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I was all set to write a post on Sarah Palin's odd understanding of the "energy crisis" explaining that she understands expensive oil in much the way Shell understands expensive oil, but then I went through my RSS reader and it turns out Matt already made the point:
For most of the world, the current situation of high and rising energy prices is problematic — a big drag on the economy. But it’s not bad everywhere. It’s a cliché at this point to observe that the leaders of states like Iran, Russia, and Venezuela are sitting pretty at the moment. But this principle doesn’t exclusively apply to “bad guy” dictatorships. Business is booming in the pro-American Gulf monarchies. And also in Alaska! What for most of the world is the “problem” of sky-high energy prices is the solution for places like Alaska and Russia that don’t have real economies but are seeing prosperity anyway thanks to skyrocketing oil and gas prices.Looked at in that light, it’s not at all clear why you’d regard an Alaska politician as expert in “the” energy crisis. Alaska politicians never worry that energy may be getting too expensive and think about how to respond. They worry that energy might get too cheap! Alaska politicians don’t develop expertise in energy conservation measures or alternative fuels, they develop expertise in fighting with out-of-state executives about how to divide the profits that come from expensive energy. That’s the energy problem people think about in Alaska, Oklahoma, and parts of Texas and Louisiana but it’s not the energy problem people worry about in Michigan or Ohio or Virginia or Florida or New Mexico or Colorado or most anywhere else in the country.I'd extend this to say that it's probably not the case that Sarah Palin understands the macro energy situation and has just been focusing on how to make money for her state. Rather, she understands how to be a public advocate for drilling in Alaska. It's a peculiar myopia that showed up in last night's speech. "To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies or that terrorists might strike again at the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia or that Venezuela might shut off its oil deliveries, we Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas. And take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska: we’ve got lots of both." That's how a car salesman sounds, not someone who recognizes that the essential instability of a scarce and highly-prized resource requires massive collective action to hasten the development of an effective alternative. Making your public focus the drilling of more oil rather than the effort to get off oil as quickly as possible simply lengthens the dependence, and makes it more likely we'll actually have to face some sort of energy shock. But it's weird to ask Palin, who has spent her governorship shilling for Alaskan crude, to suddenly develop a new opinion on the topic. The guy who tries to sell you a phone at the Verizon store may "know about" cell phones, but you wouldn't want him setting telecommunication policy.
