“Why,” asked Governor Sean Parnell of Alaska, “is Washington blocking oil exploration in states like Alaska and Louisiana when the Middle East is such a powder keg?” His op-ed article appeared March 3 in the Wall Street Journal.
The answer is easy and clear but also scandalous. The Obama Administration is so enthralled with ‘green’ energy, it wants to make fossil fuels unaffordable to Americans. It’s all part of “President Obama’s regulatory assault on domestic oil and gas production,” as Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel put it. She also said in her March 4 column that Steven Chu, now Secretary of Energy, told the Journal in 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe.” About 10 a gallon. All this because of the mongering of the climate change phobia.
“Instead of rushing towards expensive and unreliable ‘green’ energy sources that rely on American taxpayer dollars, it is time to stop the embargo against our own American oil supplies,” said Dan Kish, senior vice president of the non-partisan Institute for Energy Research. “In short,” he added, “the Administration is the cause of our energy problem, not the solution.”
And the enormous rub is: 1. Energy forecasts agree that fossil fuels will dominate the world’s energy market at least through 2030. 2. Even policies to cut greenhouse gases and remove fossil fuel subsidies will only reduce carbon dioxide emissions from 39 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions to 35 metric tons. And 3. U.S. emissions of CO2, a greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels, will be less by 2030 than was earlier projected by the Energy Information Administration.
To carry out this foolish drive to dump billions into renewable energy sources are the energy Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the Administration: the Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar and the Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. Whether by land or by sea, the asininity over renewable energy continues to rob our nation of the energy it needs but is held captive by the Administration.
As recently as Feb. 7, these two Cabinet members announced plans to launch many offshore areas hundreds of miles at sea for wind farms, even though they admitted the expense would be unknown. Despite generous federal subsidies, wind power is expected to represents no more than 8 percent of the power generating electricity in the U.S. by 2030.
Millions of jobs and the cost of all goods and services have been affected by Secretary Salazar’s decision to place a moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the British Petroleum oil spill nearly a year ago. Salazar is notorious for his threat to keep a boot on the throat of British Petroleum during the company’s efforts to stop their massive oil leak.
“Boot on the Throat” Salazar finally let one deepwater drilling operation loose to find urgently needed oil in the Gulf of Mexico March 1, about 70 miles southeast of Venice, LA. This was done perhaps as a sweetener shortly before he was to appear before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to beg for a 59 percent increase in his $16 billion budget. At the hearing, Salazar was criticized sharply for creating uncertainty in the oil industry.
Oil industry officials have expressed concern that the tighter regulations Salazar has imposed could slow the issuance of other permits. Many drilling operations have left the Gulf to drill in other parts of the world.
The Gulf moratorium on oil and gas drilling was lifted in October in an obvious attempt to blunt a political issue before the November congressional elections. The director of the new Bureau of Management, Regulation and Enforcement said there had been “significant progress” in enhancing the safety of drilling operations.”
Salazar had suspended deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf in May after a federal judged threw out the ban. But, undeterred, the obstinate Salazar renewed the moratorium.
As oil prices and gas at the pump got more costly, the American Petroleum Institute Feb. 24 called on the Obama Administration to open up Alaska’s Outer Continental Shclf to vast oil and gas resources waiting to be developed.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee jointly announced in December “a comprehensive environmental analysis that has identified proposed solar energy zones on public lands in six western states…” It was said by Secretary Tweedledum Salazar to lay out “the next phase of President Obama’s strategy for “rapid and responsible” development of renewable energy on America’s public lands. Involved is one-sixth of our entire country.
Secretary of Energy Tweedledee Chu said, “It’s time to harness these resources and lead in the global clean energy economy…part of an integrated strategy to cultivate the entire innovation chain to create the jobs of the 21st century economy and put America on a sustainable energy path.” Solar power generates only about one percent of America’s electricity used. By 2030 it is expected to generate maybe two percent, with federal-dollar aid.
Chu is remembered for his startling idea to paint the roofs of all the houses in the world white to reflect the sun and thus reflect some of the sun’s heat and thereby save energy. His department’s budget now is $23 billion.
Logic, research, and experts’ forecasts seem to have little impact on the man in the White House and on Tweedledum and Tweetledee. Indeed, Washington is becoming an Alice in Wonderland.
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