National Party Platforms on Transportation and Energy – Green Party

I have to give credit where credit is due: the Green Party is very, very open about what they want to do. Sure it’ll involve massive government intervention in everyone’s daily life, but they’re putting it out there in very specific terms.

The entire platform (including changes from 2004 to 2008) on energy and transportation policy, which they call “Ecological Sustainability” is available from the GP website. Unlike the Libertarian Party, the Greens are very specific about what they would like to do.

So lets see what they have on energy:

• “Our oil and gas addiction in particular has led to wars and human rights abuses in many countries….U.S. dependence on oil and gas has driven an unparalleled assault on the global environment and on human rights in many nations.” Of course, if we were to not use oil or natural gas anymore, these third world countries would be liberal democracies with no disputes or conflict whatsoever. This, of course, confuses the fact that the countries themselves start these wars. There are plenty of countries that have petroleum resources that don’t abuse their citizens (e.g. Canada), and there are countries that DON’T have oil resources and DO abuse their citizens (e.g. Zimbabwe). Removing the oil would not remove the source of these problems (the backwards societies and the lack of governing structure)
• “We oppose energy utility deregulation…. We recognize that deregulation and its reliance on markets – as opposed to state-based regulations – is incapable of providing affordable, reliable and clean energy…. We support state efforts to regain control over electricity by establishing democratic, public control systems to locally coordinate supply and demand and by eliminating energy trading.” It’s funny how people have no idea how economics (and socialism) work. PUCs are NOT democratic by any stretch of the imagination, and the current market system somehow does enable people to have affordable and reliable energy, and if you’re in a fully deregulated market like Texas, you can have clean energy too. If you’re in California or most other states, you have no choice in where you get your electricity and it’s “cleanliness”. But the Greens see markets as bad, no matter if they actually enable clean energy or not.
• “New construction should be required to achieve substantial portions of its heating energy from the sun.” Man, I’d hate to live in the Pacific Northwest under the Greens.
• “We oppose further oil and gas drilling or exploration – especially that which would occur in other countries, (emphasis mine)” I’d LOVE to see how they’d enforce banning oil exploration in other countries. This further enforces the general criticism of the enviros as wanting to keep the poor countries poor.
• “We call for independent, public-access radiation monitoring at all nuclear facilities.” If you want to do this, do this. Go to your nearest nuclear power plant, set up shop with a Geiger counter, and report your results. I’m not going to stop you and if the government does, then THAT’s your problem. But you don’t need the government to do this for you.

And their section on transportation:

• “We call for major public investment in mass transportation, so that such systems are cheap or free to the public and are safe, accessible, and easily understandable to first-time users. ” hahaha Short of spending TRILLIONS on mass transit, you’re never going to get all three… and since we’re talking about the government running this system, you’re NEVER going to get anything that’s easily understandable. No matter how much you spend.
• “The present-day approach of upgrading streets to accommodate increased traffic generates new traffic because access is now easier, and people will now take jobs further from their homes or purchase homes further from their jobs. Some people shift from public transit to private cars due to the trip time in cars being shorter. As patronage for public transit decreases, public transit loses funding, becomes less viable, and service deteriorates thus encouraging even more people to use their cars. ” This is the best part, the Greens admit that people don’t like taking transit, admit that private transport is faster, and that public transit wouldn’t work without massive subsidies. So, their solution is to make people do something they would prefer not to do in the first place. A winning political strategy.
• “Redirect resources that currently go to enhancing auto capacity into expanding human-scale transit options….Develop affordable mass transit systems that are more economical to use than private vehicles. ” What the hell is a human-scale transit option? And I’d love to see the day when a public mass transit system is more economical to use than a private system. That’s also the day communism will finally work. And pigs will fly.
• “Emphasize the use of light and heavy rail for freight transportation. ” WHY? It’s slower, it has a lot more delays and is constrained in where and how it can go. An airplane or truck can bypass congestion. A train can’t. Just ask anyone who’s taken Amtrak. Speaking of which…
• “Expand our country’s network of rail lines, including high-speed regional passenger service.” Because outside of the Northeast, there is not a single place that is built in a similar way to that region. So you’d be trying to shoehorn a system that works (barely) in one region, where it’s not needed elsewhere. And as most people who take Amtrak can attest to, Amtrak is beset by delays and general incompetence.
• “Ban flights between cities where land-based travel options can get a passenger to their destination within four hours.” Since you have the Acela, all of the Northeast just lost their air service… sorry. Not to mention the whole hub-and-spoke system for the airline industry. So for example, I live in Columbia, SC. Since nobody in their right minds wants to travel to Columbia, there are not many direct flights, so you have to have connections in many cities. Thus, you have alot of flights from Columbia to Atlanta (4 hours away) and Charlotte (1 hour away). Congrats, you no longer can fly that route. So this will either:
  1. Force people to drive up to 4 hours to get to the airport
  2. Force airlines to have you connect from somewhere MORE THAN 4 hours away.

  Either way, you’ve just made the whole air travel system ALOT more complicated and wasteful. But environmentalists are pretty ignorant when it comes to the law of unintended consequences. And to put a cherry on top of their economic backwardness…

• “We encourage the social ownership and use of land at the community, local, and regional level.” The Greens have never studied or heard about the Tragedy of the Commons.

So overall, the Greens have set out an expansive list of things they want to do, which is ballsier than most political parties. Of course, given that most of what they want to do would be economically wasteful at best, it’s not a very smart plan either.