Do We Need “Alternative Energy” Because of the Oil Spill?

As crude oil continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico, the politicians are waving the “green energy” shirt again. The logical chain goes as such: (1) crude oil is messy and dirty, especially when it is spilled into water; (2) “green” fuels and energy methods are clean and don’t result in oil spills; (3) therefore, the government should force us to use “green energy.” Throw global warming into the pot, and you have yet another round of government intervention into the energy business, as though there was not “enough” intervention already. To make matters worse, the new plan from President Obama would make gasoline prohibitively expensive, and gasoline price increases no doubt would trigger yet more condemnation of oil and lead to more demands that the government “nationalize” the industry. In reality, government intervention played an important role in the spill’s happening in the first place. As Judge Andrew Napolitano points out, BP originally sought to drill in 500 feet of water, a plan approved by the state of Louisiana but then nixed by the federal government, which demanded the company drill in 5,000 feet depths instead. Judge Napolitano writes: Never mind that no oil company had ever cleaned up a broken well at that depth and never mind that the feds had never monitored a broken well at that depth and never mind that BP only needed to set aside $75 million in case something went wrong. The feds trumped BP’s engineers and the feds trumped the wishes of the folks who live along the Gulf Coast and the feds decided where this oil well would be drilled....more