Why New Jersey is Ridiculous

My wife sent me this, so consider her our guest blogger for the day.

I signed an online petition and sent an email to my senator telling him I wanted him to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by (what a thought!) using our own oil. Turns out that senator is Robert Menendez, and somehow in this electronic transaction I was put on a mailing list to get his e-newsletter. It contained a speech he gave on the floor of the Senate that was all about why increased oil drilling is wrong, so I read it, knowing my email petition would probably fall on deaf ears.

Of course, since I've been reading The Soprano State I kind of know that those ears don't actually listen to me, the voter, even if I, the voter, were a Democrat, because all our NJ politicians, it seems, are the products of political machines. The only machine I run with any efficiency is the washing machine, so obviously what I think hardly matters--forget that I pay high property taxes, and forget that I pay NJ to pay "farmers" like Christie Whitman not to not-farm the land they're not-farming while not paying much in property taxes, forget that my husband's income goes to help pay all those pensions that government folks are racking up at two or three a piece, or the no-show jobs in--well, everywhere in NJ, and....

Truly, one should not read The Soprano State if you wish to live in this state and not go insane with fury.

So anyway, I read his little speech, and it sounded like a fairly well-polished presentation for a seventh grader whose parent wanted to make sure little Robbie got the environmental message across--it spat out all the typical unthinking anti-oil, poor environment talking points with all the melodrama of an overconfident twelve-yr-old who doesn't know how little he knows. In short, he exhorted whoever he was supposedly talking to NOT to drill because:

1. Drilling would not increase the oil supply for at least ten years, so there's no point

2. Drilling is evil because it will--not could, but will--ruin our Jersey beaches, as well as the beaches of east Florida, Virginia, North Carolina--he actually left out a lot of states between Jersey and Florida, so I'm wondering how strong geography is in NJ schools--by oil spills.

3. Oil companies have leases and aren't using them, so why give them more area to explore?

4. Alternative fuels and increased fuel efficiency is the way to go.

Really, the guy's strategy seems to be that drilling is bad because it will ruin our beaches, if we do it it won't help prices now anyway, and hey, even if more drilling was the answer those big bad oil companies should just drill where we want there to be oil and find it there. But since they won't, because oil companies must be as stupid as people who pay NJ taxes, then obviously the answer is alternative fuels and efficiency.

In my soon-to-be mailed response to the lovely letter I was sent by my senator (I'm sorry, but I looked at the nice paper and pretty letterhead and thought, "Dude, you had my email address, that's so much cheaper than what mailing this pretty letter cost!") expressing regret that we disagreed on oil drilling, I indicated that I felt that the reason we disagreed was that much of his thinking on the matter is mistaken. It's OK, Senator, in NJ we don't expect much perfection in our elected officials anyway, so I'm willing to educate you with what little a NJ housewife and mother knows....

Take #1--the "psychological impact" as everyone's calling it, of increasing US oil production, will mean the price will go down even if it takes time for the supply to increase. Certainly it will be better than relying on #4, which is just wishful thinking via legislation.

#2 So, despite the fact that some pretty huge hurricanes of recent memory hit the Gulf of Mexico and yet west Florida seems to not be awash in oil from the rigs in the Gulf, we're to assume that we'll all be wiping ducks with paper towels once drilling starts off the East Coast.

#3 Yeah, obviously if they have leases, there must be oil in them, and no, say, lawsuits or regulations make it tough economically to explore and find the oil that might or might not be there in a timely fashion. There have been enough articles on this topic recently that if you need me to debunk the "empty oil field" myth, you aren't reading enough as it is and probably won't finish what I write, so I leave you to Google or not.

#4: alternative fuels and fuel efficiency, neither of which currently exist or help to any meaningful extent, somehow is better than that drilling that won't help for ten years, even though there's absolutely no reason to think it will make a difference in ten years, either, or at all. "Investing in clean, renewable energy" he says--Wow, cool, we have that? Then why have we been mucking around with all this messy oil and gas? Bring it on! What, oh, we need to spend government money to come up with some clean, renewable energy....Hmmm, sounds an awful lot like those wonderful cures stem-cell research was supposed to yield--didn't we Jersians give the governor a clear message about the wisdom of "investing" state money in that one? And weren't we right?

Yes, his plug on how Japan's cars are all required to have mileage of 35 or 350 or some high number of miles per gallon sounds great.

Only, have you noticed how many SUVs are out there on our roads? Why is that? I drive a 15 passenger van our of necessity because I have seven kids, and yet I look around and see SUVs as wide and often as long as my van. What do they have going for them, aside from the manly-factor? Safety and room. Safety and room declines as mileage increases. High mileage, after all, means small and light, small and light means easily smushed...We who live with Jersey drivers don't like "easily smushed" carrying our kids. We like "five star crash test rating" and "Stow N Go seating."

Has the senator been to a baby shower in Jersey recently? Well, even in this day and age these are mostly women's affairs, so perhaps he should be forgiven for his ignorance. In the lovely suburbs, these are soup to nuts affairs, in which the new mother has the SUV on the registry right between the high chair, car seat, and "travel system" (AKA stroller)--in fact, these days you can even get the fabric of the former to match the latter three items, along with the play-n-go and bedding and wall decals. After all, what's even safer than a cute little Volvo? Something ten times heavier than a Volvo that can drive right over and crush it without waking the baby, and that would be the biggest darn SUV that one can put gas into five times a day. Does the senator really think that the same women that will buy special sleepers because the latest SIDS superstition is not using blankets, have video monitors to watch the baby 25/7, buy organic baby food to avoid toxins, heed all warnings to use sunscreen or special SPF fabrics to protect Baby from the sun, and get high chairs with five-point harnesses and five-star crash-test ratings, will entrust their precious cargo to a light tin can that gets 35 miles to the gallon? Maybe a minivan, fine, those are fairly safe and have the bonus of not having to climb up eight feet with Baby in your arms to get to the car seat, but the best minivan mileage out there does no better than 26 mpg and that one is so compact as to barely fit the matching play-n-go. We have a Turnpike to drive, we have a whole continent to ride around on, and he wants us to be like Japan? What kind of driving do they have to do? Do they even have room for our toll booths?

What does the good senator think will happen when we "invest" lots of (taxpayer) money into alternative fuel options and require all cars to get 35 miles to the gallon, and then the cost of oil stays high, our "invested" money is gone, and those light little cars lead to an increase in accident fatalities? Even a $500 Britax car seat can't work a miracle when the car it's in is efficient but "easily smushed."

I think, perhaps, we Garden State moms will be pretty pissed the first time one of us weeps, "If I only I had been driving our Windstar..."

I think, perhaps, our Senator should get a clue. Oh, and some more oil. Drill, open the Strategic Oil Reserve and dump some out on the market, whatever, but don't tell us what cars to put our children in just so you can stand on anti-US-oil principle for, as we've seen, no good reason.

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