Letter to My Congressman and Senator

Dear Rep Nugent:

Thank you for your response regarding my recommendation to support a Natural Gas bill. I understand your position of not wanting to support further corporate subsidies or additional tax incentives, however, I respectfully disagree. Depending on the price of oil, we are currently importing approximately $1 billion/day of foreign oil. Thus, in my opinion, we are therefore exporting $1 billion/day and we continue to subsidize the likes of Hugo Chavez and Venezuela, King Abdullah and Saudi Arabia and all other dictatorships, monarchies and terrorists around the world. I would think we would be better served to support our own corporations rather than those that hate us and/or those that won't even allow women to drive cars and support other violations of human rights and equality.

Regarding corporate energy subsidies, I fully agree that we should immediately cease supporting subsidies and tax credits for the Ethanol industry. Ethanol is a disaster and although it may somewhat reduce our dependence on foreign oil, it is inefficient, costs more to make than it's worth, increases pollution more than regular gasoline, causes lower gas mileage and causes increased fuel prices for consumers. If Congress announced a Natural Gas energy plan, the price of oil would immediately drop, just based on the announcement. I would anticipate a drop of $25-$50/bbl within 6 months. This would stimulate consumer spending immediately. I also agree we should stop subsidizing big oil. As much as big oil continually say they are not directly involved in setting the price of oil, this is nonsense. Big oil profits are absolutely directly proportional to the price of oil and big oil is probably one of the most destructive forces to our 70% consumer-spending based economy. If the folks are spending more money at the gas pump, they're spending less on everything else. Although big oil will probably be the beneficiary of CNG as a fuel, at least it will dramatically reduce the cost of fuel to consumers, significantly aid in driving consumer spending to other areas of the economy that are suffering, be beneficial to the environment and could possibly totally eliminate our reliance on all foreign oil. Plus it keeps the money here in the USA rather than exporting it abroad as we do now with importing oil. Keep in mind, we supposedly have a 100 year supply of natural gas in this country and I've yet to hear of any natural gas spills damaging the environment like an oil spill. How could the environmentalists debate that? In the meantime the Dept of Energy has been around since the Carter administration and we still don't have a national energy strategy or policy. This is absurd. Why don't we just eliminate the Dept of Energy and use those funds toward a CNG program?

I also support expanding domestic drilling for oil and more use of clean coal while we're getting our national energy strategy in order. It's no secret that Cuba has partnered with China to drill for oil off the coast of our beautiful State of Florida, yet we can't. These communist countries will benefit at our expense. How safe does anyone think it will be having China drilling for oil off of our coast? The answer is obvious. They could care less if they destroy our beaches and local economies that rely on fishing and tourism. I doubt there is much we can do to prevent this, but perhaps it's time we opened up relations with Cuba so we can at least provide American technology and safety measures to potentially prevent an environmental catastrophe. It would be even better if we could eliminate China and partner with Cuba ourselves. Thus we could benefit financially as well as minimize any potential environmental disaster. Castro will be dead and irrelevant soon. We're already softening our relations with Cuba. Why not try to get involved in this oil drilling project? It makes financial and environmental sense.

Regarding the immediate creation of American jobs, I believe there are two major ways of creating jobs in the short term. One is to push hard on getting a good Natural Gas bill passed by Congress. This would create an entire new industry in this country, which is something we desperately need. Good paying jobs would be created to retrofit all service stations to provide CNG, jobs to retrofit existing gas and diesel burning vehicles to CNG (cost permitting), jobs to create a CNG transportation infrastructure (pipelines, etc.), more jobs would be created by expanding the required manufacturing of the components required to make this all happen, ie: pumps, valves, tanks, pipes, etc., and lastly, more jobs to find and drill for natural gas and possibly more jobs to manufacture new CNG powered vehicles. At some point in time we would cease manufacturing and importing non-CNG powered vehicles.

The second major way of immediately creating good paying jobs in this country is to get the existing House and Senate Patent bills merged and passed by Congress immediately. This, in my opinion, would shake loose some of the $ trillions of dollars sitting on the sidelines waiting to be invested and put people to work. It would also create more products and intellectual property to export to other countries. All good things for America and achievable in the short term.

The GOP needs to lead in the creation of jobs in this country if we are to take over the White House, the Senate and add additional members to the House in 2012. It would be nice to have super majorities in both houses. In addition to getting a Balanced Budget Amendment passed and get it out to the states for approval, we all know that creating more taxpayers and creating more consumer spending is the only way to grow our way out of this mess we're in. Talking about bringing lost jobs back to America is a waste of time. Although it's a good long-term goal, it's not going to happen until it's cost effective, meaning until the middle class wages of China and other emerging countries are somewhat near parity with the USA. That could take decades. It's a good talking point, but not realistic in the short term.

Lastly, I can't stress enough that the only way to get our economy rolling again is by increasing consumer spending, something I rarely hear anyone talk about. I support Cut, Cap and Balance and other measures to get our financial house in order. I support the dire need to reform Medicare and Medicaid and reduce and eliminate fraud. I support reforming Social Security, but I don't believe it is a major problem to make some reasonable adjustments to make it solvent beyond 2036. I agree and support with all of that. But the major issue to grow the economy is consumer spending. It represents 70-75% of our economy. The only way to increase consumer spending is to get more money into the pockets of consumers. In the recent past, consumers were spending and the economy was rolling along just fine. However, it was all based on bogus, fantasy equity in homes. The crash of the housing market, which continues today, will not recover for many years. All of the construction jobs and other housing related jobs, like real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, bankers, etc., are gone. In my opinion it will take at least 10-15 years or more to see a positive return to normal in the housing market. We are in the middle of our first lost decade. Unless something is done to create more consumer spending, we'll have more than one lost decade. We need to create new industries and promote American innovation and creativity. A good Natural Gas program and speed-up of patent approval will help dramatically. I hope you agree.

I'd like to see a GOP coalition from Florida lead on these issues. As such, I am sending a copy of this correspondence with my ideas to Rep West and Senator Rubio.

Sincerely,

Frank S. Fischer
Spring Hill, FL
DAV - Vietnam

An American Solution to Stagnation

We have to get busy and work for a replacement to Obama and all those stifling energy development. One has to ask, is he and his supporters purposely trying to destroy the country? There is no other explanation for an administration and its cohorts: the Senate majority, and various special interest lobbyists, that have refused to develop energy, which is the life-blood of our civilization. Not just refused to develop it but work actively to shut-down development! 

That's not hyperbole, that's a fact. Energy, or lack thereof, was the prime mover of Japan's attack in 1941. It was the reason Adolph and Co. attempted to take-over Europe. Thanks to our abundant energy resources prior to WW2, and of course our distance from the front, we were able to prevail. Since then America has depleted the "low hanging fruit" - we have used-up much of our easy to get oil. But natural gas (NG/CNG) is abundant and available for the taking right here in the US and Canada.

Energy is what has gotten humans to their current high standard of living.

Without reasonably priced energy America cannot compete on the world industrial stage what with competitors like China, who have no EPA, OSHA, Dept of Energy, etc. to shackle and hinder growth and production. In China, a projects are identified, discussed, and if given the go, construction begins within days. At trip to China is absolutely mind-blowing!

I'm not suggesting that we become the dictatorship/oligarchy the likes of China, but we have to develop energy if we are to preserve our strength and our wealth, or we will fall under the  control this type of government.

Just imagine where we would be if energy was all but free! We have vast resources of natural gas (NG). Many pipelines are already in place; every major city has them supplying most of the population now. Supply pipelines already criss-cross the country. Our government should offer tax incentives, and outright cash, to convert gas stations to CNG stations. Unlike Cash for Clunkers, a costly and complete failure, Cash for Conversion would yield a payoff every time one used their car or truck! Converting the USA rolling stock to CNG would all but shutdown the use of oil for transportation - our biggest use of the product. The money spent on oil, by the way, is essentially exported.... it's a tax without a return in the form of returned government services. A complete loss! Ironically, most of that money goes toward those at odds with our way of life.

The side benefit, and not a minor one, would be the radical drop in the cost of oil. Add to that scenario: the elimination of all taxes on energy. With these two ideas working together suddenly Made in America would have real meaning..... our products would be far more competitive in the world marketplace. In the EU gasoline/diesel/avgas costs range from $8 a gal on up to $16 a gal and more! In terms of costs of industrial production, we could beat them on every front. China uses coal for industry, but still must ship their finished product around the world, not a cheap enterprise. America, manufacturing locally - customers available localyl - both right where goods could be produced with cheap energy; that spells, what Charlie Sheen calls WINNING!

Add to that: American Cost Of Living would drop drastically. Heating/AC, cooking, traveling - all living costs are tied directly to energy costs - all would be a lot less expensive. This would in turn free-up cash for other uses improving American's lives. Farm products too would drop in cost, since fertilizer, tractor fuel, shipping, and refining costs would all drop - drastically.

Think of the jobs that would be created immediately, today, building systems and converting every service station to offer CNG; and every car and truck to run on CNG. This is the kind of government sponsored infrastructure that would actually pay returns back to citizens for generations. 

If energy was a lot less expensive, maybe we could actually afford to get sick! We have to put those in favor of developing NG into the driver's seat.

Cheers, Mel