Prepared Statement of Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-6-MD) for the US-China Economic and Security Co

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Prepared Statement of Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-6-MD) for the US-China Economic and Security Commission Hearing on Energy

Posted by Prof. Goose on June 16, 2007 - 11:37am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: china, congress, peak oil, roscoe bartlett, us



Prepared Statement of Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-6-MD)
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission
Hearing on Energy
June 15, 2007

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I led a delegation of nine Members of the House Armed Services Committee on a trip to China over the New Year that focused on energy. Without exception, every Chinese official that we met began our discussions by telling us that they were planning for “post-oil.” Post-oil. The Chinese are planning for global peak oil in 2012. They are planning now for a world without oil as a major energy source. I wish our government leaders and Americans understood the necessity to prepare for a post-oil world.

The Chinese understand that the Age of Oil will be a blip in world history. Global peak oil will not be the end of oil – but it will be the end of cheap oil and cheap energy. Because we have built a lifestyle and a civilization in the United States that is totally dependent upon cheap oil and cheap energy, peak oil poses a challenge that our country must overcome.

<snip>

What concrete steps can we observe that China is taking to prepare for peak oil and post-oil? They have a five point plan. 1. Conservation 2. Increase the proportion of domestic sources of energy. 3. Diversify sources of energy. 4. Limit negative impact on the environment 5. Engage in international cooperation. These are exactly the correct steps and steps that the U.S. should be undertaking.

<snip>

America and the world will transition from fossil fuels, including oil, to sustainable, renewable sources of energy. We can choose to do it on our timetable or we can be forced to transition by geology. What America needs to do to avoid a really bumpy ride from peak oil, and this will require Presidential leadership, is to develop a program with three attributes: the total commitment of World War II; the technology focus and intensity of the Apollo program to land a man on the moon; and the urgency of the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb.

not market forces govern the allocation of energy."

PART 2: EYES WIDE SHUT
The Politics of Energy
by James J. Puplava

http://www.financialsense.com/series3/part2.html

The Rise of Resource-Based Corporate States

This new, radically altered world is forcing producers and consumers to change loyalties. In a world of tight oil supplies, both producers and consumers are seeking strategic arrangements that secure stable and reliable demand and supply relationships. Consumer nations are becoming anxious over securing supply and as a result are moving away from free-trading oil markets. They are attempting to enhance their energy security by locking in private long-term supply contracts. This heightened insecurity of consuming nations in regard to energy resources is driving domestic and foreign policy decisions.

. . .

Not a week goes by where we don’t see additional evidence that the old world oil order is reversing in favor of a new confederation of producing and large consuming states outside of the West. China and India continue to secure long-term supply contracts with oil exporters Russia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Canada. A complex web of interlocking alliances and ties based on energy is beginning to emerge in what author W. Joseph Stroupe has called the Russian Rubicon (Resources Underwriter-Based Importer-Inclusive Confederation). The confederation Stroupe writes about in his book Russian Rubicon is not a cartel of producing states. Rather it is a multinational confederation of sovereign producing and consuming states cooperating together toward a common goal of energy security. It is a new international political entity that is balanced, self-contained and self-sufficient which operates under complementary symmetry. This new confederation composed of both key producers and key consumers deals within itself for the vital and complementary needs of both producers and consumers.<9> The confederation is informal yet formal in its arrangements through symmetrical bi-lateral agreements between producing and consuming states. There are also new signs of formal agreements in the spheres of the economy, energy, security, politics, geopolitics and military among its member states. <10>

The return of the long-term oil supply contract, which undermines the free oil-trading markets, is only one ominous trend. The other emerging trend is that consumer states, in addition to locking in long-term supply, are also taking equity stakes in the energy industries of producing states. By taking an equity stake in the producing states’ energy industry, they are reinforcing control over their long-term supply contracts that make it difficult for producing states to reverse their policies. This locks up oil supply for the confederation; at the same time, it denies that same oil to the global oil markets.

will never let the government prepare for alternative energy. Even when oil is almost depleted and priced sky high they will continue on. They will squeeze every single cent they can out of the government and the American people.