This morning - this morning - we heard from Jerry Trudell, Energy Independence candidate against incumbent Peter Welch for the at-large congressional seat in Vermont.

He wrote in to point us to his Web site, presumably for inclusion in the Bailout Rogue’s Gallery. Check it out here.

But Welch was returned to office last night.

Improbably, here on the night when election returns are coming in, I’ve decided to write about gas prices. But there’s no time like the present to get back to real policy issues. I’ve had quite enough of all this politics, thank you.

The Omaha World-Herald reported today that gas prices in the Omaha-Council Bluffs area have fallen to $2.00/gallon. “We are just giddy,” says a spokeswoman for the Holiday Plaza Conoco near Interstate 80 in North Platte, according to the paper. That’s cute.

But enough jubilation. It’s time for a life-lesson.

A little less than four months ago, Congress was considering legislation to curtail “speculation” in energy markets because it was supposedly causing high prices. Bills like S. 3268, the Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008 and H.R. 6330, the Prevent Unfair Manipulation of Prices (PUMP) Act. (Shoot! With that clever name, it was supposed to pass easily!)

Investors in energy futures do bid up prices when they see shortages in the future but, as we learned from an astute WashingtonWatch.com visitor, this helps to moderate supply and demand. Investors are the messenger about disruptions in markets, not the cause.

Much of the debate about oil speculation was generated by airline industry lobbying using trumped up advocacy groups - one business sector trying to gain advantage over another using government regulation.

Now the gasoline-price shoe is on the other foot. Prices have come back down. (They do at the end of every summer, y’know.) I think it’s time for the airline industry to send “speculators” a thank-you note. Maybe a gift-basket of fruit or something. Soaps and scented candles?

You and me, let’s recognize a few things, like: a) sophisticated lobbies will take advantage of crises and use our government to bash their opponents; 2) What goes up must come down; and, III) you shouldn’t set government policy based on anecdotes or crises, which can reverse themselves in just a few months.

The Internets are seeing much ado today about some remarks Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made early this year on coal and greenhouse gasses. A snippet is in the video at right. (Ignore the red captions and exclamation marks - if you can!!!!)

Senator Obama describes a carbon cap-and-trade system pretty accurately. He concludes with some provocative language, though: “So if somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

A cap-and-trade system is actually supposed to avoid bankrupting anybody by driving the market to discover the most cost-effective ways to reduce greenhouse gasses. This is something Senator Obama recognizes and wants to foster.

That being said, all the carbon cap-and-trade programs we’ve seen so far look to be huge undertakings that will cause significant economic dislocation. And, yes, “significant economic dislocation” means bankruptcies and job losses for some unfortunate businesses and people.

The two most expensive bills proposed in the current Congress are carbon cap-and-trade bills: S. 2191, the America’s Climate Security Act of 2007 (cost: about $17,000 per U.S. family) and S. 3036, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008 (cost: over $12,000 per U.S. family). Those are big expenses for the nation to absorb.

Ultimately, the answer to the question, “Would a President Obama Bankrupt the Coal Industry?” is . . . : wrong question!

You should decide for yourself whether you want a carbon cap-and-trade program in this country, you should watch what Congress and the next president do, and you should give your opinion to your elected representatives early and often.

Dozens of press releases come out every day on some public policy issue or another. I picked one pretty much at random to write about a couple of months ago. It was an American Trucking Associations release touting the support of a professional truck driver for a piece of legislation. I thought that was a little gimmicky, but it’s far from the worst thing I’ve ever seen in public policy advocacy.

So up went a picture of Tony Sifford and a post about his support for some energy bill or other. (Gosh - remember when energy was the biggest issue going, and not government bailouts and the reeling economy? Those were the days - two months ago.)

Tragically, Tony was killed in an accident a month later.

I’ve been honored to see commenters on my post about his passing offering their condolences to his family and illustrating how Tony Sifford touched their lives. It’s a nice illustration of the value of every life and how we all rely on each other. Even a “random” truck driver from Hillsville, Virginia is a part of our community and someone who we’ll miss when he’s gone.

This would be a nice lesson for the people debating H.R. 6798 to remember. It’s a bill dealing with whether certain cancer diagnoses should be attributed to Agent Orange, and the people debating it right now are being needlessly cruel to one another.

Take a moment out, people, to remember your common bond with one another and the importance we have to one another - in ways you might not realize until it’s too late.

What a shame. A fellow I featured in an early blog post here has passed away.

Tony Sifford was a driver for FedEx Ground out of Hillsville, Virginia, and he was involved in various good causes around trucking (most of which appear to be sponsored by the American Trucking Associations). He worked with ATA to support H.R. 6709, the National Conservation, Environment, and Energy Independence Act.

A commenter tonight on the post featuring Tony noted his recent death in an accident.

It’s an unfortunate tragedy. Condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues. We’re all worse off knowing we’ve lost this good man.

On Tuesday this week, the House passed an energy bill that had been introduced late the night before.

It’s bad practice to introduce a bill and take it to the floor without giving members of Congress and the public a chance to read it, but House Republicans were really howling because they had staged a protest over the fact that the House had not addressed the energy issue before leaving for the August recess.

The bill passed this week is H.R. 6899, the Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act.

It may come up in the Senate before the adjournment that’s scheduled for the end of this month, but it’s going to be hard to get agreement on something with the intense politics and all the competing bills out there.

Anyway, a preliminary cost estimate has come out, showing savings of a little over $40 per U.S. family should this bill pass. That estimate only includes direct spending and taxes, which would both go down. Discretionary spending (which can be a lot) isn’t included yet. We’ll update you when a full estimate comes out.

In the meantime, the speed with which this bill went through Congress suggests that someone’s idea to solve our energy problems was lightning . . . [rimshot!]

Here’s the current vote on H.R. 6899, the Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

A little over a month ago, I wrote here about the debate on oil speculation.

One of the commenters on S. 3268, The Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008 had pointed to a Web site called Stop Oil Speculation Now. I speculated (ahem) that this commenter might be a spinmeister for that campaign.

Whatever the case, now there’s a Web site on the other side. The Airline Oil Spin is its name, and it says:

The U.S. Airline Industry is wracked with problems. And the airline industry is working hard to pin all of those problems on “oil speculators,” by creating pseudo-grassroots campaigns like their recent effort to push legislation to stop some kinds of oil speculation.

The airlines “are currently engaged in the buying and selling of ‘paper contracts’ for jet fuel through their extensive fuel hedging programs,” this site says. Airlines are speculators themselves.

Now, The Airline Oil Spin links to a site called How Was Your Flight? that highlights problems with the airlines. How Was Your Flight? is a project of the Reaching Higher Coalition, which is “a coalition of community groups, clergy, elected leaders, and airport workers represented by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) United Service Workers West.”

Well, we have quite a selection of Web sites to root through, and we’re better off for having them, even if they’re all trying to spin us. Through the spin and counter-spin, we’ll learn a little bit and be in a better position to decide what we think.

I, for one, remain convinced that “oil speculation” is a bugaboo that we really shouldn’t be worried by. Buying and selling of futures contracts in commodities like oil helps to spread risk and smooth out supply and demand. Fast recent rises in the price of oil reflect uncertainty about where oil is going to come from, uncertainty caused by war and political instability in places like Iraq and Venezuela. And it’s caused by increasing consumption in countries with growing economies like China and India. Going after “speculators” is sort of shooting the messenger. (This is an opinion I concealed oh-so-cleverly in my earlier post.)

The debate continues. Here’s the vote on S. 3268, The Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

Yeah, I had never heard of him either, but the American Trucking Associations today announced its support for H.R. 6709, the National Conservation, Environment, and Energy Independence Act - and they brought along professional truck driver Tony Sifford!

Tony is a driver for FedEx Ground out of Hillsville, Virginia, and he’s involved in various good causes around trucking (most of which appear to be sponsored by the ATA). Tony looks like a nice guy.

And he joined Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas) at ATA’s National Truck Driving Championships in Houston, Texas - now that’s a good time! - to say good things about the bill.

According to the ATA, it calls for domestic oil drilling, tax incentives, and alternative energy research to bring down the price of fuel.

Tony Sifford is for it. How could you not be?

It’s an interesting commentary on policymaking that having a truck driver endorse a bill is supposed to tell us that the bill is good. I look to truck drivers for knowing how to drive a rig, where to get good grub on the road, and the trucking business, but - no disrespect to all the solid, professional truck drivers - I have no idea what this truck driver can contribute to our knowledge of the economics, science, or business of energy. (Though I might hear it from all the drivers debating the proposed TRUCC Act.)

Here’s the current vote on H.R. 6709, the National Conservation, Environment, and Energy Independence Act. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

One of the most visited bills on WashingtonWatch.com this week is H.R. 2774, The Solar Energy Research and Advancement Act of 2007. It has been reported from committee, which means that it is ready for the full House of Representatives to debate. The bill would establish a group of programs and subsidies to advance solar energy and its commercialization, at a cost of about $2.50 per U.S. family.

As always, there are at least two sides to the story. On the one hand, technological progress is a good thing, and solar power is a wonderfully renewable resource - that’s for sure. Using more of it would lower energy prices, reduce pollution, and perhaps lessen our reliance on unstable foreign sources of energy.

On the other hand, economists will tell you that it’s a mistake to try to make any product “viable” through subsidies - and that’s what we’re talking about here: subsidies. There is a point in the future when solar will be viable simply because it’s a more efficient way of producing energy than others. And we will get there without any government spending because private capital can be drawn to the problem by the profit motive. Let the sun rise on its own, and let taxpayers keep their dollars.

Where do you come down on all this? Can a bill like this bring sunshine to our energy portfolio? Or is it another government program feeling along in the dark?

Here’s the current vote on H.R. 2774, The Solar Energy Research and Advancement Act of 2007. Click to vote, comment, learn more, and edit the wiki article about the bill.

I wrote about the campaigning on S. 3268, the Stop Energy Speculation Act of 2008, here a few days ago.

The debate has taken a new twist as Republicans have pushed to expand domestic oil production as the preferred way of controlling energy prices.

Well, the World Wildlife Fund wants you to know that oil drilling is a big no-no. They’ve put an ad in the New York Times, and they want you to know about it. According to a release they’ve got out on the wires:

While more drilling would have virtually no impact on gas prices, the ad says, it could have a profoundly negative impact on America’s wilderness and waters and could jeopardize the nation’s billion dollar fisheries industry. WWF, which has a team of scientists and experts based in Alaska, notes in the ad that a major oil spill in Alaskan waters – where approximately half of all U.S. seafood is caught – could have a devastating impact on both the economy and the environment. It further states that oil companies have no proven method for cleaning up major oil spills in Arctic waters, further exacerbating the risk to protected areas.

Ah, the push and pull of legislative debate. To stop energy speculation? Drill for more oil? Fair-minded people can see both sides in both sides. And it looks like Congress will go to its August recess like Hamlet, without deciding.

What do you think? Here’s the vote on the Stop Energy Speculation Act of 2008. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article.