The “G.O.P. today is so cynical, so bought and paid for by Big Oil, that only a couple of Republican senators would have the courage and vision to vote for a price on carbon.” (Thomas L. Friedman). Our President finally got it right, getting off this “electric mini car thing” by stating that we need to roll back billions of dollars in tax breaks on big oil companies so we can tap natural-gas reserves as an alternative to coal. Obama went on to declare, "The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century." If only Democrats will capitalize on this the way they did 48 year ago with John F. Kennedy’s “We choose to go to the Moon” declaration (see http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/jfk-space.htm).
Republicans say there is no substitute for oil. They forgot that their own tribe has put forward the natural gas argument. Sarah Palin, Republican Vice Presidential candidate, was the one who proposed a natural gas pipeline through Canada to the lower forty-eight (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_gas_pipeline). And then there was Representatives John Peterson (R- Pennsylvania) who in the 2006 legislative session introduced the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Natural Gas Relief Act which would have allowed “natural gas only” leasing offshore (since oil is the primary environmental fear). The measure failed in the 2006 session and again in the 2008 session.
In 2008 President Bush and John McCain both had Big Oil’s interests at heart. Despite record profits and executive pay in the oil industry, neither Bush nor McCain were willing to cut back on Big Oil’s windfall profits and tax breaks provided in Bush’s Energy Policy Act of 2005. In 2008 McCain even proposed giving $3.8 billion more in tax breaks to Big Oil and voted to protect their profits despite big oil companies posting record earnings. Bush’s 2005 Energy Act has cost the U.S. Treasury tens of billions in lost revenue, and has led to a reckless search for oil in fragile environments like the deep floor of the Gulf of Mexico. The unfolding catastrophe at the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded April 20 in a disaster that killed 11, can be directly linked to oil-friendly legislation over the last two decades. And billions more have been lost to the Treasury through favorable packaging of federal leases sold by the Interior Department.
We have been so eager to get at our own oil that we blitzed over safeguards that could have prevented the Gulf oil spill; but greed, arrogance, and incompetence ruled the day. A manual acoustic shutoff switch could have stopped the flow but was not installed. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs. But then in stepped Dick Cheney who conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry insiders. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service bowed to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches and Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575212031417936798.html
Democrats see big oil as the show stopper in promoting Senate energy and climate legislation where they don’t expect any cooperation from Republicans who are under toe by Big Oil. The strategy is similar to their successful handling of Wall Street reform in which they used aggressive tactics to pressure the GOP. They will make the energy debate a referendum on big oil companies and the nation’s dependence on oil. This will be a potent line of argument in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Their argument, “Big oil earns billions in profits and it doesn’t invest in the safety mechanism necessary to keep millions of gallons from spreading along the GulfCoast.” Republican Party will side with big oil to the delight of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/100743-democrats-see-big-oil-as-foil-in-energy-and-climate-debate
June 2, 2010 Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University - President Obama set out to channel public outrage about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill into support for a climate bill.Obama made one of his strongest pitches for comprehensive climate legislation, arguing that the case for breaking the nation's addiction to fossil fuels has been made clearer by the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf. He vowed to gather votes for the climate bill in the coming months, and repeated his intention to roll back billions of dollars in tax breaks on big oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development, to tap natural-gas reserves as an alternative to coal, and to increase reliance on nuclear power.Obama said. "The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century."
The U.S. is Swimming in Natural Gas. May 29, 2010 - Royal Dutch Shell has bought a privately owned US company for $4.7bn because recent technical breakthroughs in extracting natural gas from shale – sedimentary rock composed of mud, quartz and calcite – have changed the economics of the unconventional reserves, prompting a rush of interest from oil and gas companies.
Conservative columnists continue to take issue with “Global Warming” saying there is no scientific basis for it and that by imposing a “Cap and Trade” on carbon, liberals are trying to use it as a way to “control our lives.” Democrats need to stop trying to defend this warn out argument which has no room in the energy debate at hard – dirty, filthy air that is killing us! Cal Thomas is typical of beehive folks stirred up by Al Gore’s “Global Warming” doomsday prophecies.
Sinking ‘Climate Change’
June 02, 2010 Sinking ‘Climate Change’ by Cal Thomas
Three modern myths have been sold to the American people: the promise of a transparent administration (President Obama); the promise of a more ethical Congress (Speaker Pelosi); and the myth of “global warming,” or climate change. The first two are daily proving suspect and now the third is sinking with greater force than melting icebergs, if they were melting, which many believe they are not. After spending years promoting “global warming,” the media are beginning to turn in the face of growing evidence that they have been wrong. The London Times recently reported: “Britain’s premier scientific institution is being forced to review its statements on climate change after a rebellion by members who question mankind’s contribution to rising temperatures.” It gets worse, or better, depending on your perspective. Newsweek magazine, which more than 30 years ago promoted global cooling and a new ice age — and more recently has been drinking the global warming Kool-Aid — headlined a story, “Uncertain Science: Bickering and Defensive, Climate Researchers Have Lost the Public’s Trust.” Newsweek does its best to cling to its increasingly discredited doctrine, but the growing body of contrary evidence only adds to the public’s disbelief. In Canada, the polar bear — which has been used by global warming promoters to put a cuddly face on the issue — is in danger of not being endangered any longer. CBC News reported that the polar bear’s designation as a “species of special concern” has been suspended “while the government reviews the polar bear’s status and decides whether to renew the classification or change it.” The New York Times recently lamented “global warmism’s loss of credibility” in a story about hundreds of environmental activists who met to ponder this question: “if the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?” The “consensus” never was a consensus. Most of us may not have gotten an “A” in science, but we can sense when we are being bamboozled. The German online news magazine “Focus” recently carried a story, “Warm Times Will Soon Be Over!” Commenting on the “new NASA high temperature record,” which may be set, the magazine blames it on El Nino. Meteorologists, like Joe D’Aleo of The Weather Channel, are publicly distancing themselves from the false doctrine of global warming. D’Aleo says, “We’ll have La Nina conditions before the summer is over, and it will intensify further through the fall and winter. Thus we’ll have cooler temperatures for the next couple of years.” Remember the scare ignited in 2007 by supposed melting Arctic ice caps? The Star Canada says a new analysis shows that the apparent change was the result of “shifting winds,” while an expedition last year to the North Pole discovered the ice “100 percent thicker than expected.” It is a given that America needs new sources of energy. Environmentalists have inhibited efforts at exploration by supporting policies that have forced some domestic exploration too far offshore (thus increasing chances of an ecological disaster as is occurring in the Gulf of Mexico). Instead of trying to sell us a dubious doctrine at an estimated cost of $100 billion a year worldwide (so far), environmentalists would have done themselves and the world more good had they chosen a different strategy, such as not sending oil money to countries that want to destroy us. This would have increased our patriotic spirit and had the additional benefit of not only diversifying our energy supply, but also depriving our enemies of money they use to underwrite terrorism. Watch for the hardcore “global warming” cultists to continue clinging to their beliefs; but also watch increasing numbers of scientists and eventually politicians to abandon this once “certain” faith and to look for other ways to control our lives. In that pursuit, the left never quits. Rather than acknowledge their error, they will go on to make new mistakes, knowing they will never be held accountable. http://www.calthomas.com/index.php?news=2935
On the other hand Thomas L. Friedman makes the argument – “the carbon we spill into the atmosphere every day is just as dangerous to our future as the crude oil that has been spilling into the gulf?” – a good argument that our President needs to hammer away at over and over on his bully pulpit along with that message for his daughter Malia, i.e., “The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century.”
Malia for President by Thomas L. Friedman, May 28, 2010
It took almost the entire press conference at the White House on Thursday for President Obama to find his voice in responding to the oil disaster in the gulf — and it is probably no accident that it seemed like the only unrehearsed moment. The president was trying to convey why he takes this problem so seriously, when he noted: “When I woke this morning and I’m shaving and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, ‘Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?’ Because I think everybody understands that when we are fouling the Earth like this, it has concrete implications — not just for this generation, but for future generations. I grew up in Hawaii where the ocean is sacred. And when you see birds flying around with oil all over their feathers and turtles dying, that doesn’t just speak to the immediate economic consequences of this; this speaks to how are we caring for this incredible bounty that we have. And so sometimes when I hear folks down in Louisiana expressing frustrations, I may not always think that their comments are fair. On the other hand, I probably think to myself, ‘These are folks who grew up fishing in these wetlands and seeing this as an integral part of who they are.’ And to see that messed up in this fashion would be infuriating.” This oil leak is not President Obama’s fault. Stopping the spill is BP’s responsibility; it both caused it and it has the best access to the best technology to plug it. Of course, as the nation’s C.E.O., Mr. Obama has to oversee the cleanup, and he has been on top of that. His most important job, though, is one he has yet to take on: shaping the long-term public reaction to the spill so that we can use it to generate the political will to break our addiction to oil. In that job, the most important thing Mr. Obama can do is react to this spill as a child would — because it is precisely that simple gut reaction, repeated over and over, speech after speech, that could change our national conversation on energy. You see, right now our energy conversation is dominated by three voices. There are the “petro-determinists,” who never tire of telling us that we’ll be dependent on oil for a “long, long time.” That is true. The problem is, these same people have been telling us that ever since the first oil crisis in 1973, and their real objective in doing so is not to help us understand that breaking our oil addiction is difficult, but to make us think that it is impossible — so don’t bother. Then there are the “eco-pessimists,” who argue that it is probably already too late. We are toast. Unless we rewire human beings to want less growth — not only ourselves but the millions in China and India who aspire to live like us — the end is nigh. The eco-pessimists may be right, and they are certainly sincere, but they have little respect for the power of innovation, the power of six billion minds all trying to solve one problem. Finally, we have the “Obama realists.” These are the political pros who whisper to him every day that this is not the time to lay out a big new “Obama End to Oil Addiction Act.” The Democrats, they contend, are suffering from “legislative fatigue.” After casting a hard vote for health care, they don’t want to be asked to cast a supposedly hard vote for a price on carbon — the essential first step in getting off oil. And, they rightly add, the G.O.P. today is so cynical, so bought and paid for by Big Oil, that only a couple of Republican senators would have the courage and vision to vote for a price on carbon. So Democrats would be out there alone. The Obama realists make sure that the president is always careful to talk in vague terms about how he stands behind “Waxman-Markey” and “Kerry-Lieberman” — sterile Washington-speak for the House and Senate bills that attempt to put a small price on carbon. I am glad he is behind them; I just wish he were in front of them. I am glad the president passed health care for the nation. But healthy to do what? To go where? To grasp what dream? Answering those questions is the president’s great opportunity here, but he has to think like a kid. Kids get it. They ask: Why would we want to stay dependent on an energy source that could destroy so many birds, fish, beaches and ecosystems before the next generation has a chance to enjoy them? Why aren’t we doing more to create clean power and energy efficiency when so many others, even China, are doing so? And, Daddy, why can’t you even mention the words “carbon tax,” when the carbon we spill into the atmosphere every day is just as dangerous to our future as the crude oil that has been spilling into the gulf? That is what a child would want to know if he or she could vote. That is the well of aspiration for a game-change on energy that Mr. Obama can tap into. And he could even rip off BP for his moon shot motto: Let’s get America “Beyond Petroleum.” As you would say, Mr. President, this is your time, this is your moment. Seize it. A disaster is an inexcusable thing to waste.
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