No, Using Less Oil Won't Boost America's Energy Security – It’ll Make it Poorer and Beholden to China

How long until progressive 'experts' grasp this entry-level economics?

Economic incompetence and geopolitical naïvety never go out of fashion, it seems. In a Foreign Policy article this week, Jason Bordoff — Director of Columbia University’s Centre on Global Energy Policy and a former Obama administration official — resurrects a tired old argument long favoured by the ‘progressive’ energy policy elite: that the best way to ensure America’s energy security is to reduce its demand for oil.

Using the backdrop of escalating tensions between Israel and Iran and a short-lived spike in crude oil prices, Bordoff insists that since oil prices are set globally, domestic production offers little “independence” against global oil price shocks. His conclusion: we must “use less oil”, chiefly by subsidising electric vehicles, building charging infrastructure and pressing forward with efficiency and emission mandates.