By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
September 22, 2000
The Washington Post reports today that:
"Vice President Gore moved the price of oil to the center of the presidential campaign today, urging President Clinton to dip into the nation's emergency petroleum stock to make home heating oil cheaper before winter - and before Election Day."…Rising oil prices resulted in widespread anger among motorists this summer. Analysts said Gore's proposal could help head off a similar revolt in the Northeast, his strongest region, as furnaces click on for the fall.
"You should never have to depend on the goodwill of the big oil companies just to heat your home or drive down the highway," Gore said, speaking in front of the 34-foot-high storage tanks of a family-owned oil company on the Patuxent River. "We cannot just wait around. Families need action now."
This is the very same Al Gore who PROPOSED higher oil prices, including a BTU tax on heating oil, in order to force Americans to use less oil for heating their homes and operating their cars, trucks and farm tractors. He said in his book, which was published in 1992, on page 173:
"Almost every poll shows Americans decisively rejecting higher taxes on fossil fuels, even though that proposal is one of the logical first steps in changing our policies in a manner consistent with a more responsible approach to the environment."
In 1989 and 1990, as a Senator, it was Al Gore who LED the fight to stop oil exploration and production in Alaska. In fact, exactly eleven years ago today, on September 22, 1989 he said on the floor of the Senate:
"Many are concerned that with the coming shortages of many minerals, there will inevitably be pressure to move toward the exploration and exploitation of minerals in Antarctica. I think it would be a mistake. I do not think there is any way for anyone to give reasonable assurances that mineral exploitation in Antarctica would not at this time be accompanied by severe problems for the environment.
In his book, and his speeches, Al Gore become known for his great concern, and supposed expertise, about the phenomenon he said in his book Earth in Balance was "the ozone hole caused by CFCs suddenly appeared over Antarctic in 1987."
In that September 1989 speech on the floor of the Senate Al Gore connected his newly discovered ozone problem with oil tankers. He said:
"Mr. President, if the environment of the entire world has suffered this kind of impact, which is ongoing because of the unique characteristics of Antarctica, it seems ever more obvious why the world should take special care to prevent thoughtless exploitation of Antarctica in a way that damages the resources there and damages the environment in Antarctica and around the continent of Antarctica."Mr. President, for that reason I am calling on my colleagues to look closely at the dynamics of this issue. It is a serious thing to reject the work of 9 years in drafting this convention, but, for reasons that I will spell out in some detail at the beginning of this coming week, I believe that we should in fact move toward a much more comprehensive measure protecting Antarctica and declaring that this time we are going to do it differently because, after all, not only is Antarctica fragile and not only would there be great risk in bringing oil tankers into the most hostile environment in the world, but also what would happen to the oil once it was removed from Antarctica? It would be burned and turned into more greenhouse gases, so the urgency of getting the fossil fuel deposit from this part of the world, it seems to me, to be far less than many have asserted."
Only, as recently admitted by one of the scientists he quoted in his book, his notion of the "thinning" ozone layer "caused by CFCs" just wasn't accurate.
Those who actually understood the Antartica told a very different, and almost totally unreported story. In 1995, Forrest M. Mims III, wrote in an article entitled "The Ozone Hole: Sorting Out the Facts in "Currents in Science, Technology, & Society in which he observed: (http://www.arn.org/currpage/31main.htm):
"In recent years, much attention has been given to the "ozone hole" over Antarctica. This phenomenon is observed each year in October during the Antarctic spring. After several weeks, the Antarctic vortex, a whirling weather system that encircles and isolates the South Pole during winter, breaks up and ozone levels rapidly rise."In meterological terms, the Antarctic ozone hole is a significant ozone minimum and not a literal "hole" through the entire ozone layer. Nevertheless, for a brief time ozone levels within the hole can plummet to 100 DU. (Normal levels are about 300 DU.) At the same time, the ozone levels in a broad belt encircling the hole are the highest on earth.
"Because various scientific studies have concluded that the ozone hole is caused in part by chlorine believed to come from manufactured chemicals-especially CFCs-some scientists, politicians, and government agencies have sounded an alarm about the prospect of severe ozone depletion leading to ozone holes elsewhere. In a widely publicized statement two years ago, then-Senator Albert Gore raised the possibility that an ozone hole might appear over Kennebunkport, Maine. (Note: Home of then President George Bush.)Although a prominent NASA scientist discounted this possibility, other scientists held a press conference to express alarm about possible serious ozone depletion over the Arctic. Developments like these led to many scary reports in the media.
"Fortunately, the Antarctic hole is a phenomenon preceded by the very cold temperatures and darkness found inside the winter Antarctic vortex, which is much stronger than the Arctic vortex."
What all that means is that Al Gore, based on half-baked, poorly researched science, managed to convince enough of his Democrat counterparts in the Senate that they passed laws "protecting" a totally natural phenomenon. That "protection" sharply cut the amount of oil available from domestic oil production and refining.
Cutting off oil production in the Alaskan oil fields has led America to its present oil crisis. And then he has the nerve to accuse George W. Bush of "causing" the oil crisis. Bush was, in fact, basically put out of the oil business, as were thousands of other Americans, by the Gore Ozone Scare.
On Nightline last night we learned that 75% of the now $5 per gallon of gas in Britain was taxes. How did they get that high? The Environmentalists of Britain have adopted many of Al Gore's notion that "the polluter," meaning who ever owns a car, or produces garbage, etc., should be required to pay higher taxes.
In his concept of a "Global Marshall Plan" outlined in his book, Gore urged that "We create an Environmental Security Trust Fund, with payments into the Fund based on the Amount of CO2 put into the atmosphere. Production of gasoline, heating oil and other oil-based fuels, coal, natural gas and electricity generated from fossil fuels would trigger incremental payments of the CO2 tax according to the carbon content of the fuels produced."
This was the philosophy behind his BTU tax. Higher oil and gas prices are being put on hold by his interest in getting the votes of the poor who might not be able to pay for heating fuel this winter. His sudden interest in the well-being of those who rely on fossil fuels for their survival will evaporate on election day.
After more than a decade of campaigning for higher oil prices and pursuing policies that were designed to get you out of your automobile, Al Gore pretended "concern" for those who may be too poor to purchase the gasoline they need to run their farms or get to work is not a bit convincing.
Additional background: Al Gore vs. The Automobile
Eliminating the Internal Combustion Engine
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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