I swear, the Dems never cease to amaze me with how incredibly naive they are in their own beliefs and with their sadly mistaken idea that we will beleive anything they say. Nancy Pelosi's comments to the Politco about why she refuses to allow a vote on domestic production of energy is proof positive of that.
When asked why she was blocking a vote on a bill that is overwhemlingly supported by the American people, she said: "I'm trying to save the planet; I'm trying to save the planet."
Well, Charles Krauthammer over at TownHall looks into that and finds that by forcing Americans to buy foreign oil, she is doing more harm to the environment than if we were producing oil here at home.
From his column:
| Places like Nigeria where chronic corruption, environmental neglect and resulting unrest and instability lead to pipeline explosions, oil spills and illegal siphoning by the poverty-stricken population -- which leads to more spills and explosions. Just this week, two Royal Dutch Shell pipelines had to be shut down because bombings by local militants were causing leaks into the ground. Compare the Niger Delta to the Gulf of Mexico where deep-sea U.S. oil rigs withstood Hurricanes Katrina and Rita without a single undersea well suffering a significant spill. The United States has the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling. Today, directional drilling -- essentially drilling down, then sideways -- allows access to oil that in 1970 would have required a surface footprint more than three times as large. Additionally, the U.S. has one of the most extensive and least corrupt regulatory systems on the planet. |
So, what is Pelosi and company trying to save us from? A healthy economy? Lower energy costs? She certainly isn't trying to protect the environment, not by a long-shot.
More:
| Does Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic? The net environmental effect of Pelosi's no-drilling willfulness is negative. Outsourcing U.S. oil production does nothing to lessen worldwide environmental despoliation. It simply exports it to more corrupt, less efficient, more unstable parts of the world -- thereby increasing net planetary damage. |
But Pelosi would never let facts get in her way. She apparently believes that she knows best despite the fact that doesn't even know what the facts are. One of her party's favorite lines to parrot is "We can't drill our way out of this!"
But apprently, the Saudis can drill for us.
Check this out:
| Democrats want no oil from the American OCS or ANWR. But of course they do want more oil. From OPEC. From where Americans don't vote. From places Democratic legislators can't see. On May 13, Sen. Chuck Schumer -- deeply committed to saving just those pieces of the planet that might have huge reserves of American oil -- demanded that the Saudis increase production by a million barrels a day. It doesn't occur to him that by eschewing the slightest disturbance of the mating habits of the Arctic caribou, he is calling for the further exploitation of the pristine deserts of Arabia. In the name of the planet, mind you. |
Not only are the Dems completely out of touch on the energy issue, they are trying to pull the wool over our eyes as well.
It won't work. Too many of us can see right through it. They offered us bio-fuels and we got higher food and gas prices as a result. Is this the "common sense approach" to lower energy costs that Pelosi promised back in 2006? That promise was nothing more than a bold-faced lie.
Here's more:
| The other panacea, yesterday's rage, is biofuels: We can't drill our way out of the crisis, it seems, but we can greenly grow our way out. By now, however, it is blindingly obvious even to Democrats that biofuels are a devastating force for environmental degradation. It has led to the rape of "lungs of the world" rainforests in Indonesia and Brazil as huge tracts have been destroyed to make room for palm oil and sugar plantations. Here in the U.S., one out of every three ears of corn is stuffed into a gas tank (by way of ethanol), causing not just food shortages abroad and high prices at home, but intensive increases in farming with all of the attendant environmental problems (soil erosion, insecticide pollution, water consumption, etc.). This to prevent drilling on an area in the Arctic one-sixth the size of Dulles Airport that leaves untouched a refuge one-third the size of Britain. There are a dizzying number of economic and national security arguments for drilling at home: a $700 billion oil balance-of-payment deficit, a gas tax (equivalent) levied on the paychecks of American workers and poured into the treasuries of enemy and terror-supporting regimes, growing dependence on unstable states of the Persian Gulf and Caspian basin. Pelosi and the Democrats stand athwart shouting: We don't care. We come to save the planet! |
Clearly, the Dems are caught up in their own delusions and expect us to blindly follow them. No, thanks. I'll stick with the facts of reality.
You can access the complete column on-line here:
Drilling And Blissful Ignorance
Charles Krauthammer
TownHall.com
August 1, 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment