CNN: "We Were Warned." the oil crisis. tonight at 8PM EDT

they did a tease for it, WRT Brazil's coming energy independence

too bad that horrible, bad president Carter didn't try to do anything about it during his term; it's all HIS fault.

WAIT a minute....he did! it was the centerpiece of his legislative agenda

too bad the DEMOCRATS in congress help keep his plans from ever going into effect

the pugs, of course, were totally against it, but the powers that be controlled enough Dems, who had substantial house and senate majorities (61-39), and thus had no trouble thwarting his proposed energy policies:



lots more at the link, which borrows heavily from Walter Karp's indispensable "Liberty Under Siege"

more here, WRT the savaging of Carter by his own party, the Washington elite, and, surprise, the liberal Media!
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/anyday_3.htm

still more, which gives a shortened version of just how BADLY Carter was screwed by his own party, and the media, from day one of his presidency


http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/anyday_2.htm
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/anyday_4.htm

CAFE standards originated with him, and it was his expresseed plan to make the US energy independent! what a concept, eh?

That is the concept of the energy policy we will present on Wednesday. Our national energy plan is based on ten fundamental principles.

The first principle is that we can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the government takes responsibility for it and if the people understand the seriousness of the challenge and are willing to make sacrifices.

The second principle is that healthy economic growth must continue. Only by saving energy can we maintain our standard of living and keep our people at work. An effective conservation program will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

The third principle is that we must protect the environment. Our energy problems have the same cause as our environmental problems -- wasteful use of resources. Conservation helps us solve both at once.

The fourth principle is that we must reduce our vulnerability to potentially devastating embargoes. We can protect ourselves from uncertain supplies by reducing our demand for oil, making the most of our abundant resources such as coal, and developing a strategic petroleum reserve.

The fifth principle is that we must be fair. Our solutions must ask equal sacrifices from every region, every class of people, every interest group. Industry will have to do its part to conserve, just as the consumers will. The energy producers deserve fair treatment, but we will not let the oil companies profiteer.

The sixth principle, and the cornerstone of our policy, is to reduce the demand through conservation. Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts. Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy. Conservation is the only way we can buy a barrel of oil for a few dollars. It costs about $13 to waste it.

The seventh principle is that prices should generally reflect the true replacement costs of energy. We are only cheating ourselves if we make energy artificially cheap and use more than we can really afford.

The eighth principle is that government policies must be predictable and certain. Both consumers and producers need policies they can count on so they can plan ahead. This is one reason I am working with the Congress to create a new Department of Energy, to replace more than 50 different agencies that now have some control over energy.

The ninth principle is that we must conserve the fuels that are scarcest and make the most of those that are more plentiful. We can't continue to use oil and gas for 75 percent of our consumption when they make up seven percent of our domestic reserves. We need to shift to plentiful coal while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy.

The tenth principle is that we must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century.

These ten principles have guided the development of the policy I would describe to you and the Congress on Wednesday.

Our energy plan will also include a number of specific goals, to measure our progress toward a stable energy system.

These are the goals we set for 1985:

--Reduce the annual growth rate in our energy demand to less than two percent.

--Reduce gasoline consumption by ten percent below its current level.

--Cut in half the portion of United States oil which is imported, from a potential level of 16 million barrels to six million barrels a day.

--Establish a strategic petroleum reserve of one billion barrels, more than six months' supply.

--Increase our coal production by about two thirds to more than 1 billion tons a year.

--Insulate 90 percent of American homes and all new buildings.

--Use solar energy in more than two and one-half million houses.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

and what sort of progress have we made in acheiving these goals?

don't make me laugh/vomit

That was 21 years ago. Much could have been done by now.

I always think of Carter wearing sweaters. As soon as Reagan took office, it was as though the need to conserve never existed.

....he had the solar panels installed by Carter removed from the WH roof

The change was shockingly abrupt.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0503-22.htm

In his recent news conference, George Bush Jr. suggested that our nation's "problem" with high gasoline prices was caused by the lack of a national energy policy, and tried to blame it all on Bill Clinton. First, Junior said, "This is a problem that's been a long time in coming. We haven't had an energy policy in this country." This was followed by, "That's exactly what I've been saying to the American people -- 10 years ago if we'd had an energy strategy, we would be able to diversify away from foreign dependence. And -- but we haven't done that. And now we find ourselves in the fix we're in." As is so often the case, Bush was lying.

Consider President Jimmy Carter's April 18, 1977 speech. Since it was given nearly three decades ago, when many of the reporters in Bush's White House were children, it's understandable that they don't remember it. But it's inexcusable that Bush and the mainstream media (which, after all, has the ability to do research) would completely ignore it. It was the speech that established the strategic petroleum reserve, birthed the modern solar power industry, led to the insulation of millions of American homes, and established America's first national energy policy. "With the exception of preventing war," said Jimmy Carter, a man of peace, "this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes."

He added: "It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. "We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren.

"We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us." Carter bluntly pointed out that: "The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation." He called the new energy policy he was proposing, "he 'moral equivalent of war' -- except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy."

http://www.mnforsustain.org/energy_speech_president_carter.htm


just think what might have been; the lives saved in the Middle East, just for starters (and I don't just mean our invading troops, btw)

maybe the earth would have a chance to heal, too

thing is, the earth is going to be here, but how will its face change as a result of what the insatiable greedheads have been doing since we established the oil economy and have relentlessly befouled our nest for the last hundred-plus years?

more from Hartmann, and this piece is right on target for what's happening now. too bad nobody paid ANY attention to Carter when this was happening

wonder why:

Carter's speech drew a strong reaction from the Saudis and the oil industry. Think tanks soon emerged - many whose names are today familiar - to suggest there was really no energy problem, and they led the charge to establish a permanent right-wing media in the US. Within two years, Saudi citizen and oil baron Salem bin Laden's sole US representative, James Bath, would funnel cash into the failing business of the son of the CIA's former director, political up-and-comer George H. W. Bush. With that money from the representative of Osama Bin Laden's half-brother, George Bush Jr. was able to keep afloat his Arbusto ("shrub" in Spanish) Oil Company. And he would be in the pocket of the bin Laden and Saudi interests for the rest of his life. But Carter was incorruptible.


"We can be sure that all the special interest groups in the country will attack the part of this plan that affects them directly," he said. "They will say that sacrifice is fine, as long as other people do it, but that their sacrifice is unreasonable, or unfair, or harmful to the country.* If they succeed, then the burden on the ordinary citizen, who is not organized into an interest group, would be crushing." But that would be wrong. It would be un-American. It would lead to future oil shocks, and the probable death of American soldiers in Middle Eastern oil wars. Instead of caving in to the Saudis and the oil industry, Carter said: "There should be only one test for this program: whether it will help our country."

*"Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis all by itself for sound, comprehensive energy policy.''-- guess who said that?

Silly me, but that whole "lessons learned" concept has saved my personal butt more times than I care to admit. You would think I would not be alone in that respect, but apparently I am.

Thanks for the reminder of where we were then.

MZr7

own energy plank?

Carter seems to be held in pretty high esteem these days, and I would think it'd be SMART POLITICS to dredge this up (sans their own role in sinking the plan, of course), with him getting public exposure in doing so.

they can REMIND the sheeple that a democratic president had a conservation/alternative fuel program at the top of his agenda almost THIRTY YEARS AGO!

and the pugs made FUN of it druing this very regime

attacks, destroying Saudi oil fields

the world descends into chaos

I stopped listening the first time I heard it

Syriana, anyone?

anybody else not trust that guy?

he is an energy independence advocate, give him that

by Olbermann\

Iraq 25%
Immigration 19%

gas prices are now at 11% as most important thing on peoples' minds



what I'd like to know is where gas prices have ranked over the last few years, and how they got so high in public consciousness so fast

the only two subjects ranking above:

David Gregory, who assert that the dems have/had no plan for energy independence

Gregory was absolutely disgusting in his pandering to the WH tonight, going so far as to say the president has nothing to do about gas prices in the short run, then LYING about Clinton doing nothing (casting it in blame-casting terms) when prices went up on his watch

thanks to ramboliberal on another thread for this:

....he sent his energy secretary

to jawbone OPEC countries. And he provided money for poor suffering from "high energy prices" of a whole $30 a barrel - hell we'd be if it was that price now.

<snip>

At a news conference Wednesday, President Clinton announced that he had released $125 million in federal funds to help poor families pay energy bills.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: In the Northeast the impact has been particularly harsh because from the mid-Atlantic states to New England, many families still rely on home heating oil-- a source of heating no longer used in the rest of the country. These families have been especially hard-hit. That is a serious concern, especially because the winter months have been colder this year than in the past few years

GWEN IFILL: Energy Secretary Bill Richardson admitted today the spike in oil prices caught the administration off guard.

BILL RICHARDSON: Everybody was caught napping. Nobody predicted what would happen. But it's not that we didn't have a response. We have a response, but at the same time we don't intervene, the government doesn't intervene in fuel prices and in oil markets.

GWEN IFILL: President Clinton has dispatched Richardson to meet with the leaders of oil- producing nations Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/jan-june00/oil_2...