I wrote this letter on
Mr. Gingrich. I asked for his mailing address via the “contact
me” page on his
web site and received no answer. We are to presume, it seems,
that he is yet
another of the Washington D.C. crowd who simply does not need to
hear the
thoughts of the common people. One wonders how those guys came be
so smart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Mr. Gingrich,
I watched your web video on the oil crisis and was
heartened by your
straight-forward, no-nonsense thoughts about it. However, I think you are
not quite right about what the average American wants to see and
hear from
our leadership. For example, I do not believe the average
man-on-the-street
is interested in punishing the oil speculators - For what? Doing
what
is a perfectly legal activity?
No. We are smarter than that. What we want first is to see
our nation's
leadership bring an immediate end to politicizing the oil
crisis and instead
engage themselves in creating a sensible plan to bring the
country out of this
crisis. In this plan we want four things:
-- We want an all-out national priority effort
to develop a new energy
source which will replace most of our oil use.
-- We want this plan to focus on ending
America's dependence on oil
supplied by its enemies.
-- While we want this plan to increase the oil
available to America, we
want it to also reduce our need for that oil.
-- And, most importantly, we want a national
leadership to emerge which
will keep the nation on-track for the many years it will take to attain
these goals.
During my career I met many executives who enjoyed great responsibility and authority but only a few of them were actually effective at getting things done.
One thing those few had in common was their unfailing
belief in solving the
problem first and dealing with the political fallout later.
Congress is showing no
leadership whatsoever as they continue to follow exactly the
opposite path
seeking a solution to the oil crisis. This is of great concern to
those of us who
consider ourselves to be American patriots because they are
leading us nowhere.
If you think you are the person who can lead us, then I
give you, right here in this
letter, a plan to get you started.
Releasing one-third of the strategic oil reserves would no doubt “punish
the speculators” as your video states but the reduction in oil
prices would be
brief. Remember - The
greatest threat from a pick-pocket in ancient
was to be one of the crowd watching the hanging of a pick-pocket.
Similarly,
there would be a new batch of oil speculators arise with an idea
of how to get
rich by buying oil at the temporarily low price caused by the
release from the strategic oil
reserves.
As with
black-marketeering, there are other ways to put a stop to oil price
speculation if we want to enact the laws to do it.
Like you, I
believe there is much oil yet to be found in our backyard and
whether it be crude, sand, shale or liquefied coal I'm for going
after it with a
vengeance. However, we must be prepared to deal with a nasty
possibility.
It will take precious time for Congress to act and an even
greater time to
develop the new fields and increase our refining capability. In
the meantime
the price of oil will continue to rise and the health of our
national economy
will continue to fall, possibly into a depression. This would be
an eventuality
for which the Muslim terrorists would cheer.
During the
time before any new domestic oil comes on line these evil
forces and others like them might decide to worsen our problems
by doing
something to accelerate the rise in the price of oil; a series of
terrorist's bombs
might be dropped on the Saudi oil fields, perhaps, or Iran might
invade Iraq
to force us into a retaliation just to give them an excuse to cut
us off from
their oil.
I
would council a less inflammatory, more conciliatory strategy which
would involve the rest of the world's advanced nations. In other
words, if the
terrorists messed with oil supplies they would be messing with
the rest of the
world, not just America.
First,
our legislators should devise a way to ban oil speculation in the
to ban it worldwide.
Then
by executive order, on the basis that the Nation is in grave economic
danger, the President should make all
This would be followed by the IRS initiating a tax structure
designed to push
the oil companies into using 100% of their excess profits
(measured from
two-dollar gasoline) for new drilling and refining activities.
Next,
the
that we are going after new oil to benefit the whole world. We
would proclaim
that oil is a far more dangerously limited resource than we had
heretofore
believed and, if we and the rest of the world continue
business-as-usual, even
the oil-rich countries will find their oil exhausted before the
world finds an
energy substitute.
The President would announce that the
develop enough new oil to help keep all the ships of state of the
world afloat
until we and all other nations can become oil-independent. He
would announce
that it will take possibly twenty years to accomplish the first
phase of this, and
then only if the United States puts this plan on a
"Manhattan Project" priority,
which he would fully intend to do.
The
President would use the strategic oil reserve as necessary to help keep
some lid on prices during this next twenty years by releasing
just enough from
time to time.
The
President and Congress would then initiate a plan to make nuclear
fusion a reality and he would call on the rest of the
world's government
sponsored development laboratories (particularly those of
Germany
happen. (All work on windmills, water-wave generators, solar
power,
geo-thermal power, corn-power, weed-power. etc., etc. would be
banned if
I were king for a day! The are nothing but red herrings diverting
us from the goal. )
At the same
time the nation's electric companies would be charged by
Congress, with substantial tax benefits and monetary grants, to
initiate
the construction of many new nuclear fission power plants in the
President would pressure the rest of the western world's
leadership to do the
same in their countries.
As a gesture of worldly “goodwill” the U.S. would lead a joint effort
with the rest of the Western nations to build new nuclear fission
power plants
in every significant nation of the Middle East which wants one and the
incentive would be that their needed nuclear fuel would be
provided free of
charge by the Western nations. They would thereby have no reason
to refine
their own uranium.
The U.S. government would recognize, and we would ask all
other nations
to recognize, that we only have enough “oil-time” to
eliminate one other
energy-consuming area, the gasoline powered commuter automobile.
Not trucks, not busses, not ships, not airplanes, just
commuter cars. The
elimination of just this one area worldwide would reduce oil
consumption
enough to extend our “oil-time” beyond the next twenty years.
We will need
this additional time for the world to make itself ready for the
eventual
unavailability of all oil. Not the least of which must be the
achievement of
nuclear fusion power generation which probably will take much
longer than
twenty years.
The commuter
car of choice would be the all-electric car because the
technology is ready and, unlike fuel-cells, the raw materials can be
made
available in the required massive quantities. Only the gearing up
of the auto
industries and building the necessary support infrastructure is
required for
the all-electric car.
This car
would have no gasoline engine whatsoever; it would be plugged
in at home so as to get one to work in the morning at good speed
and plugged
in again at work to get back home in the evening. This would
require a huge
increase in available electrical energy which would come, of
course, from the
nuclear fission power plants we would have built. However, to
reduce the need
for gasoline driven "touring" cars there would have to
be major strides made in
our inter-city mass transit system. (I know. What system?)
Well Newt, that's basic idea of the plan which I would like the
States to follow. I know you will
find something in it which you can support
and, I hope, to which you will give visibility on your web site.
Yours sincerely,
Lynn
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