Ever since I began pursuing my History degree, I’ve been fixated on an idea for a new course: it would be a comparative history course, of sorts. Students would study current events alongside relevant historic ones. Obviously, this would be a very difficult course to plan, but the idea is to learn to look at history in a macroscopic manner. What are some of the trends of history? Can we perceive similar trends in today’s world?
These questions point to a relationship between journalism and history and also to one of the reasons I find both topics so interesting. Looking back in history at how contemporary observers viewed the events happening around them fascinates me. I’m also intrigued by catching history in the making. I don’t mean I necessarily want to be involved in it, but I want to be able to say, "Yes, I remember where and when this story began."
I was struck by just this feeling when I read that the House of Representatives passed an energy bill last week that is backed by the Bush Administration. Not that the bill proposes any real far-reaching changes. Indeed, it avoids any overt historic gestures by adhering to the mantra of "ending our reliance on Middle Eastern oil" instead of addressing the problem of oil reliance, in general.
The bill would allot subsidy money for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and open the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to oil companies. At the same time, a proposal to include a clause requiring better fuel efficiency for cars was rejected.
The thrust of the bill seems to be to feed our addiction to oil – a fuel that is finite and does irreversible damage to the ecosystem. Oil is fine, as long as it doesn’t come from OPEC.
As I said, the bill intends no historic gestures. Its passage, however, will set us on a very profound course. Perhaps I, as a student of history, should be thanking our leaders in Washington. We may be witnesses to history. One day, we may look back on this time and ask if it was the moment we might have slowed the depletion of the ozone layer, prevented the decimation of dozens of species in the Alaskan range or avoided a depletion of fuel reserves which led to the creation of brand new political rivalries in the world arena.
The rationale is that domestic oil will free us from suffering the effects of price gouging on the part of OPEC. Has anyone ever seen evidence to support this, though? I haven’t. If we were able to attain a state of only partial reliance on OPEC oil, the difference in price would probably be negligible, at best. Domestic oil prices would likely be inflated by the fact that our sources are not nearly as abundant. Furthermore, oil companies will surely pass the bill for finding and mining new oil fields on to the consumer. Then there’s the matter of the virtue of domestic oil companies. We may find that it’s simply a matter of trading one manipulative cartel for another.
Of course, this dystopia is pure conjecture and probably just nay saying on my part. The benefits of gradually relieving ourselves of the burdens of oil’s limited availability and ecological harm are very pragmatic, though. A more constructive, farsighted plan might be to find new possibilities for domestic oil while simultaneously requiring oil and energy companies to put a certain amount of funding into alternative fuel research. This wouldn’t even mean asking domestic oil companies to loosen their grip on the US economy (which is the real bone of contention, isn’t it?). It’s simply requiring them to start a gradual transition from oil to safer forms of fuel.
This, however, would mean regulating industry. There is nothing to which our current government is more averse than regulation (unless, of course, it's a matter of regulating who you can or can't marry). This is one of the areas in which the reactionary nature of the US government is most obvious. In the early-eighties, President Reagan deregulated a lot of industry in the US – and for good reason. Many of the laws that governed industry were unnecessary and cost-inducing. US industry suffered not from regulation, but micro-management. In the time since, though, the pendulum has swung the other way, to a knee-jerk fear of regulation.
At its best, regulation is a means of guaranteeing the safety of consumers and moving business in directions in which it is needed. This is the role it can play in the matter of energy policy in the US. Now we just need legislators who are brave enough to do some creative legislating.
Furthermore, do we really need to worry that multi-billion dollar companies don't have enough power?
