From Fox News comes a Big-Oil shill puff piece by Steven Milloy. The lede gives me the clue as to where this is going:

This has been “Energy Week” for President Bush as he barnstormed around the country in follow-up to his State of the Union message that we need to break our so-called “addiction” to oil.

"So-called"? Note the scare quotes around addiction...

He quickly dismisses ethanol as a sop to the midwest and then proceeds to push my buttons:

Researchers from Cornell University and the University of California-Berkeley analyzed energy input-yield ratios and reported last July that producing ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more energy than can be derived from the resulting fuel – the switch grass and wood chips ratios are worse (45 percent and 57 percent, respectively).

Here is a simple rule to follow when reading about Ethanol. It is sort of like Goodwin's law, the first person to mention "Pimental/Cornell" is a Big-Oil shill, thus is not worth further consideration.

That study is based on assumptions from Royal Dutch Shell as well as 1979 corn yields. Just plugging in today's corn yields and adjusting (ever so slightly) the credits for usable by-products closer to reality, the energy balance becomes positive.

True to form, he gets around to what he wants to say in the first place:

First, he ought to support proposed legislation to open the Outer Continental Shelf to oil and gas drilling

...

Next, the president ought to oppose proposed legislation that would impose windfall profits taxes on oil producers – a 1980s’ strategy that only increased our dependence on foreign oil.

Exactly how does more oil drilling get us off oil? I agree about windfall profits taxes, but not because I am a fan of Big-Oil, but because I am a fan of the market and an enemy of taxes.

Big-Oil shills... I can spot 'em a mile away

(H/T tee bee)

Linked to basil's picnic