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WORD COUNT
656
JUNE 18, 2008
THE SENATE BLOWS IT
ON ENERGY – by Carl Pope
With gas prices now
topping a record national average of $4 a gallon, one would think that
Congress might be scrambling to help ease our pain at the pump. Yet last
week the Senate missed a golden opportunity to give Americans a break to
make sure Big Oil pays its fair share on its record profits, to support
clean energy, and to help create jobs.
A minority in the
Senate thwarted the Consumer-First Energy Act of 2008 (S. 3044) - a
sensible plan that promise consumers real relief and that could have
helped put us on the path toward a clean energy future by ending the oil
industry’s chokehold on our economy. The bill would have ended
taxpayer-funded giveaways to the oil industry, cracked down on
speculators, penalized price gougers, stood up to OPEC, and much more.
At a time when the
economy continues to tank and unemployment continues to rise, the Senate
Republican Leadership has now proved that it has no interest whatsoever
in even discussing the real solutions to our mounting energy and
economic crises.
And virtually the
same group on the same day blocked the Renewable Energy and Job Creation
Act of 2008 (H.R. 6049), which would have invested billions in the clean
energy technologies we need to bring skyrocketing prices under control,
fight global warming, and create hundreds of thousands of new,
good-paying green jobs.
This minority of
Senators remains determined to stop progress and to protect the coffers
of Big Oil, Big Coal, and other special interests. They continue to
block legislation that would bring zooming energy markets under control,
put America
back to work, put the brakes on taxpayer-funded giveaways to an oil
industry awash in record profits, and fight global warming by investing
in a clean energy future.
Big Oil
continues to make record profits at the expense of America’s economic,
energy and national security – and the Republicans want to continue
showering Big Oil with tax breaks despite the industry having done
little to invest in alternative fuels.
It is unconscionable that any senator would choose to protect the oil
industry at a time when the economy is suffering under crippling energy
prices and Big Oil has hardworking Americans over a barrel.
While blocking
progress, all President Bush and his allies in Congress offer in return
is the same old recycled, costly, and destructive plan that we've heard
for years: drill, drill, drill.
If we're truly
addicted to oil, as President Bush himself has admitted, the answer is
not simply to seek a bigger fix by drilling off of our beaches and in
our disappearing special places like the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. Such drilling won’t do anything to ease pain at the pump or
create energy independence. Even at peak production, which could take 20
years, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would produce roughly one
year's supply of oil. The best evidence suggests that gas prices would
drop by only pennies per gallon if drilling is allowed. The honest
answer to our oil problem is to use less of it, and that means better
fuel efficiency and morerenewable energy. We can’t drill our way out of
this problem.
Blocking the
Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 stops efforts to extend
crucial clean energy tax incentives for wind and solar power that are in
danger of expiring That makes the Senate Republicans responsible for
kicking the economy while it’s down. Jobs are already being lost in
renewable energy, and at least 100,000 more could disappear unless
Congress acts immediately to renew these incentives.
The failed policies
of yesterday don’t offer the solutions we need to address today’s energy
and economic crises. It's time to break our addiction to fossil fuels by
shifting our priorities and our policies toward creating the clean
energy economy. It’s time to stop calling for more drilling and to take
back the giveaways to Big Oil. It’s time for wind farms – not windfall.
--
Carl Pope is
Executive Director of Sierra Club,
America’s oldest and
largest grassroots environmental organization – www.sierraclub.org
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