With current technology we can make cleaner and more efficient refineries, but the environmentally religious zealots and short sighted feel-gooders block such progress every step of the way.

And it would help if the party that’s supposedly more environmentally friendly wouldn’t start demanding we dip into the SPR every time gas goes up by a nickel. The Democrats seem really torn between their populist intincts to help Joe Lunchbucket when market forces raise prices and their puritanical instincts to view Joe Lunchbucket as a wasteful user of oil who can only be stopped by raising prices by way of taxes.

But his last paragraph wierded me out a bit.

He only hints at it — but what’s the relevance of a “responsible energy policy”? He can’t possibly be thinking about global warming, can he? (Ok, more likely he’s talking about the rise in oil prices — which look like it’s not going to be major, between the quick release of the S.P.R. and the fact that N.O. refineries are coming back on line (here last item at the bottom — three of the eight big ones are already back in operation, the worst four will take “months”, well within the S.P.R. margin.)