With President Bush’s energy policy about to be unveiled, the wackos are out in force — condemning what they anticipate will be an overemphasis on increasing supplies of bad old energy sources and insufficient attention to alternative energy sources and energy conservation.
Do you know where in America alternative energy sources are most heavily relied on? California. Do you know what state’s people use the least energy per capita? California. By the wackos’ logic, the Fugue State should be wallowing in an energy surplus, and the rest of us ought to be shivering in the dark. Yet in the other 49 states, blackouts tend to be limited to old hippies who partook once too often of LSD, heroin or benzedrine — while Californians are fast becoming accustomed to unannounced power outages ordered by that state’s Energy Emperor.
Try pointing out this salient fact to the wackos, though, and they’ll eagerly inform you that California’s blackouts, along with skyrocketing prices for gasoline and natural gas, are the consequence of Big Power, Big Oil and Big Heat all deciding, all at the same time, to start screwing with their paying customers because now “their guy” is in the White House.
Really? And now that “their guy” is in the White House, they’re pissing the electorate off so “their guy’s” party will lose Congress next and then “their guy” gets defeated for re-election two years after that? Diabolical!! Is there no end to their fiendish scheming!!??
All this energy uncertainty facing our nation is no coincidence — it is nothing less than The Clinton Legacy. For eight years there was no energy policy. In fact, for eight years there was only one policy: Exalt Bill. Give him credit for the sun coming up. Shield him from blame if the sunrise is obscured by clouds. Raise him above all the petty bonds and shackles and rules and laws that constrain us mere mortals. Exalt him! Preserve, protect and defend him!
As a result, our energy infrastructure is in a shambles.
There’s natural gas at Point A, but the people who need it are at Point B, and the pipeline that serves them isn’t sufficient to satisfy the demand. Build more pipe? Heavens no, the government won’t permit that!
The demand for gasoline is greater than our refineries can handle. Build more refineries? Heavens no, Washington won’t permit that!
The demand for the particular blend of gasoline mandated for Chicago is too great, but we have a gasoline glut in Memphis. Ship some Memphis blend to Chicago to relieve the pressure? Heavens no, the EPA won’t permit that!
The wackos who created this situation now bemoan the prospect of a national energy policy that will look for more domestic oil reserves, and make them available to the nation; will streamline the process for building more power plants that use conventional fuels; will de-emphasize the kinds of pie-in-the-sky alternative energy schemes that brought California kicking and screaming into the Third World. We can hope that the EPA’s gasoline blend rules will be reviewed, that modern technology will be applied to next-generation nuclear plants to make them more efficient, cleaner and safer than the already excellent record older plants enjoyed before hype shut down the permitting process, that a mature balancing of needs and desires will put the world’s lone superpower back on the road to energy sovereignty.
This isn’t just a matter of helping the economy — which does, after all, need it — it’s a matter of national security. Failure in the vital area of energy renders us vulnerable in a world where we’re in everyone’s crosshairs simply because we are powerful and prosperous.
The only increase in pollution we can be sure will result from Bush’s energy policy is that spewed by the left-wing radical wackos whose extremist philosophy was allowed to run unchecked while Official Washington pursued its policy of Exalt Bill.
If the EPA would regulate that kind of pollution, it might actually save some lives.
