The fact is that the current Democrat energy strategy could destroy America before it makes the Left’s blessed sacrament of “renewable energy” a remotely viable alternative. Do you really want to take that chance? Risking our economic freedom to the whims of foreign nations because we like the idea of not needing oil is suicide. This is a Dr. Kevorkian remedy to our economic ills, and the democrats are fully prepared to help us commit suicide to free us from “the sickness” of fossil fuels.

We know that Democrats in congress want renewable’s more than almost anything else. We have proof that they want energy to get more expensive so that their beloved renewable’s will finally become competitive with fossil fuels, both politically and economically. But Democrat’s are ignoring a real very problem; as nice as renewable’s would be, they cannot begin to replace fossil fuels for decades (maybe longer).

Money to fund such innovation is still bleeding out of our economy as demand for existing oil continues to outpace supply. But instead of bringing some of that money back home, their favored method of “balancing the field for renewable’s” is forcing massive government mandates that will eventually cost the private sector and taxpayers trillions to retool the entire country. And even then they have to accept that you can’t replace everything that relies on oil with renewable’s. But instead of acknowledging these limitations, or that this strategy could cripple the economy, and crush the middle class, they insist that it will save the middle class? Huh?

Carol Shea-Porter and Jeanne Shaheen both toe the Democratic High Councils (DHC) party line on energy, and they both support the current path that has been playing out over the past 12-18 months; Carol from the front-line (with a voting record to prove it), and Jeanne from the side line, begging the coach (that’s us) to let her in the game. The entire Democrat party is committed to parading their “energy independence” strategy as the road to economic freedom, but so far their efforts demonstrate an epidemic inability to understand the problem or the solution.

The Laundry list

1.      The high cost of energy is not a problem, we’ll just invest tax dollars in renewable’s. (This has made food and fuel more expensive)

2.      What we need is a Cap and Trade program to control the abuse of fossil fuels. (Cap and Trade has failed everywhere it has been tried, it makes every form of energy more expensive, crushes market competition, and enriches the federal government and the very people the Democrats claim are making too much money already; Big energy and big oil companies.)

3.      It’s the oil companies fault—even though the government makes several times as much profit from oil and gas as they do.

4.      We should institute a ‘profits tax’ on big oil, which would only restrict an already limited supply, create scarcity, and drive prices even higher.

5.      They threatened to sue OPEC.

6.      Speculators are driving up the cost.  This is like saying the guy who bets on the horse makes it run faster. They simply guess at what the future price will be based on supply and demand trends in the market—which are (by the way) affected significantly by government supply restrictions, taxes, price controls, and ignorant Democrat energy policies.   

7.      Release oil from the strategic reserve and stop adding to it.  Yeah, that will make us energy independent for about a week?

8.      They demanded that Saudi Arabia increase production.  (Another long range solution to become more energy dependent)

9.      Oil companies sitting on leases they are not using?  So we get a recycled ‘use it or lose it.’

Use it or lose it

So now that they have blamed everyone but themselves, Democrats have struck upon the ultimate scapegoat—don’t actually do anything, just make the Republicans who want a real solution (as opposed to pandering one) to vote against what is essentially a bad idea which sounds good but does nothing to solve the real problem; use that to continue to justify preventing any new exploration, while scoring cheap political points with the left media who will then broadcast it to the masses as fact.  My kind of leadership!

“Use it or lose it” states that Federal leases currently held by oil companies, and not used will be lost, and bid to other competitors.   This, we are to believe, will solve the problem of inadequate oil supplies long enough to get us to alternatives.  First, we already have a use it or lose it policy on the books.  Second, the dizzy Democrats estimate that it would add almost 5 million barrels per day to the oil supply which is a)a suspect number and b) not anything like a long term solution; it’s a barely a dent.  It’s pandering to appear to want to drill.  It’s a parliamentary trick.  It does not solve the current problem, nor does it provide enough time to advance other technologies.  But they won’t tell you that.

Look at it this way.  If you have 5 kids drinking out of the same cup of juice, and you know there will be more kids coming every day for as far into the future as you can imagine, giving these new kids each another straw and asking them to sip from the same cup, might satisfy their thirst today (or it might not), but if you don’t open another carton of juice once in a while, when you run out (and that will happen exponentially faster with this strategy) the “new oil won’t come on line for ten years argument” takes on a very chilling consequence.

Do we really want an energy policy that could leave us completely dependent on some other nation for our economic life blood?  They could destroy our entire economy—and us–without firing a shot.   And we’d be helpless to prevent it because guess what our entire defense platform runs on?  Oil!  The Democrat energy policy asks us to completely ignore this risk–just ignore it–on the presumption that something (they don’t know what) will have replaced oil before that happens—when this is clearly not possible given what we know right now.

Yes, we need should continue to research renewable alternatives simply to widen our base of options, but when they fail we need to move to others.  Sure, it can be argued that improving air quality is a desirable end, and fossil fuels have advanced that program with government incentives.  But you have to be a complete fool to believe that this kind of energy policy will get us where we want to be?

We need nuclear if we are going to run everything on batteries.  We need oil for everything else.  Tell your congressman to stop playing political games with our future.  By ignoring these risks the democrats energy  policy is justassisted suicide.