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Message: New York TImes: American Energy Policy Asleep At Spigot Nelson Schwartz of the New York TImes takes aim at America’s glutinous consumer class and the country’s politicians in a critique of the country’s energy policy.: Even as politicians heatedly debate opening new regions to drilling, corralling energy speculators, or starting an Apollo-like effort to find renewable energy supplies, analysts say the real source of the problem is closer to home. In fact, it’s parked in our driveways. Nearly 70 percent of the 21 million barrels of oil the United States consumes every day goes for transportation, with the bulk of that burned by individual drivers, according to the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan research group that advises Congress. So despite the fierce debate over what’s behind the recent spike in prices, no one differs on what’s really responsible for all that underlying demand here for black gold: the automobile, fueled not only by gasoline but also by Americans’ famous propensity for voracious consumption. While everybody knew that the 8 cylinder, gas-guzzling proclivity of the buying public was just not sustainable, turning off all that profit was not going to happen. Instead auto companies and their government enablers poured billions into a model that was never going to bring the North American auto industry the competitive success it wanted. www.corporateknightsforum.com