Listen up, politicians! I know you prefer hearing the sound of your own voices, but you’d better pay attention; your jobs depend on it.
Yes, Colorado congressional delegation, I’m talking to you!
In 1973, during the Carter presidency, the first Arab oil crisis had Americans waiting in line at gas pumps. Even way back then, it was readily apparent to all but the brain dead that a national energy policy was essential — and the sooner the better. Yet, here we are, four presidents and a couple of generations of congressmen later, and still we have no viable energy policy, and none in sight.
Unbelievable!
The lack of an energy policy causes our economy to teeter on the brink of disaster, makes peace unlikely and war inevitable, and assures that we are beholden to a bunch of Arab princes and foreign despots whose interests are completely at odds with ours.
Is this problem so tough that no politician anywhere can conceive of a rational solution? Or, is it that politicians are so dependent on energy interests on the one hand and on environmentalists on the other — special interests whose goals and interests run directly counter to those of the American people — that they are frozen into gutless inaction? I think that is exactly the case. The special interests are served while the vast majority of Americans and the vital security interests of the nation are callously ignored.
What qualifies me to question the wisdom of the gutless wonders we keep electing to high office? I was literally born into a seismograph family. I have drilled shot-holes searching for oil all over the Rocky Mountain West and the Midwest. I’ve prospected for uranium in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. I’ve core-drilled for Peabody Coal Company on the Colorado Western Slope, and have worked in a coal mine and in a coal fired power plant.
Later, after law school, my partner and I worked for years to successfully site a huge, multibillion-dollar, state-of-the-art, coal-fired plant in southeast Wyoming. You might say I have energy in my blood. And as the man said, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
The price of oil produces more than mere pain at the pump. It puts a serious crimp in our economy and it endangers our national security. It results not from greedy oil companies or even from conniving OPEC oil ministers. The main culprit is the ever-increasing demand in China and India. There is nothing we can do about that. But there has always been something we can do about the price of oil and our unconscienalbe reliance on foreign oil.
For decades, we have elected an unending stream of spineless politicians to the seats of power at every level, who have failed, refused and neglected to devise a rational energy policy despite a crying need. There is no area where the politicians of both parties have failed us more shamefully.
Do you like the prospect of $10-a-gallon gas? Does the concept of American foreign policy being held hostage to the whims and evil intent of a pack of radical sheiks and anti-American dictators appeal to you? Do you think it’s a great idea to continue pouring millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? If not, join me in demanding that politicians at every level move swiftly to formulate and implement a national energy policy now.
There is nothing that Americans can’t accomplish if we set our minds to it and have the leadership to carry it out. We need a Manhattan Project, a 1960s JFK space race, man-to-the-moon-style effort to accomplish energy independence by 2015.
Here, at a minimum, are the elements a national energy policy must contain:
A crash program to achieve energy independence will have an added benefit: It will create or spin off millions of well-paying jobs, replace some of our dying old industries with new, vibrant ones and help solve our nation’s economic problems. It must be a full-fledged national effort — and private enterprise, with its irrepressible innovation and efficiency, must be allowed to take the lead.
The benefits of a rational energy policy to our national security, our economy and the environment are so obvious and so desirable, it is almost impossible to believe that the lobbyists for the Exxon Mobils and the Sierra Clubs of the world have been able to prevent it from happening up until now.
They will prevent it forever, until you say you’ve had enough and finally stand up and demand action from gutless politicians. The next time you see an Obama, a McCain, a Schaffer or a Udall, tell them you expect an end to the spineless inaction of the past, and that the usual slick political lip service is not going to cut it anymore.
Richard Stacy (richstacy@comcast.net) is a retired former federal prosecutor and a self-described “general curmudgeon.”
