Al Franken talked with the Bemidji Pioneer’s Brad Swenson about his supposed solutions to high gas prices. Frankly, it’s the closest thing I’ve seen to a non-solution solution. Here’s Franken’s solution as reported in the Bemidji Pioneer:

In the short term, Franken would look to a windfall profits tax on Big Oil, with the money going to alternative energy research and in tax breaks to low-income and middle-income families struggling with energy bills, probably by adding more money to the Low-Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program.

He’d also end government subsidies to oil companies. And he wants to study the effect of speculation on oil futures trading, which some say are driving prices up.

There isn’t a self-respecting economist that would take this so-called plan seriously. It does nothing to bring down prices. As for the profits that speculators are making, the only solution is increase oil production.

We didn’t hear a peep about speculators in the late 1990s when approximately 9 million more barrels of oil were produced daily than was consumed. That’s because there wasn’t anything to speculate about. That’s because people knew that the market could absorb a little shock.

The cushion between what’s being used and what’s being produced is 1.5 million barrels a day. That’s a tiny margin. Now there’s a rational explanation for speculators bidding up the prices. Speculators drive prices up anytime Ahmadinejad threatens Israel. Speculators drive prices up anytime dictator Chavez talks about cutting production. Speculators drive prices up anytime a tropical storm develops in the Gulf.

That’s a structurally unstable pattern to maintain. Simply put, that’s a recipe for disaster.

I’ve said before that this answer could’ve come from any Democrat. It’s like they’re wind-up dolls. If you wind up the Franken doll, this is the answer it’s programmed to transmit. If you wind up the Klobuchar doll, you’ll get the same programmed reply. If you wind up the Tinklenberg doll, he’ll spew the same non-solutions solutions as the Klobuchar or Franken dolls said. For that matter, you’d get the same rehearsed lines from the Walz doll, too.

Compare that with Sen. Coleman’s proposed legislation. Here’s what Sen. Coleman told a group of Rochester business leaders:

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman told a group of Rochester businessmen Wednesday that the United States can bring down the price of gasoline by opening up the Outer Continental Shelf to oil exploration as part of a broad mix of energy options.

Coleman, a Republican who is seeking a second term in the U.S. Senate, also predicted that the clamor from a public battered by the soaring price of gasoline, now hovering at $4 a gallon, will lead to a bipartisan consensus on the need to drill off the nation’s coasts.

“Right now, we’re being held hostage to Saudi sheiks and thugs and tyrants like (Venezuelan President Hugo) Chavez and (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad, because we don’t have the options. It’s like fighting a fight with one hand tied behind your back,” Coleman said.

Based on that reporting, I think it’s justifiable to say that Coleman isn’t restricted by the environmentalist lobby’s every demand. I can’t say that about Franken and Klobuchar, Walz and Tinklenberg. They can’t march to their own drummer. They’re restricted to what the environmentalist lobby limits them to.

That’s why I disagree slightly with Sen. Coleman when he says that “$4 a gallon [gas] will lead to a bipartisan consensus on the need to drill off the nation’s coasts.” I think they’d (Democrats) agree that that’s needed in private but I don’t believe that they’d say that in public for fear of having the enironmentalists drying up their campaign contribution spigot.

There’s one last thing I must say before finishing this post: Increasing the tax burden on oil companies won’t bring prices down at the pump. Ending government subsidies to oil companies won’t bring prices down at the pump, either.

Technorati: Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar, Gas Crisis, Windfall Profits Tax, Tim Walz, El Tinklenberg, Environmentalists, Norm Coleman, Oil Exploration, OCS, Election 2008