America Still Needs Energy Plan

Wake up, America. Don’t let those lower gas prices lull you into complacency.

America is currently facing the most severe energy shortage since the 1970’s oil embargoes. While mostly identified through rolling blackouts in California, the nation as a whole is suffering from higher energy costs and limited supply. Our country currently suffers under an outdated and ill-conceived energy structure. Despite growing populations and rising standards of living, not a single major oil refinery has been built in over a decade.

Our country needs a comprehensive approach to energy security that will increase, diversify, and make possible the delivery of affordable and reliable energy – something that will not be found in the liberal mantra of price controls and regulatory policymaking. America needs the Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) Act, which passed the House on August 2 with 20 of 30 Texas members voting in favor of it. It passed in grand fashion (240-189).

America is increasingly dependent on overseas oil cartels for our energy needs, yet we have significant energy resources that are untapped. To combat this trend, the SAFE Act will help increase the domestic production of energy while encouraging new technologies and maintaining safeguards that minimize environmental impacts.

It removes regulatory hurdles and taxes that have slowed or prevented the domestic production of energy from all sources. For instance, government mandates for so-called “boutique fuels” requiring that different fuel blends be used in different parts of the country have led to supply bottlenecks and price spikes. By making these mandates more flexible, the SAFE Act would ensure that they do not disrupt the availability and affordability of gasoline.

The House also included a provision to allow exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. While this could result in huge increases in our oil production and reserves, drilling would be confined to only a few thousand acres of the 1.5 million acre coastal plain of Alaska.

Although the United States will still remain partially dependent on imports, these measures allowing greater domestic production will help cushion our economy against supply shocks.

The SAFE Act also provides for new incentives for conservation, efficiency, and renewable sources of energy, but recognizes that for the foreseeable future, Americans will have to rely on proven sources like oil, hydroelectric, nuclear, and coal.

Considered an energy rich state, Texas relies first on natural gas (50%), then on coal (39%) and then nuclear (10%) to produce electricity. Our transportation needs are largely met by petroleum (96%). What this means is that less than one percent of our energy comes from alternative sources like wind and solar. These sources, even if doubled or tripled, cannot meet our demands.

The 48,000 Texas members of Citizens for a Sound Economy support efforts to make U.S. energy supplies affordable and stable through increased domestic production, opening up of federal land to exploration and drilling, and improving regulations that adversely impact our ability to meet our energy needs.

We oppose legislative and other regulatory attempts to cap emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and which make fuel and electricity more expensive. We support the Bush decisions on the regulation of CO2and rejection of the UN global warming treaty. This ill-conceived treaty, which has been ratified only by Romania, does not improve the environmental treaty but is written to redirect wealth and productivity from the US.

We need to bring CO2 into the national energy policy debate. The vast majority of Americans are unaware of the critical nexus between energy production and emissions of carbon dioxide. Apart from natural sources (e.g., trees, plants, and humans emitting it when they exhale), CO2 is a byproduct of the burning of fossil fuels. Cap emissions of CO2 and you cap the amount of energy that can be produced and the amount of fuel that can be used. In other words, such efforts would amount to an energy tax and rationing. Americans are not asleep at the wheel. We won’t stand for rationing and taxing the fuel that runs our economy.