Obama's ideas for our environment sound nice, but his implementation plan is flawed

I believe the environment is important. Where I differ from many people is that I believe the government's role is simply to place caps on harmful outputs, and then let private industry figure out how to meet that cap (allowing a trading system). You don't have to look any farther than Obama's web page to see some of his misguided implementation plans for solving our energy needs and protecting the environment. He proposes a lot of big ideas, but very little information as to how these ideas would be implemented, other than the first step of collecting more taxes.

- "Obama will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits" [and give the money to citizens].

Huh? Oil companies aren't making any more money than any other type of business (they do more volume). Oil companies do not directly set the price of oil. They are already not investing money to explore and drill for more oil because it does not make financial sense to do so. Obama wants to tax them more? That will just make them invest even less in exploration and drilling. They'll simply deplete their reserves and then turn themselves into a trust.

- Crack down on oil speculation? Swap oil from the strategic petroleum reserve?

Its not clear what Obama plans to do but if you try to obstruct free market trading of something, then there is no real price - similarly to how the govt. is taking over Freddie/Fannie and has restricted short selling on many securities. This practice can obstruct the true value (could be $0).

- Weatherize 1 million low-income homes annually

Why would the government take on a project like this? This is supposed to reduce our dependence on foreign oil? I don't get it. Who is supposed to pay for this, I suppose individuals and businesses making over $250,000?

- Develop & deply clean coal technology

Sounds nice and I think we should pursue it but this technology is a long way from being available.

The reason I like McCain's plan better is that he doesn't promote a specific technology or have any crazy plan to insulate poor people's homes with taxpayer money. His plan is simply to enforce emissions ceilings and setup a carbon trading program. Along with that he wants to reduce the regulatory burden associated with developing new technologies.

As soon as there is a viable system in place for people to make money by reducing carbon emissions, they will do so. This is already starting to happen but a commitment to this system would catalyze developments in "green" technologies much faster than anything the government could do with any amount of money.

The government has no experience in creating things that are commercially viable. It's only goal should be to provide an environment where there is a financial reason for green technology to be developed.




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.