Cartoon Of the Week

America's current energy policies are just as bad, or worse, than the past administrations'.

The fella in charge now thinks we have "trillions" of barrels of shale oil available to us; a "limitless" supply that will allow us to dominate the world with exports. He has wacked funding for renewable research and development and dropped mileage mandates on new vehicle manufacturing. From regulatory relief that has never occurred to raising the cost of steel with tariffs, on neighboring countries that import American oil and natural gas, no less; we are all over the map with regards to policy. This guy lifted the offshore drilling ban, thought better of it, then exempted the entire East Coast as well as California, Oregon and Washington on the West Coast (?!!); he was going to lower royalty rates in the Gulf of Mexico, then changed his mind when the budget deficit was made public...if you are confused, join the club. He's sanctioned half the producing oil countries in the world, created trade wars with the other half, then last week railed on OPEC for oil prices being $70 dollars a barrel. His jefe at the DOE can only come up with stuff like, "using fossil fuels might prevent sexual assaults" and "not using fossil fuels is immoral."

The shale phenomena in America would not exist but for credit/debt; the public shale oil industry in the US alone owes twice what the total foreign debt of Venezuela is. The US EIA, on the other hand, says Venezuela has 301G BO of proven reserves, the US just 55G BO. In another decade America is going to be in a nine-line bind with regards to hydrocarbons, if we don't all get slimed by the debt bubble first. Somebody needs to forget about the damn votes and start thinking past next week.

Cap it again. Quick!