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STALL, BABY, STALL |
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Written by Sarah Palin
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Thursday, 31 March 2011 |
It's unbelievable (literally) the rhetoric
on "America's Energy Security" coming from President Obama this week. This
is coming from he who is manipulating the U.S.
energy supply.
President Obama is once again giving lip service to a "new energy proposal";
but let's remember the last time he trotted out a "new energy proposal" -
nearly a year ago to the day. The main difference is today we have $4 a
gallon gas in some places in the country. This
is no accident.
This administration is not a passive observer to the trends that have
inflated oil prices to dangerous levels. His war on domestic oil and gas
exploration and production has caused us pain at the pump, endangered our
already sluggish economic recovery, and threatened our national security.
Through a process of what candidate Obama once called "gradual adjustment,"
American consumers have seen prices at the pump rise 67 percent since
he took office. Meanwhile, the vast undeveloped reserves that could help to
keep prices at the pump affordable remain locked up because of President
Obama's deliberate unwillingness to drill
here and drill now.
We're subsidizing offshore drilling in Brazil and purchasing energy from
them, instead of drilling ourselves and keeping those dollars circulating in
our own economy to generate jobs here.
The President said Wednesday (3/30), "There are no quick fixes." He's been in office
for nearly three years now, and he's about to launch his $1 billion re-election
campaign. When can we expect any "fixes" from him? How high does the price of
energy have to go?
So, here's a little flashback to what I wrote one year ago on March 31,
2010:
Many Americans fear that President Obama's new
energy proposal is once again "all talk and no real action," this time in an
effort to shore up fading support for the Democrats' job-killing cap-and-trade
(a.k.a. cap-and-tax) proposals.
Behind the rhetoric lie new drilling bans and
leasing delays; soon to follow are burdensome new environmental
regulations. Instead of "drill, baby, drill," the more you
look into this the more you realize it's "stall, baby, stall."
Today (3/31/10) the president said he'll "consider
potential areas for development in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of
Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic."
As the former governor of one of America's
largest energy-producing states, a state oil and gas commissioner, and chair of
the nation's Interstate Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, I've seen plenty
of such studies. What we need is action
- action that results in the job growth and revenue that a robust drilling
policy could provide.
And let's not forget that while Interior Department
bureaucrats continue to hold up actual offshore drilling from taking place, Russia
is moving full steam ahead on Arctic drilling, and China,
Russia, and Venezuela
are buying leases off the coast of Cuba.
As an Alaskan, I'm especially disheartened by the
new ban on drilling in parts of the 49th state and the cancellation of lease
sales in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. These areas contain rich oil and gas
reserves whose development is key to our country's energy security.
As I told Secretary Salazar last April (2009),
"Arctic exploration and development is a slow, demanding process. Delays or
major restrictions in accessing these resources for environmentally responsible
development are not in the national interest or the interests of the State
of Alaska."
Since I wrote the above, we have even more evidence of the President's
anti-drilling agenda.
We have the moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico as well
as the de-facto moratorium in the Arctic. We have his
2012 budget that proposes to eliminate several vital oil and natural gas
production tax incentives. We have his
anti-drilling regulatory policies that have stymied responsible development.
And the list goes on. The President says that we can't "drill" our way out
of the problem. But we can't drive our cars on solar shingles either. We have
to live in the real world where we must continue to develop the conventional
resources that we actually use right now to fuel our economy as we continue to
look for a renewable source of energy.
If we are looking for an affordable, environmentally friendly, and abundant
domestic source of energy, why not turn to our
own domestic supply of natural gas?
Whether we use it to power natural-gas cars or to run natural-gas power
plants that charge electric cars, natural gas is an ideal "bridge fuel" to a
future when more renewable sources are available, affordable, and economically
viable on their own.
It's a lot more viable than subsidizing boondoggles like these inefficient
electric cars that
no one wants. I'm all for electric cars if you can develop one I can
actually use in Alaska, where you can drive hundreds of miles without seeing
many people, let alone many electrical sockets.
But these electric and hybrid cars are not a quick fix because we
still need an energy source to power them. That's why I like natural gas, but
we still have to drill for natural gas, and this administration doesn't like
drilling or apparently the jobs that come with responsible oil and natural gas
development.
They don't have a coherent energy policy. They have piecemeal ideas for
subsidizing impractical pet "green" projects.
I have always been in favor of an "all-of-the-above" approach to energy
independence, but "all-of-the-above" means conventional resource
development too. It means a coherent, practical, and forward-looking
energy policy. I wish the President would understand this.
The good news is there is nothing wrong with America's
energy policy that another good old-fashion election can't solve. 2012 is just
around the corner.
Sarah Palin
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