the free e-letter Whiskey & Gunpowder. To receive daily insights into energy, oil, commodities and other natural resources sign up here!

Additional Resources
America Exports Coal… For 250 More Years?
South Africa Power Outages — Lack of Energy Causes Lack of Food
A Technological Energy Competition
China Coal Imports Are Getting More Expensive
China Shuts Down Gas Stations… Whats Next?
Population Growth and the United States’ Depleting Resources…
The Debate About $100 Oil…
China Digs Coal…Bigtime