This is the latest in the series of issues that ought to be addressed by the Republican party in the 2014 election. Today's focus is energy and the environment.
The correct position for the GOP is the one that is best for America and it can be summed up in one sentence: Let's use our own energy and do so smartly and cleanly.
If we unpack that sentence, we find the following:
OUR OWN ENERGY: America happens to be a storehouse of enormous amounts of energy. We have more coal and natural gas than any other country. We also have increasing reserves of oil due to amazing advances in the technology of extraction. We still use more than we produce, but the gap between production and use is shrinking rapidly. For the last six years, president Obama and the Obamacrats have placed obstacle after obstacle in the path of higher production of oil, natural gas and coal. Obama dithered on the Keystone Pipeline. Obama changed the permitting process for wells on federal lands so that it now takes just under a year to get a permit rather than the previous average time of 6 days. Obama has instituted regulations that make burning coal, even in power plants that scrub over 99% of the resulting particles and other emissions from the air, completely impossible. Obama has threatened actions that would end the boom in natural gas production by limiting the use of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking).
If the reduced production of fossil fuels meant that America instead used renewable energy sources like solar and wind power, then, at least, Obama's actions might have an ostensible purpose, but that is not what happens. Every barrel of oil that is not produced in America is imported from some country like Iran, Venezuela or Libya, places where the extra cash sent for that oil is used for anti-American purposes. It does not reduce pollution (even that bogeyman "carbon pollution") if the average American burns 5 gallons of oil that came from Venezuela instead of North Dakota. Using foreign oil, however, does have one major result: it slows the economy of the USA and kills the formation of jobs. Think of it this way: every year, America sends hundreds of billions of dollars abroad to pay for imported oil. If those funds were instead paid to American producers, they would get added to the US economy. People would spend that money and support more jobs and businesses here at home. Ending our dependence on foreign energy could increase the growth rate of the economy by an additional 2% each year. That may not sound like much, but if we had gained that additional 2% just during the Obama years, America today would have a GDP that is larger by over two trillion dollars, there would be at least three million more jobs in the USA, and salaries for workers across the country would be higher. On top of this, the additional energy production would have driven the price of oil lower. Imagine the impact on the economy and on each American family if the cost of gasoline were lower by a dollar per gallon.
USE IT SMARTLY: Using our own energy does not mean that we forego efforts to reduce energy usage or to shift to renewable energy. Energy conservation is a winning strategy for the country. It reduces the cost of production in America, another move to revitalize our economy. It means less burning of fossil fuels which will necessarily mean less pollution. It also gets us more quickly to the point where we no longer import foreign oil into this country. But energy conservation cannot be used as a sledge hammer to destroy businesses and jobs here at home. For example, the mileage standards for autos sold here reduce oil usage and are a good thing, but they cannot be set so high that the compliant cars become so expensive as to be priced out of the reach of the average consumer. There is a point where enough really is enough. A bureaucracy like the EPA is never going to find that point. After all, if we get to the point where enough has been done, the EPA is out of a job. No bureaucrat will ever conclude that his own job should be abolished or reduced even if it is in the best interest of the country.
Another smart move would be to expand the use of energy sources like nuclear power. Right now, that cannot happen because of unfounded fears of nuclear disasters. The law governing nuclear plants are so complicated and byzantine that essentially no new plant can survive the regulatory process. As a result, enormous amounts of energy that could have been produced by nuclear energy are still generated by burning coal and the like. Of course, the locations for new plants have to be carefully considered. They ought not be near earthquake fault line (like the one in Japan). They ought not be on the coast near a potential tsunami. They ought not be in densely populated areas either. There are, however, many locations in this country where a sparse population would welcome such an installation. The power from such plants can get added to power grids and transmitted across the country. This would required a coherent national law that supersedes the local requirements and allows for sensible and safe use of nuclear power.
USE IT CLEANLY: America needs to have a government that stops listening to environmental extremists and instead follows a sensible environmental policy. We all watched as the Obamacrats adopted the slogan that "green energy" was the wave of the future. That brought us hundreds of billions of dollars being thrown down the toilet by the federal government as the Obama government gave out enormous grants to its friends to develop green jobs that never appeared. Efforts like Solyndra lasted only as long as the federal money kept coming through the door. Once the solar energy panel manufacturers had to survive on their own, they failed. But that did not stop the green energy mania of the Obamacrats. They were saving the planet! We have laws that the Obamacrats have enforced to shut down the most fertile farmland in America in California's Central Valley so that certain species of fish would have sufficient water to spawn. On the other hand, though, the wind turbines and the solar plants these same "environmentalists" built across the country are killing tens of thousands of birds each month. One solar plant out west that is about to go into full operation actually causes birds that have the misfortune to fly near it to burst into flame and burn to death. So a few fish can shut down extremely important farms, but tens or hundreds of thousands of dead birds cannot be allowed by these same people to interfere with "green energy".
We need to be sensible about the drive for clean energy. Just look at fracking and natural gas production. The use of hydraulic fracturing is over forty years old. In all that time, there is not a single instance in which the process caused ground water contamination when properly performed. Now think back to how many times you have heard from someone about the terrible dangers of fracking and how it would poison the water. There have been Hollywood movies made about that poisoning (which never happened). The fear is so bad in New York, that the governor there, Andrew Cuomo, has not allowed the procedure to be used in New York. The result has been that there are major installations of gas wells across Pennsylvania with jobs, prosperity, and even state tax revenues for that state, but upstate New York continues to crumble as folks seeking some measure of prosperity leave for elsewhere. Fear of fracking has undermined the entire region of the Empire State. In other words, there can be reasonable regulation of fracking so that it is done properly. We cannot let baseless fears about the environment stop economic progress.
The correct position for the GOP is the one that is best for America and it can be summed up in one sentence: Let's use our own energy and do so smartly and cleanly.
If we unpack that sentence, we find the following:
OUR OWN ENERGY: America happens to be a storehouse of enormous amounts of energy. We have more coal and natural gas than any other country. We also have increasing reserves of oil due to amazing advances in the technology of extraction. We still use more than we produce, but the gap between production and use is shrinking rapidly. For the last six years, president Obama and the Obamacrats have placed obstacle after obstacle in the path of higher production of oil, natural gas and coal. Obama dithered on the Keystone Pipeline. Obama changed the permitting process for wells on federal lands so that it now takes just under a year to get a permit rather than the previous average time of 6 days. Obama has instituted regulations that make burning coal, even in power plants that scrub over 99% of the resulting particles and other emissions from the air, completely impossible. Obama has threatened actions that would end the boom in natural gas production by limiting the use of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking).
If the reduced production of fossil fuels meant that America instead used renewable energy sources like solar and wind power, then, at least, Obama's actions might have an ostensible purpose, but that is not what happens. Every barrel of oil that is not produced in America is imported from some country like Iran, Venezuela or Libya, places where the extra cash sent for that oil is used for anti-American purposes. It does not reduce pollution (even that bogeyman "carbon pollution") if the average American burns 5 gallons of oil that came from Venezuela instead of North Dakota. Using foreign oil, however, does have one major result: it slows the economy of the USA and kills the formation of jobs. Think of it this way: every year, America sends hundreds of billions of dollars abroad to pay for imported oil. If those funds were instead paid to American producers, they would get added to the US economy. People would spend that money and support more jobs and businesses here at home. Ending our dependence on foreign energy could increase the growth rate of the economy by an additional 2% each year. That may not sound like much, but if we had gained that additional 2% just during the Obama years, America today would have a GDP that is larger by over two trillion dollars, there would be at least three million more jobs in the USA, and salaries for workers across the country would be higher. On top of this, the additional energy production would have driven the price of oil lower. Imagine the impact on the economy and on each American family if the cost of gasoline were lower by a dollar per gallon.
USE IT SMARTLY: Using our own energy does not mean that we forego efforts to reduce energy usage or to shift to renewable energy. Energy conservation is a winning strategy for the country. It reduces the cost of production in America, another move to revitalize our economy. It means less burning of fossil fuels which will necessarily mean less pollution. It also gets us more quickly to the point where we no longer import foreign oil into this country. But energy conservation cannot be used as a sledge hammer to destroy businesses and jobs here at home. For example, the mileage standards for autos sold here reduce oil usage and are a good thing, but they cannot be set so high that the compliant cars become so expensive as to be priced out of the reach of the average consumer. There is a point where enough really is enough. A bureaucracy like the EPA is never going to find that point. After all, if we get to the point where enough has been done, the EPA is out of a job. No bureaucrat will ever conclude that his own job should be abolished or reduced even if it is in the best interest of the country.
Another smart move would be to expand the use of energy sources like nuclear power. Right now, that cannot happen because of unfounded fears of nuclear disasters. The law governing nuclear plants are so complicated and byzantine that essentially no new plant can survive the regulatory process. As a result, enormous amounts of energy that could have been produced by nuclear energy are still generated by burning coal and the like. Of course, the locations for new plants have to be carefully considered. They ought not be near earthquake fault line (like the one in Japan). They ought not be on the coast near a potential tsunami. They ought not be in densely populated areas either. There are, however, many locations in this country where a sparse population would welcome such an installation. The power from such plants can get added to power grids and transmitted across the country. This would required a coherent national law that supersedes the local requirements and allows for sensible and safe use of nuclear power.
USE IT CLEANLY: America needs to have a government that stops listening to environmental extremists and instead follows a sensible environmental policy. We all watched as the Obamacrats adopted the slogan that "green energy" was the wave of the future. That brought us hundreds of billions of dollars being thrown down the toilet by the federal government as the Obama government gave out enormous grants to its friends to develop green jobs that never appeared. Efforts like Solyndra lasted only as long as the federal money kept coming through the door. Once the solar energy panel manufacturers had to survive on their own, they failed. But that did not stop the green energy mania of the Obamacrats. They were saving the planet! We have laws that the Obamacrats have enforced to shut down the most fertile farmland in America in California's Central Valley so that certain species of fish would have sufficient water to spawn. On the other hand, though, the wind turbines and the solar plants these same "environmentalists" built across the country are killing tens of thousands of birds each month. One solar plant out west that is about to go into full operation actually causes birds that have the misfortune to fly near it to burst into flame and burn to death. So a few fish can shut down extremely important farms, but tens or hundreds of thousands of dead birds cannot be allowed by these same people to interfere with "green energy".
We need to be sensible about the drive for clean energy. Just look at fracking and natural gas production. The use of hydraulic fracturing is over forty years old. In all that time, there is not a single instance in which the process caused ground water contamination when properly performed. Now think back to how many times you have heard from someone about the terrible dangers of fracking and how it would poison the water. There have been Hollywood movies made about that poisoning (which never happened). The fear is so bad in New York, that the governor there, Andrew Cuomo, has not allowed the procedure to be used in New York. The result has been that there are major installations of gas wells across Pennsylvania with jobs, prosperity, and even state tax revenues for that state, but upstate New York continues to crumble as folks seeking some measure of prosperity leave for elsewhere. Fear of fracking has undermined the entire region of the Empire State. In other words, there can be reasonable regulation of fracking so that it is done properly. We cannot let baseless fears about the environment stop economic progress.
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