A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on April 28th, 2008 in US News

I got a little suspicious when I heard about this trucker’s strike in DC. What did it for me was the group’s demands:

The truckers are calling on Congress to stop subsidizing big oil companies, release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, end exports of oil from Alaska and regulate transportation brokers and fees paid to truckers.

The truckers said they want Congress to issue an immediate cap on gasoline, diesel and heating oil prices. They are demanding a $2 a gallon cap on all of the fuels.

Oil is at an all-time high. I’ll be the first to say that major oil producers, like Exxon-Mobil, are making predatory profits. But $2 a gallon is stupid – and the idea that gasoline, diesel, and heating oil should be priced exactly the same is stupid, too. The refining process is just not that simple. Plus there are many different grades and blends of gasoline and diesel. Like any manufacturing process, different products have different production costs. Also like any manufacturing process, forcing the manufacturer to sell below profit levels only causes mass unemployment.

I’ll openly admit ignorance to the “transportation brokers and fees”. But I do know that the trucking industry was the primary driving force in de-regulating such things. Take a look:

Both the Teamsters Union and the American Trucking Associations strongly opposed deregulation and successfully headed off efforts to eliminate all economic controls. Supporting deregulation was a coalition of shippers, consumer advocates including Ralph Nader, and liberals such as Senator Edward Kennedy. Probably the most significant factor in forcing Congress to act was that the ICC commissioners appointed by Ford and Carter were bent on deregulating the industry anyway. Either Congress had to act or the ICC would. Congress acted in order to codify some of the commission changes and to limit others.

The Motor Carrier Act (MCA) of 1980 only partially decontrolled trucking. But together with a liberal ICC, it substantially freed the industry. The MCA made it significantly easier for a trucker to secure a certificate of public convenience and necessity. The MCA also required the commission to eliminate most restrictions on commodities that could be carried, on the routes that motor carriers could use, and on the geographical region they could serve. The law authorized truckers to price freely within a “zone of reasonableness,” meaning that truckers could increase or decrease rates from current levels by 15 percent without challenge, and encouraged them to make independent rate filings with even larger price changes.

The unions fought deregulation and these same independent truckers that decry the unions finally won the right to be left at the mercy of the market. Now they’ve had more than enough of that and they want out. There’s a reason “Truckers and Citizens United” isn’t a union strike. Not that the author of the article to which I linked is a fellow at the Hoover Institution – and is pushing the conservative solution that more deregulation will save everything.

The demands get more and more strange. For example, the idea that Alaskan oil is being exported is simply wrong. It isn’t. It does, however, export energy products:

The value of Alaska’s 2006 energy exports decreased 21.4 percent to $263 million. Alaska’s liquefied natural gas exports to Japan rose in value to $160 million; refined petroleum product exports declined to $93 million; and coal exports declined to $10 million.

Oh, and that “refined petroleum product” – it’s jet fuel. In other words, not a single drop of anything usable by truckers is leaving Alaska bound for foreign shores.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was created to buy a little oil every month to protect against supply disruption. It’s functioning just as it should. With unrest in Nigeria, a looming strike in Scotland (that I still haven’t heard reported in the US), and declining production in Mexico, the potential for supply disruption is fairly high. So let’s continue setting aside oil for the day it stops rolling onto our shores. Incidentally, President Bush has been the one refusing to release oil from the SPR – in fact, he won’t even slow the purchase of oil.

Finally, the Democrats have already moved to stop subsidizing the oil companies. I’m sure there are more subsidies – there are tons of subsidies for almost every industry, including trucking. But here’s the thing – if you remove the subsidies from an industry, they charge more for their product. So, strangely enough, they are asking to drive up the price of their own fuel.

Then you get to stuff on the Truckers and Citizens United website like this:

We do not condone any actions other than our rights, written in our Constitution of the U.S.A . Do not give our government reason to use any of their unconstitutional laws.

Normally, I find, when someone starts talking like that, they are about to ask you to break the law. At any rate, they link further on to “Know the Lies”, which says things like “Fear the New World Order” (summary). They also link to Ron Paul, so you know they are just about batshit crazy.

In less desperate times, they would be laughed off the stage as irrelevant, stupid, and crazy. Honestly, is wasting fuel driving around the Capitol and blaring your horn a sensible way to protest high fuel prices? Or does it just mean you’ll have to pay even more? Driving along the New Jersey Turnpike at 20mph – stupid or crazy like a fox? Answer: Only if the fox is batshit crazy, too.

Now, who would pump up a group full of patently false information and then have them grab for national attention while Democrats scrabble to get their stuff in a sock? It seems that the GOP is, at least, being very opportunist about this:

Roll Call’s lead story today looks at the success House Republicans had last week in leading the charge on gas prices: “House Republican leaders kicked off the last week with the ‘Pelosi Premium’ message, seeking to link Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and her fellow Democrats to spiking gas prices. Unlike many similar efforts cooked up by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) that have gone unconnected to the Senate, the upper chamber’s GOP leadership jumped on board. Within days, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and other Republicans went on the floor to lambaste Democrats’ ‘secret common-sense’ plan for gas prices, using campaign promises by Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and other Democrats from 2006 as the hook for an often cheeky attack. … The push proved successful, as Republicans attracted attention for the simultaneous attack.”

I’m not suggesting that Republicans are behind the Truckers and Citizens United group. I’m sure there isn’t a Republican in the bunch (yeah, right). And we all know that the party of Karl Rove (who bugged his own office) and Swiftboat Liars for Smearing Fellow Veterans would never stoop to bending the truth or hiding their responsibility for anything. But it’s kind of odd, isn’t it? Yet not a peep was heard when diesel broke $2 (in Sept. 2004) or $3 (in Sept. 2007) a gallon for the first time. But now, it’s full out protests and Republicans are calling for floor speeches just as the “protest” comes to DC.

Yeah, it’s all just a coincidence. Like the right-wing nutjob weblinks.

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