Drill Now Pay Less the Big Con

Excerpt Amy Goodman Interview with Naomi Klein, Alternet
What's actually going on is the oil companies may not even bother drilling.
What they're doing is they're stockpiling leases. And what that means is that
the oil companies will have a much greater control over the oil supply. When
the oil companies have a much larger control over the oil supply, they can turn
it on and off. They can control price. They can fix the price. So, in fact,
what this is doing is the opposite of what they're saying. It's actually giving
the oil industry much more power to drive the price of oil up by controlling
supply, by just giving them all of these leases. And we keep hearing, well,
they have all these leases already, and they're not using them, and they want
more. Why? Why do they want all these leases? Because that is what gives them
control over supply. That's what allows them to fix prices.
Goodman: In fact, this has united you with people across the
political spectrum. You've been invited on a number of right-wing radio talk
shows, because everyone is deeply concerned about the price of oil. They just
have different solutions for what should happen.
Klein: Right. But, you know, there was this little window, Amy, where
even Bill O'Reilly was talking about the obscene profits of the oil industry --
it was like three days -- where people were -- where the logic of the situation
was just so glaring, where, you know, you have Shell reporting $7 billion in
profits in one quarter. People are very concerned about climate change. And it
just makes sense to take some of those profits in the form of a windfall profit
tax or some other measure and -- because these are the companies that have
created this crisis for us -- and using this moment.
And let's remember that this is what countries around the world are doing.
They're using this moment of high oil prices to invest in alternative energy
and alternative infrastructure. The way to make solar and wind work, you know,
is not just to do venture capitalism for startup solar and wind companies.
These companies need major investment, need states to make major investments in
infrastructure that can carry these new energy sources, new grids. This can
only be done by the public sector. And this is actually a moment of
opportunity, when there is such high prices, when people are so angry at the
oil companies, to actually take some of this money and invest it in the public
sphere, so that alternative energy becomes viable.
And there was a moment where there seemed to be some agreement about that,
even on the right. And then, it just shifted because of this very aggressive
barrage coming from the oil and gas industry, which is selling this false hope
of "drill now, pay less."