Not many people noticed during the run up to the Iowa caucuses and last year’s payroll tax fight that a far more important, and potentially game-changing resolution passed the Senate at the end of 2011. It was the authorization for the $3 billion Keystone XL pipeline connecting us to Canada’s booming oil shale production. The Senate has given Barack Obama sixty days to either sign or not sign as “not in the national interest.”
One thing we must understand. Barack Obama is at war with America
Iowa and New Hampshire are in the rearview mirror. While we focus on the Republican candidates, there will likely only be one Democratic candidate for president. If you still need a reason to defeat Obama in 2012 consider his administration’s intense effort to deprive America of the energy it needs to function and compete in the world. For all his new found bluster about being proud of America, Barack Obama seems determined to keep America dependent on Middle East and OPEC oil.
If a foreign nation had launched an attack onAmericato destroy its coal-fired plants, to shut down its coal mines, and to thwart its ability to drill for oil and natural gas, we would be at war with it.
Obama and the Democratic Party are at war with America. Between the waste of billions squandered on “Green” energy and the attacks on all aspects of the energy industries in America, the one reason to defeat Obama is your ability to turn on the lights, turn on your computer, and ensure that American business and industry has the energy necessary to exist and compete. Just try to imagine what your life would be without adequate, reliable electricity.
What’s at stake here isn’t just new access to oil, or even jobs–some 20,000 in the construction phase alone (Keystone XL pipeline) and perhaps as many 600,000 jobs by 2035, once those 70,000 barrels of oil a day start flowing. It’s America’s future as the new energy giant of the 21st century.
Consider these facts:
We are already the world’s number three oil producer at 7.5 million barrels a day.
In June Exxon-Mobil announced discovery of a massive new field in the Gulf of Mexico, with as many as 700 million barrels waiting to be tapped. Montana and North Dakota sit on an oil shale formation that could produce another four billion barrels. In addition, Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Reserve’s fields and National Petroleum Reserve could easily add another thirty billion barrels to a new American gusher.
Even if you don’t count Alaska, the new boom of off-shore drilling and oil shale production should add another 1.5 million barrels a day to our domestic output by 2015. That’s closing on Saudi Arabia’s daily total. With Canada and Mexico already producing more than Iran and the Arab Emirates combined, we’re looking at a major shift in the geopolitics of oil–with the United States at the center of it.
Don’t be fooled by claims that fossil fuels are doomed. Alternative fuels
won’t be coming on line anytime soon, certainly not enough to replace the essential role that oil, natural gas, and coal play in our economy from sources of energy to modern plastics and petrochemicals.
A Wall Street Journal editorial recently warned, “Last week the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission convened a conference on the wave of Environmental Protection Agency rules that are designed to force dozens of coal-fired power plants to shut down…despite warnings from expert after expert, including some of its own, the FERC Commissioners refuse to do anything about this looming threat to electric reliability.”
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) warned that “Environmental regulations are shown to be the number one risk to reliability over the next one to five years.”
The editorial noted that “For the first time in U.S. history, net coal capacity is in decline. On top of 38 gigawatts of generation that is already being run below normal levels or slated for early retirement, NERC predicts another 36 to 59 gigawatts will come offline by 2018, depending on the ‘scope and timing’ of EPA demands. That could mean nearly a quarter of all coal-fired capacity.”
It is coal-fired plants that currently provide fifty percent of all the electricity generated in America! The EPA is feverishly trying to force a quarter of that capacity offline. Why? Because the EPA claims that these plants are “polluting” the air. The air in America has never been cleaner. The EPA demand for cleaner air is a bludgeon being used to deprive America of its ability to function.
Americahas more than 497 billion short tons of recoverable coal (not countingAlaska) or nearly three times as much asRussia, which has the world’s second largest reserve. According to the Institute for Energy Research, “America’s recoverable coal resources are bigger than the five largest non-North American countries’ reserves combined,” i.e., Russia,China,Australia,India and the Ukraine.
Obama, of course, is fighting the emergence of the United States as the new energy colossus every step of the way. Would he do this is he weren’t at war with America?
He used the BP oil spill to impose a moratorium on new off shore drilling; his EPA is now trying to halt new natural gas exploration through fracking; he was hoping to postpone the battle over Keystone until after the 2012 election (thanks to the Republicans, he couldn’t). And that’s not counting the billions of taxpayers’ money he’s poured into his obsession with wind and solar power, including clunkers like Solyndra.
The irony is that Obama thinks he’s on the cutting edge of the future, when he actually on the back end of the past. He and his Green pals continue to tout a technology that hasn’t advanced much since we experimented with solar batteries in the 1970s.
Meanwhile, the new oil empire is waiting to gush–indeed, with Keystone’s help in twenty years almost ninety percent of our liquid fuel needs could be coming from just from ourselves andCanada.
Good-bye, OPEC and Islamic fundamentalists. Hello, energy independence and a wealthier America.
All we need is a president who doesn’t have to be arm twisted into keeping us strong and prosperous.
Oh, and a Michelle that is proud to be an American.
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