Our Energy Plan is our National Security

What does a smiling Rafsanjani of Iran, nukes, asymmetric warfare, and the price of gas in China have to do with the President’s Energy Plan? But before you ponder that, Hillary Clinton, who still has not indicated whether she will run for President, blasts Bush for not being green enough. Let's just cut the crap, the Energy Plan is our National Security. We should endorse the President’s Energy Plan because the next war will be over the price of oil in Iran, China, India or Russia. Failing to do so will weaken our geopolitical position should war erupt between those states.

In the winter of 1992, while a cadet in military school, I read a New York Times article endorsed by bipartisan defense public policy institute regarding our war doctrine. In contrast to the Cold War, recall that the Berlin Wall fell less than three years ago, our new war objective stated that the United States would maintain a posture that allowed for the successful prosecution of two wars one possibly on the Korean peninsula and another in Iraq. Asymmetric warfare and rogue states had been the key buzz word back then. Little did I know that eleven years later, I would find myself fighting yesterday’s war as a sergeant.

Even in 1992, the key words and all the trappings of conventional wisdom resonated with me about as much as President George H.W. Bush’s defense cuts with the kinder and gentler Congressional democrats of his term. The pundits wanted to say goodbye to love of Reagan Era heavy tank divisions and 600 ship navies seeing World War II style confrontations the stuff that lived only on the celluloid screens of the AMC.

What were they thinking? Did they think that wars would no longer be fought over control over natural resources just as new economy advocates touted the end of the business cycle? Protracted evenly matched opponents would need to divide the support of the “neutrals” within the international community for loans, materials and intelligence, thus precluding either side from using nuclear weapons unless the losing side faced Hitlerian Gotterdammerung. The possibility of symmetric warfare, whether it is the Blitzkrieg or the Iran-Iraq war, waits for the spotlight like a darkened actor backstage rehearsing his lines and watching for his cue.

Imperial Japan bombed Pearl Harbor for oil. The Japanese needed petroleum for their tanks and aircraft to subjugate China. In 1937, the Japanese feared that the new man of China, General Chiang Kai Shek would in two years have forty SS trained mechanized divisions and oust all foreigners out of China forever. Defensive of its interests and covetous for new resources, Japan tried unsuccessfully to induce China to join the Axis in an anti-Communist pact with ambitions into Siberia. When China declined, Japan invaded North China. When the Japanese onslaught stalled and a favorable peace settlement could not be found, Japan needed more rubber and oil for final victory. The Dutch, who held possessions in present day Indonesia, refused. Since the Anglo-Americans stood in the way the Japanese to get to the Dutch, the Japanese, like Osama bin Laden, decided to kill 2,000 Americans in a sneak attack perfectly legal by their standards of war. Then they seized Indonesia.

The three great consumers of oil – China (4.9 million barrels of oil per day 2002E), Russia (2.23 million barrels of oil per day 2002E) and India (2.0 million barrels of oil per day 2002E) – are not just global competitors like England (1.7 million barrels of oil per day 2002E) and Germany (2.7 million barrels of oil per day 2002E). China and India amount for 37 percent of the world’s population. These nuclear states lead civilizations with thousands of years of history competing for influence. They wish to topple the Pax Americana in order to establish a multi-polar world. Then can they establish regional dominance – Empires.

Keith Bradshear of “The New York Times,” in his February 18, 2005 article writes: “As Chinese and Indian companies venture into countries like Sudan, where risk-averse multinationals have hesitated to enter, questions are being raised in the industry about whether state-owned companies are accurately judging the risks to their own investments.”

Originally put forward by Russia’s Asia-centric ex-Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, this Axis of Oil – Russia, China, India and Iran would bound together by extensive military agreements and pipeline networks. The first steps to solidify such an axis emerged when China and India signed multibillion-dollar gas and energy deals with Russia, which is the largest arms supplier to both countries, and with ex-Soviet Central Asian republics such as Kazakhstan.

Think perhaps I am being a little too dire? Perhaps I should be more Warren Buffet and less Darth Vader. Sharon Hurst, a Beijing-based executive with ConocoPhillips, the largest refiner in the United States, states, “Western investment is helping Chinese oil companies morph into world-class players.” [Think Loral Technologies, the Clinton Commerce Department, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and missile technology.] Optimists point out that China and India have opened their domestic oil industries—previously considered strategic and off limits to foreign and private investors. Both nations seek companies such as ExxonMobil, which owns a 19 percent stake in China’s giant Sinopec company, not just for their capital but also for their refining and marketing capabilities. For example, ExxonMobil helped Sinopec establish more than 500 gas stations and build at least two refineries.

Nonetheless, Jehangir Pocha, a journalist for “In These Times” points out that “more than 4.5 million new vehicles are expected to hit Chinese roads this year alone.”

As of January 31, 2005, China is now the world’s largest oil importer after the United States, consuming about 6.5 million barrels of oil a day. Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley predicts this figure will double by 2020.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, India, the world’s second-fastest growing economy after China, now consumes about 2.2 million barrels a day—about the same as South Korea—and this is expected to rise to 5.3 million barrels a day by 2025.

The Chinese and Indians are amassing a Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 175 million and 25 million reserve respectively, similar to our 700 million barrel strategic reserve. Both countries are amassing large navies to protect their fleets of oil tankers.

The world only produces barely 1 million barrels over the global consumption rate of 81 million barrels a day.

Michael Rothman, a senior energy analyst at Merrill Lynch, said rising oil prices were not so much a result of the Iraq war or political instability in Venezuela and Sudan, but of extensive “hoarding.” If the Chinese and Indians continue to demand oil domestically and for strategic purchases such demand could easily outstrip supply pushing emerging economies to desperation levels.

Desperation goes hand in hand with competition. That said, we witness the invisible hand of commerce make strange sleeping arrangements. The U.S. leaned heavily on Panama to deny China unrestricted access to the canal only to be outflanked by China who then secured a pipeline through Columbia to pick up Venezuelan of crude. [Imagine the photo op that must have inspired between Hugo Chavez and Uncle Fidel.] The Chinese and now India, in exchange for lucrative oil contracts to provide the Islamist government of Sudan with MiG fighters and arms. The Sudanese Muslims have killed over 2 million Christians and displaced 3 million more in order to seize the mineral rich lands in the south. China and India have similar arrangements with Vietnam, Myanmar and Iran.

China and India have 25-year gas and oil deals valued at between $150 and $200 billion with Iran - a country Washington is trying to isolate. Iran and India conducted their first-ever joint naval exercises last September. India is modernizing Iran’s aging Russian-built Kilo-class submarines and MiG fighters.

Both China and India have also tried to thwart Western attempts to curtail Russian assisted Iran’s nuclear program. When the United States threatened to haul Iran before the U.N. Security Council, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing flew to Tehran last November and announced that China would oppose any such effort. In response, the State Department penalized China for their support of Iran’s ballistic missile program.

This is the policy of the Axis of Oil. What is our policy?

The short answer is that we don’t have a policy.

Even though the plan President Bush proposed in 2001 has passed the House twice in his first time and has passed the House yet again in his first term, the Senate Democrats who have held up passage, are silent on the facts that over the next twenty years our great nation will consume more oil (up 33.3%), natural gas (up 50%) and electricity (up 45%). The Senate Democrats have no ideas to satiate that need even though we produce 39% less oil than we did in 1979. The Senate Democrats speak Bush’s proposal not increasing the CAFÉ standards and though they will not go on record, their surrogates hyperventilate about the SUV. And they whine about ANWAR. Only in America, do we have the luxury to actively impede oil exploration. Every where else, particularly in the Sudan, people are literally dying to explore for more oil - astonishing.

``Congress needs to complete an energy bill. America is growing more dependent on foreign oil, and that is driving up the price of gasoline across the country,'' President Bush said in radio address this weekend.

Bush’s Energy Plan would use energy more wisely and repair oil infrastructure. Even the President’s opponents, such as Robert Ebel, an energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, concede the need for new refineries.

"Today our energy needs are growing faster than our domestic sources are able to provide," Bush said. "Demand for electricity has grown more than 176 percent in the past decade, while our transmission ability lags behind. And we continue to import more than one-half of our domestic oil supply. . . . In some parts of the country, our transmission lines and pipelines are decades older than the homes and businesses they supply," he said. "Many of them are increasingly vulnerable to events that can interrupt and shut down power in entire regions of the country."

The Bush plan would build 1,300 to 1,900 new Electric Plants and more Nuclear Power facilities, replace and an antiquated power grid with modern ones and lay over 225,000 miles in transmission lines, 38,000 new pipelines and build more refineries on abandoned military bases. Bush has already leaned on our allies the Saudis to pump more oil and they have. The problem America faces is capacity. We just don't have the facilities to refine oil because no new refineries have been built in a generation.

The Bush plan expands of a variety of energy sources, including wind, ethanol, coal and nuclear power. In concessions to environmentalists, his plan promotes the use of bio-diesel and ethanol.

"Congress should provide tax credits for renewable power sources such as wind, solar and landfill gas," Bush said. "We must also continue our clean coal technology projects so that we can use the plentiful source of coal in an environmentally friendly way. The bill must also support pollution-free cars and trucks, powered by hydrogen fuel cells instead of gasoline."

Not bad for a guy not green enough by Hillary's standards.

But for most of Bush critics’ $500 million in tax incentives for renewable energy and efficiency programs is not good enough. In May 1, 2005 editorial, the Contra Coasta Times applauded the “positive language in the energy legislation offering credits for buyers of hybrid cars” but derided the Administration for not increasing CAFÉ standards.

In recent years, spin doctors, like Arianna Huffington, try to bring out some equivalency to the type of car you drive versus the human toll in Iraq. Not since the Lewinsky Kool Aid drinkers have I ever heard such vile disgusting of drivel.

It is a luxury to drive a car in the world I agree. But it is a luxury that is requisite to the American lifestyle. Any further degradation of that lifestyle, and make no mistake raising the CAFÉ standard would degrade that lifestyle, is not what I fought for and it is something I will not tolerate.

The fact is with or without the CAFÉ standards, the Bush plan is the best plan and the only viable plan to answer our energy needs for the next twenty years. It’s pretty bad when you have to rename your energy bill - a jobs bill - to get it passed in the Senate.

Senate Leader First has set aside the first two weeks in June to debate the Energy Bill. Urge the Senate to pass the Energy Bill. I have enclosed the names and contact information of the Senators on the Energy Committee. The Class I designation indicates that they are up for re-election in 2006.

Republicans

Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R - NM) Class II
328 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6621

Larry E. Craig (R - ID) Class II
520 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2752

Craig Thomas (R - WY) Class I
307 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6441

Lamar Alexander (R - TN) Class II
302 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4944

Lisa Murkowski (R - AK) Class III
709 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6665

Richard Burr (R - NC) Class III
217 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3154


Mel Martinez (R - FL) Class III
317 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3041

James M. Talent R - MO) Class I
493 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6154

Conrad Burns (R - MT) Class I
187 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2644

George Allen (R - VA) Class I
204 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4024

Gordon Smith R - OR) Class II
404 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3753

Jim Bunning (R - KY) Class III
316 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4343

Democrats
Jeff Bingaman (D - NM) Class I
703 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-5521

Daniel K. Akaka (D - HI) Class I
141 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6361


Byron L. Dorgan (D - ND) Class III
322 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2551
E-mail: senator@dorgan.senate.gov


Ron Wyden (D - OR) Class III
230 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-5244

Tim Johnson (D - SD) Class II
136 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-5842

Mary L. Landrieu (D - LA) Class II
724 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-5824

Dianne Feinstein (D - CA) Class I
331 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3841

Maria Cantwell (D - WA) Class I
717 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3441

Jon S. Corzine (D - NJ) Class I
502 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4744

Ken Salazar (D - CO) Class III
702 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-5852

The next two weeks will decide whether or not, we see the next twenty years on firmer footing or be forced to fight an unknown enemy in another World War at a time and place not of our choosing. But who knows, by then Hillary will be President. With Presidents named Clinton, who needs Quisling?