Opinion-Editorial: Guest View

Big Oil is breaking U.S. economy

Joe Weintraub

We here in the United States are witnessing the greatest transfer of wealth our country has ever known. If this continues, we will have rapidly become the world’s largest debtor nation, beholden to oil producing countries, especially in the Middle East, Africa and South America. Our dollar has fallen, and the euro of Europe has risen to new heights.

Who controls the gasoline distribution business? Big Oil, whose only motivation is profits for their stockholders. Have you been watching television, reading the newspapers or magazines lately? They all seem to be on the same page — telling us that they all are working to help us get new energy sources. We as Americans already know where the new energy sources are; we are naive if we believe anything they say. Our roads are crumbling, bridges and our infrastructure is in terrible condition. Who are these companies?

• BP British petroleum
• Conoco Phillips
• ExxonMobil
• Shell (Dutch owned)
• Citgo (Venezuela owned) with almost 14,000 stations in our country.

T. Boone Pickens has been running his own ads, warning us about our energy dependence on foreign oil, and suggesting ways to help solve this problem-we all need to listen to him.

We now have an ethanol-producing plant in Camilla, ready to run. This will produce E-10 made from corn. You can buy E-10 now here in Albany. They can also produce 100 percent pure ethanol. I know this will rub some folks the wrong way; we are going to have to give up the big gas hogs we are used to driving. Europe did this long ago, and they pay a lot more for fuel then we do. Detroit has not kept up with Japan with fuel-efficient cars, or, for that matter, any other auto producing countries.

Brazil has mandated that their automobiles and light trucks run on fuel made from a combination of gasoline and sugarcane. They have cut their oil consumption over 50 percent.Who makes the engines that run these vehicles? Ford, GM and Chrysler, along with a host of foreign automakers. They also make flex/fuel engines that will run on any combination of ethanol and gasoline. The waste from the processing of sugarcane is used to produce heat and power, last year Brazil saved over $50 billion. They are using only 2 percent of their land area to produce 3-5 crops a year. This takes nothing from the food supply.

They produce almost 7 billion gallons, which represents 33 percent of the world ethanol production. They would like to sell us any amount ethanol we wish to buy. Ask your elected officials in Washington why we can’t buy this product. One word: tariffs ... and tax breaks for Big Oil. We can and are growing many fuel producing crops in the USA, for less money, and greater profits to our farmers

If we want to be oil independent, Detroit must produce vehicles that most Americans can afford, using the technology they already have, and Big Oil must be made to make these fuels available in the stations they own. I know that there are expenses in running special pipelines for the distribution of this type of fuel. They all have the money to do this now. Time is running out! We cannot allow this outpouring of our dollars to continue much longer. Think about it, some of this money is going to countries that support terrorists who are killing our citizens, and ruining our economy.

Joe Weintraub is an Albany resident.