Global Warming Alarmists Are Leading America Down The Road To Ruin

Is America Committing Economic Suicide?

I wonder how much of the information in the following article is true. Is America committing economic suicide by chasing "alternative energy" (solar, wind, biofuels, etc.) while demonizing the oil and gas industry? This is where the radical environmentalists and global warming alarmists have led us. It is way past time to turn this "ship of state" around, because we're headed in the wrong direction.
Peter

A rush for black gold in the Gulf

Examiner Editorial

August 20, 2009

Major new offshore drilling for oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico will soon be a reality. The big question is whether Americans will be part of it. Brazil, China, India, Norway, Spain and Russia have all signed agreements with Cuba and the Bahamas to initiate exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico within the next two years. So the prospect of seeing Russian oil rigs 45 miles off the Florida Keys -- where American oil companies are now forbidden to drill -- is a very real possibility.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the eastern Gulf region contains 3 billion barrels of oil and more than 11 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Last summer, former President George W. Bush lifted the executive branch moratorium his father signed in 1990 on new drilling in 85 percent of America's territorial waters. The Democratic Congress then wisely let the congressional ban expire as well. So the only thing keeping U.S. firms from drilling off our own continental shelf is President Barack Obama and his secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, who is slow-walking the approval process that must be cleared before the work can begin. Meanwhile, foreign nations are jockeying for the best spots. The Obama administration, incredibly enough, is giving Brazil a $2 billion loan from U.S. taxpayers to finance that nation's development of its own off-shore energy resources in the Atlantic.

According to the American Petroleum Institute, the development of America's coastal oil and gas resources would generate more than $1.3 trillion in new government revenue and 160,000 high-paying jobs over the next two decades. Senators Lisa Murkowski, R-Ark., and Mary Landrieu, D-La., are bipartisan co-sponsors of a bill that provides coastal states such as Florida their fair share of revenues produced by off-shore drilling and production. The same thing should be done for states on the East and West coasts. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state's lawmakers hope to tap deposits off Santa Barbara to generate billions in royalties, and Virginia's front-running gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell has made drilling 50 miles off that state's coast a key component of his energy plan.

Many environmental objections to deepwater drilling have been overcome. For example, 4-D seismic surveys provide pinpoint accuracy for well location. New technology also enables one drilling platform to reach deposits 40 miles away in water up to 10,000 feet deep (note the same technology could help other nations drill just outside our coastal limits while tapping into resources inside the boundary). According to the U.S. Minerals Management Service, less than 0.0001 percent of the 1.4 billion barrels of oil pumped offshore since 1980 has been spilled -- a remarkable safety record and a tribute to American energy ingenuity.

Find this article at: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/A-rush-for-black-gold-in-the-Gulf-8127872-53705292.html

Economic Suicide By Believing In The Myth Of Man-Caused Global Warming

Is this where America is headed? It looks like it, if we follow the lead of our new socialist leaders in Washington D.C., liberal Democrats, and global warming fear-mongers like James Hansen and Al Gore. (Remember, you can do a search on this blog for key people, subjects, and ideas and find much more information.)

It is insane to increase taxes on conventional energy sources (coal, oil, and gas), destroy existing industries, with vast established infrastructures, (pipelines, refineries, power plants, etc.), put millions more people out of work from skilled jobs, and remove Billions of dollars of royalties and taxes that those industries currently give to local, state, and Federal treasuries.

To destroy industries that have taken a century and a half to build and try to replace these with economically unproven alternatives such as solar and wind power is insanity. Yet that is what people are proposing. I am worried about the economic future of America if we continue down this road.......all in the name of saving the Planet Earth from an imaginary danger.......man-caused global warming. We must stop the insanity such as described in the following article.
Peter

Government Should Compel Consumers to Use Alternative Energy, Congressman SaysFriday,
March 27, 2009By Josiah Ryan, Staff Writer (source)

(CNSNews.com) - Government policy should be crafted to raise the price of carbon-emitting energy sources so consumers are compelled to choose alternative energy, House Democratic Conference Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday. Larson agreed that such a policy would likely result in higher electricity prices for consumers but said this is needed to protect the environment from the possible “catastrophic results” of not implementing a pro-green energy policy.

Some Republicans who spoke with CNSNews.com at the Capitol agreed that electricity prices would go up, and they dismissed President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade plan as little more than a large tax on energy producers, the cost of which is passed onto consumers. With cap and trade, the amount of carbon an energy company can emit is capped. If it exceeds that limit, the company can purchase credits (“trade”) that would go towards investment in green or alternative energy firms. “I think the government should serve as an impetus to do so, because as I said at the outset, not doing anything -- the catastrophic results that can come from that – are what drives this issue,” Larson told CNSNews.com when asked if boosting electricity prices through government policy to drive consumers to green energy was a good idea.

“We ought to do it in a way that both enhances our economy and our economic opportunity and also preserves the universe and the earth,” said Larson. At a press conference Tuesday, Obama told reporters that a good cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions should be designed to “protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices.” "I think cap-and-trade is the best way, from my perspective, to achieve some of those gains, because what it does is it starts pricing the pollution that's being sent into the atmosphere,” Obama said. (Mr. Obama, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but a harmless gas, produced every time you exhale. Peter)

"The way it's structured, it has to take into account regional differences. It has to protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices. So there are a -- a lot of technical issues that are going to have to be sorted through," he added. But in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle back on Jan. 17, 2008, then-candidate Obama said his plan for cap and trade would tax every unit of carbon emitted, which would in turn create an expanded market for new technologies.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) (Photo courtesy of Voinovich's Web site)
“I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap-and-trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter,” said Obama. “That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.” Eventually, these taxes would ruin the U.S. coal industry, added Obama. “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can,” said Obama. “It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.”

Republicans said that Obama’s plan to cap and trade carbon emissions would result in a massive tax hike on the companies and American consumers who have to pay for energy to heat and light their homes, and drive their cars, and to run myriad aspects of their daily lives. “Of course” Obama’s plan will drive up energy costs, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told CNSNews.com. “The president’s proposal is unacceptable, because it’s just being used as a source of revenue.”

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) told CNSNews.com: “Of course the cost is going to rise. When people think of cap and trade, they are going to think of a giant tax increase.” Larson also said he is concerned about “what happens down the food chain.” “My concern specifically is what happens down the food chain, so to speak, to the consumer who ultimately bears the cost,” he said. “I think that no matter what we do, I have to be in favor of a carbon-tax approach, because I think that it just levels with people right from the outset. But I believe completely in passing the savings back down the stream to have an impact on the consumer.”