General Wesley Clark and Congressmen Bruce Braley have teamed up with a Huffington Post op-ed to remind Americans that they still want you to care about those darned oil imports (we also import olive oil).

Right now, the United States has an addiction to foreign oil — an addiction that is not only crippling our economy, but is also funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign governments and corporations. It’s the biggest problem in America that no one seems serious about discussing and solving.

Part of breaking that habit is acknowledging just what kind of problem we have, and who benefits from it. That’s why we’ve been working together to build support for country-of-origin labeling at the pump — so that we know where that $4/gallon is coming from, and move beyond acknowledging our problem to solving it.

Getting beyond the faux-economic theory whereby international trade is harmful, this is obviously a terrible idea. The last thing our economy needs is a regulation that does nothing other than sir up populist anxiety towards other countries while burdening businesses. The oil market is international and charging all levels of the supply chain with the task of tracking and labeling the exact country where the petroleum came from is absurd. Furthermore, Clark & co. are going to be disappointed when most of the labels are ‘Canada’ and ‘Mexico’ and not very many say ‘Saudi Arabia’.

Clark is a well known ethanol lobbyist, and Braley represents Iowa, so its pretty clear whats going on here. Getting a bunch of true-blooded ‘Mericans to see that we’re buying some this stuff from countries with scary sounding names might impel them to accept spending money (even more money on top of purchasing gasoline) to fund the ethanol industry which is still unable to survive on its own two feet. The bill doesn’t even need to pass (which it of course won’t), drafting it is good enough for an op-ed and a few media appearances.