Baker Institute’s Jaffe tells it like it is to congressional committee on ‘The Future of Oil’

Baker Institute’s Jaffe tells it like it is to congressional committee on ‘The Future of Oil’

BY DAVID RUTH
Rice News staff

With a direct and frank approach — and the aid of a coyote from the “Road Runner” cartoons — energy expert Amy Myers Jaffe grabbed the attention of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming during her testimony this week: ”Imagine that America is Wile E. Coyote. He’s run off the cliff, he’s still spinning his legs and gravity hasn’t hit. That’s where we are with the energy crisis right now. We think we’re still on the level of land, and we don’t understand how deep the problem is.”

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Amy Myers Jaffe testifies before the House Congressional Committee about the future of oil.

Jaffe, the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, has become a leading voice in energy policy and was asked by the committee to be part of a panel to educate House members about ”The Future of Oil” and the current energy crisis facing Americans.

She bluntly told the committee ”that Congress is like a deer caught in the headlights,” given its failure to rise above partisan politics and pass more comprehensive, effective energy legislation.

One of the things that piqued the interest of most members of the committee was Jaffe’s opinion that the United States could more adroitly utilize the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). ”The U.S. has 700 million barrels of oil in reserve; we should be using that to help Americans.” Jaffe said that “if we were using the SPR, it would ease speculators’ nerves and let OPEC know we have the ability to offset production concerns.”

Jaffe has received many e-mails from around the country thanking her for ”saying it straight” to Congress live on C-SPAN. One e-mail from a viewer in Georgia read, ”I would like to thank you for the work you are doing in this field. I found your responses to the committee refreshingly direct. Thank you for helping to educate me on a complex and worrisome topic.”

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	Amy Myers Jaffe was joined by financial, environmental and government represent- atives to discuss energy independence.

Jaffe’s passion on the topic came at a young age. When just 16 and writing an essay for an American history class in the small town of Swampscott, Mass., where a child might have more logically picked the Salem witch trials or the Boston Tea Party, Jaffe wrote about the 1973 oil crisis. ”I tell my kids this: You have to do what you are passionate about. As I look back, sitting in gasoline lines with my father in the 1970s had a huge impact on me and began my interest in oil and the Middle East,” Jaffe said. ” I didn’t knowingly plan to make a career out of it, but it has become a thread throughout my life.”

Jaffe went to Princeton University to study Arabic, and after graduating, she became a reporter on energy issues and a Middle East analyst for Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, a respected oil journal. She has also written on the topic for the New York Times, Dow Jones International and the Mideast Report.

Jaffe then came to Rice University and the Baker Institute. ”I was really excited about coming to Rice, but back then in the ’90s, it didn’t seem all that realistic to continue to make a career as an oil expert — oil prices were flat and America’s energy situation seemed to be on solid ground.”

But then came 2006, 2007, 2008 … and oil hitting an all-time high. Just last week, oil hit a record price of $139 a barrel, and Americans are paying an average of more than $4 for a gallon of gas. Because of her rich knowledge and background on the issue and current research, Jaffe has become an asset to the media for commenting on energy issues. During her two days in Washington, Jaffe appeared on PBS’ “Charlie Rose Show,” taped a long sit-down interview with CNN’s U.S. affairs editor and appeared on CNBC and CNN International. She was also quoted in more than 100 newspapers after her testimony.