Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

The Ben DeGrow spaghetti factory has been running at full tilt, throwing every noodle it manufactures to the wall and finding nothing will stick.

Let's go through the distortions one-by-one:

1. Calling for increased fuel efficiency and an orderly transition to alternative fuels does not raise the price of gasoline, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow says it does.

2. Mark Udall is not opposed to developing domestic petroleum resources, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow and Bob Schaffer says he is. What he is opposed to is raping the most ecologically and economically sensitive land when the oil companies have already leased 68 million acres and aren't drilling.

3. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will never make a noticeable dent in gas prices, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow and Bob Schaffer say it will. Bush's own Energy Information Adminsitration says that best case it will reduce gas prices by a penny in ten years. Even John McCain is opposed to drilling in ANWR.

4. Oil shale is a boondoggle. Always has been, and by all accounts always will be. Ben DeGrow and Bob Schaffer dancing around like a couple of drunken '49ers every time the topic comes up doesn't change that fact.

5. Drilling on the Roan Plateau will not affect gasoline prices at all, because you can't make gasoline out of natural gas, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow suggests that it will.

6. And finally, if Bush had not run up the national debt through wars of choice and giveaways to the oil and pharmaceutical companies, we'd still have a strong dollar. Experts say that if the dollar were as strong against the euro as it was ten years ago, oil would be trading at $80/bbl. What does Ben DeGrow and his Senate candidate have to say about that?