Energy & Environment

This country has an addiction problem. We've spent $20 billion since 2010 trying to kick the habit. But it lingers. It is becoming a threat to our safety. I'm talking about our addiction to oil. It's gotten so bad that we are now paying our enemies' bills.

Each dollar we put into the tank goes to finance religious fanatics in Iran and Syria. And we're putting a lot of money in the tank. Last year, 66 percent of the nation's oil came from abroad. A big chunk of that comes from the Middle East. So each time we pay at the pump, we funnel money into the coffers of the people who have resolved to destroy our way of life.

Chairman Doc Hastings’s House Resources Committee released secret audio in which an Obama administration Interior Department official stunningly states, in connection to their rewrite of the 2008 Stream Buffer Rule, “this is not the real world, this is rulemaking” as a justification for not considering actual “conditions on the ground.”
 
“This is not the real world, this is rulemaking” should be the new slogan of Obama’s Committee to Reelect the President.

First things first. In a column I wrote a few months ago I advocated that the United States and others initiate a joint action to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, among other things. Since then I have advocated this behind the scenes, advocate this again today, and believe there is a fair chance it happens. This would support a lower price for oil, help stimulate the American economy, help stimulate the European economy and increase the prospects for a diplomatic solution with Iran.

Beyond this, I believe events have proven both Al Gore and Jimmy Carter correct. Gore is right that we need new sources of energy and an all-out campaign to reduce the dangers of climate change. Carter is right that we must reduce our dependence on oil with the passion, focus and commitment of what Carter called the moral equivalent of war, which also lessens the danger of real wars.

The Hill’s A.B Stoddard took her questions about taxes, energy and gay marriage to Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) Thursday in a The Hill Policy Conversation.

Last week, I attended a high-level CEO dialogue at the U.S.-India Energy Partnership Summit, organized by Yale and the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)-North America. The dialogue, held in Washington, explored how businesses can accelerate the development and adoption of green technology and how U.S-India collaboration is at the forefront of efforts to promote clean energy.
 
U.S. leaders present included Yale’s president, Dr. Richard C. Levin, Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan B. Poneman, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology Dr. John P. Holden, and Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.). Leaders from India included the president of TERI-North America, Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri; the Indian Ambassador to the U.S., Her Excellency Ms. Nirupama Rao; the Indian government’s principal scientific adviser, Dr. Rajagopala Chidambaram; and the chairman and director of PTC India Ltd., Tantra Narayan Thakur.

We need an intelligent energy policy that should include not only development of our own petroleum products but incentives for new energy development.

The current administration seems bent on a policy of raising gasoline prices in order to make alternative energy more palatable. Their thinking is that in the long run, eventually we will be much better off with an alternative energy source.

Yes, employment numbers are moving up, but there is some other sobering news: Unemployment is still 8.3 percent and will remain above 8 percent until Election Day; at the pace we’re on we won’t get back the jobs lost in the recession till 2020 or so, and we still have a vast number of long-term unemployed and the absolute number of employed people is still below pre-recession levels.

This is not the gaining-strength recovery of 1984 that propelled Reagan to reelection. Is it good enough? Who knows. I think it depends on many unforeseen factors: what become the issues the candidates espouse and real-world events between now and November.

In August 2007, at the end of a series of war games uniting China and Russia, the Russians planted their flag at the North Pole, that singular place on earth where the world’s axis seems to align itself with the North Star. The planting of the flag was a Sputnik moment, but underwater. Its purpose was to territorialize our northern regions as surely as a dog of war would pee on the frozen tundra to ward off Canadian coyotes. It should have been, but President George W. Bush, his imagination full of visions of Armageddon in the Holy Land conjured by Appalachian mountain preachers, missed it. Presidential hopefuls, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry in particular, should not. Until recently, threats to America via the splendid isolation of the Arctic seemed absurd. But now it is reported that Russia intends to send a combat brigade.

As the U.N. climate change talks begin in Durban, South Africa, it is time to emphasize that most conservative parties around the world agree with climate change advocates that strong action is needed. Those American conservatives who disagree that climate change is a major threat are isolated from majority of their conservative counterparts around the world.

Mitt Romney once agreed, more or less, that climate change demands urgent action. Newt Gingrich once stood side by side with Nancy Pelosi on this vital world issue. Al Gore, to his great credit, has been a world leader for a generation on climate change.

All-of-the-above is officially the mantra for Republicans when it comes to energy security.

Republicans understand that electricity generation is extraordinarily important to American progress. Without electricity, we can’t play with our iPads, air-condition our homes, cook our breakfasts, watch television, get money from the ATM, shop for food or do just about anything else we need to do on an hourly basis.