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T. Boone Pickens has made a fortune in oil.  But he’s an American first and at 80, he’s still passionate and dedicated to helping the U.S. reduce its dependence on foreign oil.  The U.S. gets 70% of its oil from foreign sources today, which is a MAJOR NATIONAL SECURITY RISK.

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With all this talk of oil and energy, I decided to look at the Department of Energy web site to see what it claims to be doing.

Loads of good sounding info, but I decided to go to the budget, as that’s where things usually reveal themselves (follow the money…).

I had no idea how much money the DoE spends, but for ’09 they’ve requested $25 BILLION. Now I’m sure govt lovers and Bush haters will come right out and say “that’s cheaper than Iraq in a week” or whatever, but ignoring that bogus comparison, how much is $25 BILLION?

Well if there’s 300 million men, women, and children in this country, that equates to about $83 EACH, a year.

So, are you happy, that you, your relatives, friends, children, everyone, is paying $83 a year for this fine organization?

Their budget “highlights” document is 113 pages. Yikes.

It says they need that money to “address the growing demand for affordable, clean and reliable energy; preserve our national security; and enable scientific breakthroughs that could have significant impacts on our quality of life and the health of the American people.” Yeah, right. But what do they actually DO?

This is their mission/strategy page: http://www.doe.gov/about/index.htm

On their strategic plan page it says:

By implementing DOE’s Strategic Plan, we are enhancing America’s energy security and sustaining our economic vitality.

EPIC FAIL! Oil is what, $139 today????

So I looked under achievements and awards to see what we might all be getting for $83 a year.

What’s this? Part of their funding went to the human genome project. What has that got to do with energy?

So then I find that their ‘researchers’ helped with research on Climate Change that lead to the IPCC winning the ’07 Nobel Peace Prize. And this is about energy and not weather HOW? This research was done at Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee which has 4200 people and is entirely funded by DoE. Facts about ORNL.

Your tax dollars at work folks.

Sooner or later I guess this topic was going to get mentioned here.

U.S. gas prices have doubled and more in the past couple of years.  It must be hurting millions of people directly (getting to and from work or school for example), and hurting many businesses too, which must deliver things and have things delivered to them and so they must raise prices on everything in turn to make up for it.  It seems the U.S. government has totally distorted how it reports inflation because gasoline and food prices alone are skyrocketing.  Maybe the drop in house prices is counteracting that some!

The politicians are arguing over causes and remedies, but while they do NOTHING, quietly, millions of people are driving a little less, maybe trading in the old clunker or big SUV for something much more efficient, sales of hybrids have skyrocketed, and the American people are being very sensible about all this.

We’ve all heard it’s ‘greedy oil companies’ that are the cause but that really isn’t the case – they process crude oil and refine it, etc., and pass along the costs they must pay.  Now global demand for oil and gasoline has been climbing and is projected to climb a great deal more as prosperity increases in China and India in particular, as they hold almost half the world’s population!  U.S. gasoline consumption has not increased significantly in decades.  Increasing overall demand puts upward pressure on prices if supply is not increased. Read the rest of this entry »