Pelosi-Obama "Energy Bill" is actually a Lethargy Bill

[frawin]

September 20, 2008


Pelosi-Obama "Energy Bill" is actually a Lethargy Bill
George C. Landrith

Under cover of darkness, Nancy Pelosi and her allies in Congress passed what they have the hubris to call an energy bill. The truth is, it is a lethargy bill, not an energy bill. In short, it is a cruel hoax. Pelosi and her allies in the House and the effective head of her party, presidential candidate Barack Obama, have been consistently anti-energy.

These folks abandoned Washington during the summer rather than deal with the energy problem. Nancy Pelosi vowed she would never allow drilling. Barack argued against drilling and said that America would save more than we could hope to get from drilling if only we inflated our tires. Now these same people want Americans to believe they have passed an energy bill. The truth is -- the Pelosi-Obama Lethargy Bill is a sham and a fraud and it will do nothing to help solve America's energy woes.

Let's compare what an energy bill that is actually aimed at solving America's energy woes would look like with the sorry excuse for an energy bill that Pelosi and Obama support. What we need is an energy bill that: (1) opens the outer continental shelf (OCS) and ANWR for drilling so that we can produce more of our own oil and natural gas; (2) increases America's ability to use it vast coal reserves through clean coal technology which will free up natural gas for other uses; (3) harnesses clean, safe nuclear energy so that natural gas currently used to generate electricity is available for other more-efficient purposes; (4) allows construction of the needed refineries and pipelines so that we are not importing refined gasoline; and (5) unleashes America's innovation and research and development efforts to develop new energy technologies.

The bill that Pelosi forced through the House with the approval of Barack Obama does not open up the Outer Continental Shelf and it does not permit drilling in ANWR. The Obama-Pelosi anti-energy bill cynically allows drilling in locations where there is little or no oil, but prohibits drilling where we know there is oil and gas. It is the equivalent of saying "You can pick all the strawberries you can find -- over there in that field of corn. But you can't go looking in the strawberry patch. That is strictly off limits!" The Obama-Pelosi anti-energy bill does nothing to increase our use of coal -- a resource that America has more of than Saudi Arabia has oil. It does nothing to increase our use of nuclear energy. The Obama-Pelosi bill does nothing to allow building needed refineries or pipelines. It does nothing to end wasteful subsidies that have been funding energy that doesn't work while padding the pockets of special interests and fleecing the taxpayers' for 30 years.

The bottom line is that the Obama-Pelosi lethargy bill is a cynical and scandalous lie designed to make American's think that Obama and the Democrats are doing something about energy. But the truth is, they are doing nothing.

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Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. He had a successful law practice in business and litigation. In 1994 and 1996, Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's Fifth Congressional District. He served on the Albemarle County School Board. Mr. Landrith is an adjunct professor at the George Mason School of Law. He is recognized as an authority on constitutional law and jurisprudence, federalism, global warming, and property rights.

george@ff.org




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