1. The notion that unions are driving up prices and driving away jobs is ridiculous. In fact, this argument is directly contradicted by his (correct) argument that the dollar is weak against the Euro. Unions in the U.S. are much weaker than unions in Europe, and have much less political clout. If the problem were unions, then jobs would be leaving Europe and coming here. That is not the case.

The very premise that jobs are fleeing the U.S. is also questionable. Certain types of jobs are leaving, while new types are being created. We are losing manufacturing jobs to places with lower wages, and the newer jobs being created tend to be service-sector jobs at lower wages. However, we are also creating new jobs in technology sectors that are better paying jobs. The real problem with jobs is not that we are losing total jobs, but that the mix is changing. Someone who has worked in a Detroit auto plant for thirty years doesn’t care if a new job of equivalent pay has been created in Oregon. Changes in the job market mean uncertainty and the need for retraining. Unfortunately, we do a worse job of retraining here than is done in Europe.

2. His argument about taxes on oil driving up the prices is false. Oil is taxed when it comes out of the ground, as a fixed percentage of the cost. It is then taxed at the pump, but only at a few cents per gallon. Since these rates are fixed, they do not drive the price of oil either up or down (they just make it a bit more expensive than it otherwise would be). Prices are driven primarily by supply and demand, and to a smaller extent by market speculation.

3. His claim that the U.S. has “vast petroleum reserves” is so highly misleading as to be false. We certainly do have large potential reserves. However, the notion that we have huge reserves that will suddenly make us energy independent and solve our energy problems is false. We use so much oil (25% of the world’s total, with only 5% of the world’s population) that it is impossible for us to drill our way to energy independence. Twenty years ago, Great Britain and Norway found so much oil in the North Sea that they suddenly became energy-independent nations. There is no possibility of that happening to the U.S.

In the long term, all the oil finds in the world won’t save us, because the oil will eventually run out, so we will eventually need to rely on some combination of other energy sources. Thus, additional supplies of oil would help us achieve energy independence, but only to the extent that they buy us additional time to develop those other energy sources that will wean us off of oil.

4. The notion that the Democrats are driving up prices is a pile of shit. Offshore drilling has been banned for many years, and one of the biggest proponents of banning offshore drilling was George Bush’s brother, Republican Florida governor Jeb Bush. Generally, offshore drilling is opposed by the states where the drilling would take place, and this is true whether the governors of those states are Democrats or Republicans. There are a number of places where drilling is allowed, but the oil companies haven’t drilled (the State of Alaska recently stripped ExxonMobil of leases in the Beaufort Sea because the company had sat on the leases for years without developing them).

5. It is primarily Democrats who have opposed drilling in ANWR. However, one must bear in mind that neither ANWR nor offshore drilling would make a significant difference in the price of gasoline at the pump. A recent study suggested ANWR would reduce the price by 14 cents per gallon by 2027, not a tremendous drop. In short, this argument that ANWR or offshore drilling would suddenly solve our energy problems is a crock.

The same goes for oil shale development. Oil can be gotten from shale, but it is expensive, highly polluting, and – at the current state of technology – highly inefficient. There are currently more oil share deposits available for development than are actually being developed. Oil shale may be a good alternative in the longer term, but in the near term it won’t make a bit of a difference.

6. Mr. Phillips is correct that part of the oil price increase has been driven by the loss of value of the dollar, especially against the Euro. One Euro used to be worth less than one dollar, but now a Euro is worth around $1.58. Oil is mostly priced in dollars on the international market, so when the dollar goes down, sellers have to charge more just to “stay even.”

However, let’s be clear about where the blame lies for the fall of the dollar’s value. Various factors contribute to the price of currency, but the biggest reason for the fall of the dollar may be the sharp increase in the U.S. national debt – and that increase has been caused almost exclusively by Republican presidents. Those most to blame are Reagan and George W. Bush. Republicans argue for lower taxes, and they do tend to lower taxes, but (despite claims to the contrary), they do not lower government spending. By taxing less but not spending less, they create deficits. Reagan drove up the deficit. Clinton reduced the deficit and even had a surplus the last two years of his Administration (the first surpluses in at least 30 years!). His policies would have created ongoing surpluses after Bush took office, but Bush cut taxes (almost exclusively for wealthier Americans) and sharply increased spending (military, homeland security, and supplemental expenditures for Iraq). As a result, the deficit has ballooned, our government is heavily financed by loans from other nations (mostly Japan and China), and the value of the dollar has gone down. Want to increase the value of the dollar? Then decrease the deficit by increasing taxes and holding steady (or cutting) spending. The most sensible approach from an economic standpoint: increase taxes on oil, which will cut the deficit while decreasing oil demand by increasing the cost of using oil.

7. Mr. Phillips’s name-calling attack about “a blazing liberal like Barrack Hussein Obama or Hillary Clinton” and their “their liberal spending habits” is just polemics. When someone starts using labels like “blazing liberals” and “extreme conservatives,” they are no longer arguing the issues. As politicians go, both Obama and Clinton are fairly centrist, with Obama slightly to the right of Clinton on many issues. The notion of “liberal” spending habits is a joke, since no one in American history and spent money and run up deficits like President Bush.

8. The biggest fallacy of his argument is that he ignores half of the equation. Prices are driven by supply and demand. He rants (incorrectly) about (Democratic) big government policies limiting supply, but the supply hasn’t changed much. What has changed is an increase in global demand for oil, and higher global demand means an increase in local prices. The most sensible policies would be those that decrease demand, such as by encouraging the use of alternative fuels. Thus, high taxes on oil are good, because the higher prices drive down demand, and the tax money stays in the U.S. rather than going to foreign oil suppliers. The Europeans know this, which is why taxes in Europe make gasoline prices $8-$10 per gallon, and European consumers use far less oil than we do. Other policies would also drive down demand. The greatest savings would have been from requiring car companies to increase the miles-per-gallon from their vehicles, but efforts to do this over the past fifteen years were consistently blocked by Republicans, and by Midwestern Democrats who wanted to protect the auto industry. Well, they “protected” it all right, and now GM, Ford and Chrysler are suffering terribly because no one wants to buy the guzzlers that have been the core of their business for the last two decades.

Bush would veto the bill because issue of workplace safety is currently confused with building and fire safety concerning combustible dust. Especially when topics of explosion venting, spark suppression and detection are suppose to be incorporated into the building design of the manufacturing facility that utilizes combustible particulate solids that generate combustible dust.

Additionally, the current OSHA General Duty Clause will achieve enforcement protection through industry standards of care referenced in the NFPA combustible dust codes.

Other states should follow Georgia’s lead in the nation in prevention of future combustible dust incidents with a proactive program that requires all new and existing facilities that have operations involving the manufacturing, processing, and/or handling combustible particulate solids including manufacturing processes that create combustible dust to register with the state by July 1, 2008.