The existing federal tax structure on energy is already loaded with  enough taxes on oil companies, that this strategy would add significant revenue to the federal government.  But we’d also get increased revenues from construction, transportation, and other forms of related commerce that would create more jobs from upscaled production to meet the new development demands.  That, plus payroll taxes from domestic job growth in all these industries, would infuse the national treasury with even more new cash from new sources.  So instead of what we are doing now, looking to steal cash from places that just don’t have it, and straining existing capital and investment, we’d have all new growth with all new money.  We then use a chunk of that new revenue to stimulate a massive alternative energy research and development project in the US, without having to cripple our economy to do it.

Our economy  lives or dies based on the cost of energy.  We have to have it.  So a huge increase in domestic production will help secure our current and future economy by adding significant balance to the currently unstable energy market.  Reduced domestic energy prices and less uncertainty about our immediate energy future, will allow the savings from cheaper energy to flow from consumers into other parts of our economy–enriching and growing other sectors, adding job growth and wealth creation everywhere. 

Because of our renewed commitment to invest broadly in research and development in renewable energy, without the need to crippling existing investment capital, there would be no excuse for not developing a huge technological advantage in the alternatives development market in a fraction of the time that our current policies can allow.   We would be creating the cutting edge solutions, cheaper and more profitable alternatives from the private sector, without the burden of endless federal investment or price supports that are currently favored.   We will gradually switch our own domestic usage to take advantage of our own developing renewables’ technology, using a strong growth economy and the cost and price advantage it allows, to update our infrastructure to support these alternatives, without robbing regular taxpayers to do it.   This would eventually create surplus oil and gas production and allow us to become a net exporter of all kinds of fossil fuel energy.

We can now power more innovation by bringing some of that massive oil wealth to America, as oil hungry countries, and developing third world nations, begin to buy cheap oil from us until they can support the renewable technologies we have developed.  We now have the ability to manage energy prices and production in emerging energy sectors  instead of being victims of them.  Sustained domestic energy production could fund more research into ever cleaner, more efficient energy alternatives, sustain domestic job growth, allow us to reduce corporate and personal taxes to fuel further personal and business growth in every industry, while we profit from selling off our newer advanced alternatives technology to the world, making even more jobs here. 

We could dramatically decrease the time needed to realize the environmentalists dream of sensible, affordable, cleaner energy alternatives for the entire world, by using renewed American commercial power, and our commitment and ingenuity, securing America as the dominant commercial center for years to come. That’s the kind of future I want to leave to my children and grandchildren.  But it will take courage to abandon the oppressive regime of today long enough to see the advantage of this approach. 

The current energy culture in America seems to be based on restrictions, limitations, taxes and carbon schemes; using fear and intimidation to change our behavior.  It requires that we steal wealth by force instead of creating new wealth to fuel new discoveries.   It asks us to go backwards with no evidence that it will ever move us forward again.  It ignores the facts about what fuels or economy.  It wants to make us a mediocre nation, a victim of those who will continue to control our energy future for decades, leaving us vulnerable to their every whim.

Maybe we have forgotten but that’s not how America does it.