Middle Eastern oil suppliers aren’t so happy with Pres. Bush’s State of the Union admission that America is addicted to their main export. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi is decrying Pres. Bush’s newfound “prejudice against hydrocarbons.” They might not even expand production if that’s the way we feel about it.
“What concerns us is all the talk about not wanting our oil,” Naimi told an audience at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference. “It’s something to take into consideration.”
We’re not worried. We have a plan.
Bush’s strategy calls for substituting 30 percent of the nation’s fuel supply by 2025 with ethanol made from farm waste such as cornstalks and switch grass.
Actually, when I hear Bush talk about limiting imports, I figure that’s Rovespeak for “Goodbye ANWR. Goodbye Florida Gulf coast.”
But our friends in the field, not surprisingly, hear it differently.
His singling out of Middle Eastern oil was striking, rankling Saudi sensibilities.
After all, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf producers accounted for only 17 percent of the nation’s oil imports during the first 11 months of 2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
And the Gulf states could hardly be deemed more volatile than producers like Venezuela, Nigeria or even Russia.
The Saudis don’t really see the problem anyway.
Asked whether he thinks America is addicted to oil, [Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington Prince Turki Al-Faisal] wondered: “Why do you want to live without it?”
Because when the same percentage of Chinese people as Americans decide to drive Hummers we, as a planet, are toast?
