Well, “Newt” is a four-letter word


There was a time when Newt Gingrich really was the reform-minded conservative he still thinks he is. This week, he went to Iowa and dispelled any doubt that said time has come and gone (Radio Iowa via Jonathon Adler in The Corner):

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich today dismissed the “big city” critics of corn-based ethanol and suggested the biofuels industry will be able to “stand on its own” without federal subsidies once all autos are “flexible-fuel” vehicles.

. . .

Gingrich called for new federal regulations to ensure every vehicle made in the U.S. is able to run on ethanol or methane. Gingrich told reporters after his speech that he does not support extension of the federal tax create for ethanol fuel “beyond this year.”

“If they’re prepared to insist on a flex-fuel vehicle and every car in America’s capable of buying ethanol, I think the industry can stand on its own,” Gingrich said.

Really, Newt? Are you seriously trying to claim that an industry reliant on a national regulation affecting every car in America is one that “can stand on its own”?

That’s economic illiteracy, pure and simple.

Of course, like most people who rail against imported oil, Gingrich also got his facts wrong – a high irony for someone who insisted his critics “use facts that are accurate.”

In particular:

I would rather have the next building boom in Des Moines than in Dubqi (sic: I’m guessing Gingrich said “Dubai” and Radio Iowa’s Kay Henderson committed a typo).

Dubai, Newt? Have you been paying no attention to the international economy?

For starters, the United Arab Emirates (in which Dubai is a large city) actually has sent little oil to the United States; for every barrel of oil we imported from the UAE in 2009, we bought 25 from Saudi Arabia.

In reality, I’m guessing the Saudis were Newt’s real target, but that doesn’t make him any less ignorant.

Newt’s been out of active politics since 1998, so perhaps he didn’t notice (and, to be fair, nearly everyone still in politics hasn’t really noticed either), but neither the Saudis nor the Persian Gulf as a whole are America’s primary source for foreign oil these days.

In fact, one country exported more oil to us than all the Persian Gulf nations combined: Canada, which was the source of 20% of our imported oil last year. The Saudis don’t even have a firm grip on second place, trading it from month to month with Mexico.

The point here is simple: our oil imports are much more geared toward local neighbors than Levant nuisances. The greatest victims of our ethanol policy (besides hungry children whose parents cannot afford scarce food due to so much corn going into fuel) will not be Arab sheiks, but Albertan citizens (who also happen to be the most right-wing, pro-American group of voters outside of the US itself).

The facts and realities of oil have changed dramatically over the last decade. It is truly sad to see Gingrich – who once prided himself as a dynamic futurist – to be so deeply stuck in the past.

Cross-posted to RWL

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