Follow-up to Monday's item

As I accused our President of prevarication in my Monday item, I wish to clarify my statement.

During the president's press conference, he stated that California residents used 40% less energy per capita than the US average. According to this table - http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/esr/table5.html - the statement was truthful, and not in and of itself a prevarication.

In reality, CA's low per capita usage is likely due to a combination of several factors, none of which are directly applicable, and only the first of which might be desirable in the rest of the US. 1 - The CA climate is far more temperate during the summer and winter months than most of the rest of the US. They don't get the frigid winters seen in MN and MI, for example. For a large portion of the state, they don't see the heat of summer found in places like TX and AZ. 2 - As mentioned in the original post, rolling blackouts have been a problem in previous years, and when the energy isn't flowing, usage typically stays at or very near 0. 3 - At the high usage rates mentioned below, there is an added incentive to cut back wherever possible.

From that same report, the next column over provides the average retail price per kw-hr. This is what Californians 'pay' for their electricity relative to the rest of the US, and is therefore a more relevant and applicable data set. Here, we find that CA pays, on average, 14.42 cents/kw-hr, which ranks as the 7th highest rate in the contiguous 48 states (I don't include AK and HI, as they have unique energy requirements and circumstances owing to their geographical isolation from the rest of the US). It is also 35% ABOVE the national average.

So, while the President's statement was factually true, it was either grossly intellectually dishonest, or representative of a terrible misunderstanding of reality with respect to the rest of America. Either way, I would hope that the President of the United States would be held to a higher standard when it comes to presenting factual, accurate and intellectually honest data to the American People he was elected to represent.

I realize that this is a second politics related post in three days, but I feel that this one is more in-line with the intent of my blog. Among other goals, I seek to urge people to reclaim honesty, integrity, and accountability in every day life. But more than that, I want people to hold their neighbors, friends, colleagues, and leaders to that same elevated standard. And that goes all the way up to the President, if he can be demonstrated to fall from these ideals.