After Exxon Mobil released an earnings report that showed a record quarterly profit of $11.68 billion, Barack Obama released a statement that criticized McCain’s oil company friendly energy policy.
“Perhaps the only thing more outrageous than Exxon Mobil making record profits while Americans are paying record prices at the pump is the fact that Senator McCain has proposed giving them an additional $1.2 billion tax break. While Senator McCain’s plan has succeeded in helping his campaign raise over $1 million from oil and gas company executives and employees just last month, it won’t lower gas prices or end our dangerous dependence on foreign oil,” Obama said.
He also called for a new energy policy, “Instead of an energy policy that reads like an oil-company wish list, it’s time to create a new American energy economy
by investing in alternative energy, creating millions of new jobs, increasing fuel efficiency standards, and ending the tyranny of oil once and for all.”
We all know that John McCain doesn’t have a real energy policy. He has completely embraced the GOP catch phrase “drill more, use less.” The problem is that this slogan doesn’t concern itself with the development of alternative energy, and since the GOP is in the back pocket of the oil companies, so they will never embrace any proposal that could result in decreased profits for Big Oil.
Ask yourself, what kind of party would oppose increasing healthcare for children, but favor billions of dollars in tax breaks for an industry that is reaping record profits, as Republicans have done. McCain’s energy policy which is nothing but a collection of Republican proposals that have been floating around, doesn’t address the real problem, which is oil is a finite resource that is running out. Our national efforts should be directed towards finding an alternative energy source, not protecting profits and providing tax breaks for wealthy corporations.
Any energy plan that does not provide a way to cut back on consumption is going to have only a limited impact on the price of oil. The simplest way to cut back on oil consumption is to implement programs which support remote work environments for office workers around the country (especially in large cities with commuter congestion problems). In the past, home telecommuting was the only option for working remotely.
There are other options these days. Remote Office Centers lease individual offices, internet and phone systems to workers from multiple companies in shared centers located around the city and in the suburbs.
Every worker who is able to work remotely is able to save on all of the fuel that is normally used to get to work and back each day. There is a benefit to workers who need to be onsite, since roadways would be less congested and there would be a lower demand for oil, which would cause the price to drop off.
Working remotely may not sound glamorous or high-tech, but it is hard to argue with the savings. After all, a car that drives 2 miles a day is going to use less gas than even the most efficient hybrid that has to travel 50 miles a day.
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