A Look Back At Oil

With crude oil prices breaking below $38 and gasoline falling to below $1.66 per gallon on a national average, I thought it might be interesting use the old "Internet Way Back Machine" to look back at election year 2000 and the Clinton Administration, Al Gore, Bill Richardson, and oil prices.

First a little background. The year 2000 was a Presidential election year. The then-Vice President, Al Gore, was running against the current Governor of Texas, George W. Bush. The stock markets were trying to recover from a collapse of the Dot-Com bubble in March of 2000. The economy was clearly slipping into recession. Just three years earlier, the United States Senate, at a vote of 95-to-zip, put the kill on any signing of the Kyoto Protocol in order to reduce green house gases. This was done to avoid the almost singularly targeted deterioration of the U.S. economy because Kyoto placed the highest burden on us: the world's heaviest consumer of oil and oil products. The blockage of Kyoto was a result of the passage of Senate Resolution 98 of 2000 and was jointly submitted by Democratic Senator Robert Byrd and the not-hardly-Republican, Senator Chuck Hagel. The Clinton Administration never again pursued the Kyoto Protocol in the nearly remaining 3-1/2 years in office. And, the "Fools on the Hill" (Capitol Hill) never again thought it was important to push for Kyoto until George W. Bush was in office and until their sky-is-falling and Chicken-Little-sounding leader, Al Gore, made a very profitable career out of Global Warming.

In late 2000, oil prices wwere reaching new, historic highs and Bil Clinton and his Administration were worried that high oil prices might dash Mr. Gore's chances for the Presidency. During that time, oil got to a record high of $35 a barrel (just about where we are now). The United States (and the world) was reeling from high gasoline and heating oil prices (Check out this article from July 10,2000 when gasoline hit $2.29 a gallon). From this except from a September 21, 2000 CNN online news article (See Full Story), you can see that the anti-oil Al Gore was all for getting more oil into the market place so he could get elected:

"The Gore plan

Rising fuel prices could threaten a central platform to the Gore campaign -- the strong economy.

In a speech in Hollywood, Md., Gore called for several oil releases of five million barrels each from the strategic reserve and further releases in the future to help stabilize prices. (220K WAV or 220K AIFF)

Gore also recommended instituting a permanent home heating oil reserve in the Northeast to be tapped when oil prices rise, $400 million in emergency funds to help low-income families, and a temporary $600 million tax credit for home heating oil companies to encourage them to increase their supplies.

"We have to take action because American people are being taken advantage of in an unfair way," Gore said in prepared remarks. "OPEC needs to keep its promise, raise production and bring prices down on the world market."

The Energy Department predicts heating costs will be a third higher on average this winter than last, and could go even higher if there is severe weather.

The vice president also took another swipe at the oil companies, claiming they were "profiteering" at the expense of American consumers saddled with $2-a-gallon gasoline during the summer and faced with an expected price shock in the winter heating season.

"You should never have to rely on the good will of the big oil companies to heat your home or drive down the highway," Gore said.

According to Gore's plan, the companies who buy from the reserve should replenish the reserve when prices are cheaper."

Back then, Al was hardly into being "green". He was singularly focused on getting elected. If
anything, he was more "black-oil" then than "green" by calling for OPEC to increase production of oil to feed the needs for the world to spew out more carbon dioxide. No call, then, for the reduction of oil to save the world. Not from Al. Not from Clinton. That enlightenment only came later. On top of it, Bill Richardson was running around the world to jawbone OPEC to increase production and bring prices down. After each trip, he would come to the microphones and say with certainty that OPEC had promised to increase production and oil prices would come down. However, that was always a bunch of political malarkey. So, with no OPEC production increases in sight, the Clinton Administration decided to, for the benefit of Al Gore's campaign, take Al Gore's lead and start releasing oil from the strategic oil reserve. Richardson defended that rationale in an appearance on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer (See transcript) .

My purposes in bring this all up are many. First, I find that Al Gore showed absolutely no interest in Global Warming when he was running for President. Now, only eight, short years later, the world is at the brink of disaster. I guess it was all Bush's fault for not signing onto Kyoto. Then, there's Bill Richardson. As an Energy Secretary under Clinton, he was terrible and totally ineffective. Now, he's Obama's pick for Commerce Secretary. Give me a break! If the Clinton Administration was so "hot" economically, why, then, did we run into a recession at the end of the Clinton years? Why weren't they better negotiators in working with OPEC to keep oil prices down? Why wasn't "green" an issue then as it is now? Now, Obama has all those old-Clinton-istas on his staff. Sounds like the same old Clinton B.S. for at least the next 4 years! Lastly, in the face of high oil prices, nothing was done then, as now, to increase production. It was all forgotten as oil prices fell in the face of the Clinton-recession that was handed to Bush. It seems that we have never learned from our past. My guess is that 8 years from now, high oil prices will again be an issue. Despite all Barack Obama's talk, we won't be anymore oil-independent than we are today. In fact, I'll bet we are even more committed to OPEC in the eight years to come. Just my opinion!