It really is quite simple. More energy = more jobs.
Doubling down on the automobile mandate does make sense, if you are in favor of more deaths on the highway, a $3000 increase in the average price of a car, pricing millions out of the new car market, and limiting consumer choice. White House (10/8/12) reports: “On energy, I’m big on oil and gas, and developing clean coal technology, but I also believe that if we’re ever going to have control of our energy future, then we’ve got to invest in solar and wind and biofuels, and that it does make sense for us to double our fuel-efficiency standards on cars. And that’s not a socialist plot — (laughter) — for us to reduce our energy usage. It’s the smart thing to do. It’s right for our national energy. It’s right for our economy. It’s right for the environment.”
“Temporary” right? The subsidies have been in place for 20 years. People have been using wind to generate electricity for more than 100 years. And if this stuff is really cost competitive, why are we subsidizing it? WSJ (10/8/12) reports: “At a time of intense debate over the federal budget, government subsidies for wind and solar power are more contentious than ever. The question of whether those subsidies are justified has taken on fresh urgency with the looming expiration of a major wind subsidy.”
The Keystone XL Pipeline project, for those who may have forgotten, could replace all the crude we import from the Middle East. At least according to the Department of Energy. But the President is such a tightly held hostage (by the scarcity gang), that he will never approve it. The Romney crew should have an event every week on the project. AP (10/8/12) reports: “Mitt Romney’s administration on Day One would approve a pipeline that would run from Canada to U.S. refineries in Texas, creating thousands of jobs and pushing America on its way to energy independence, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Monday.”
If regulations provide more benefits than costs, like our friends at EPA are always saying, wouldn’t the appropriate action here be to increase regulatory requirements, rather than waive them? Hasn’t Jerry Brown (“educated” by Jesuits, of course) just become part of the Big Oil machine (that claims regulations have, you know, costs) by this action? WSJ (10/7/12) reports: “Californians are grumbling about a gas price spike, which state officials blame on disruptions in the supply chain. Actually, they’re paying through the nozzle for their greener-than-thou government.”
Shocker. WAToday.com (10/8/12) reports: “ONE hundred days after the government introduced a carbon price, power bill increases are the one visible impact.”
Do you remember when the Democrats were the party that tried to help coal country? Bobby Kennedy and Bobby Byrd and those dudes? The American Spectator (10/8/12) reports: “There was a time, half a century ago, when Democrats stood firmly on the side of coal miners and enacted programs to help alleviate the cruel poverty that for so long plagued rural Appalachia. Now, under the control of environmentalists, the Democratic Party is the coal miner’s worst enemy and threatens Appalachia with a new kind poverty, even crueler for being the result of a deliberate policy. Folks in America’s coal towns have not yet lost hope, even as they have been betrayed by the president who famously promised Hope. The end of Obama’s war on coal may now be within sight, and the people of Coal Country could cast the deciding votes to end it.”