Radio talk shows are dominated by the subject.
Disgruntled employees share their frustrations and concerns over water
cooler conversations. Truckers have staged protests in various parts of
the country. Every motorist on the highway feels the pinch with each fill
up at the local gas station. Our wallets are all a lot lighter because
of rising oil prices, and there's no end in sight. Some analysts are predicting
$2 a gallon gasoline by summer. And home heating oil has more than kept
pace, with a nearly 50 percent increase in heating oil prices.
Who gets hurt the most? The elderly, the
poor, and the minority community in particular. On Valentine's Day, an
NBC commentator speculated that one reason the Dow had dropped 10 percent
was because of the skyrocketing costs of oil. Why? Because high energy
costs affect not only average Americans trying to keep warm in their homes
and keep enough fuel in the gas tank to get to work each day - in fact,
rising energy prices hit businesses just as hard. Think of truckers spending
over $600 more a month for diesel fuel, but still bound by contracts negotiated
well before the oil crunch hit. Some companies have already reduced the
number of trucks delivering our goods and products across America. Airlines
have announced at $20 fuel surcharge on all tickets. Could widespread layoffs
be next?
The Clinton Administration has announced
a laundry list of programs to deal with the heating oil crisis. And I'm
glad they did, because by doing so they acknowledge the fact, contrary
to their stance regarding the controversial Kyoto Protocol Treaty - that
the American economy and standard of living are based almost entirely on
easy access to affordable, reliable energy. Why have oil costs skyrocketed?
Simply because OPEC decided it wasn't making enough money for its oil.
Therefore, OPEC cut production in order to create shortages and increase
prices.
That's where we are today. When energy
prices go up, more and more people are left behind, and African-Americans
and other minorities are hit the hardest. There are fewer jobs and higher
costs. More people have to choose between eating and turning on the heat.
Many of us in this country are fortunate enough not to face that drastic
choice, although we all feel the crunch one way or the other. But for others,
these economic realities border on life and death decisions.
It is for exactly these reasons that I
have spoken and written about my opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty
that would require the United States to cut its carbon emissions nearly
30 percent by 2010. Carbon emissions come from burning home heating coal,
or turning on the lights in your house, or driving your car to work. Under
this treaty, Americans would have to make this sacrifice, but most of the
rest of the world would not. In the U.S., our costs for energy would skyrocket
well beyond even today's prices. Most nations of the world are exempt from
the treaty's stiff energy restrictions.
You don't have to be an economist to understand
what this inequity would mean to the American economy. Businesses would
pack up and move to countries unfettered by the punitive restrictions of
Kyoto. Americans would be left shivering in darkened rooms, wondering if
their jobs would be waiting for them in the morning. A report on the Kyoto
Treaty by the WEFA Group (Formerly Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associated
founded by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania) found
that the treaty would cost my own state of Ohio 120,000 jobs, and a plunge
in the state's economic output of $10 billion annually. Nationally, the
report predicted a loss of 2.4 million jobs and an economic cost of more
than $300 billion a year.
The heating oil crisis we face today is
a wake-up call to all of us. It brings into sharp focus how important reasonably
priced energy is to all our citizens, and reminds us that America's leaders
must be vigilant and wary of foreign political maneuvers that backfire
on our citizens and pose the greatest threat to those who can least afford
it. So the next time you hear some politician expound on how important
the Kyoto Treaty is, and how little it would impact the American economy,
remember the heating oil crisis and the exorbitant gas prices at the pump
of the year 2000.
OPEC and Kyoto, they have a lot in common.
And all of it is bad.
J. Kenneth Blackwell, a former official
in the federal Department of Housing and Urban-Development, was elected
Ohio Secretary of State in 1998. Previously he was Ohio's State Treasurer.
He currently serves as co-chairman of the United States Census Monitoring
Board.