US Energy Policy Run by Luddites?

The Economist has a thoughtful article on energy, but nowhere seems to address America's real problem----the pernicious hold that the tree-huggers & environuts have on American policy.

How can a bunch of political know-nothings on energy say in the late '80s that an expansion of the ANWR field would be unnecessary because it would "take ten years to drill & produce the new crude." It would take several years, but in spite of 2 1/2 Republican administrations, the North Slope of Alaska remains underdeveloped because of absurd "scientific" studies of how it would "disturb" a few herds of caribou. Year after year, Republicans have failed to get the ANWR legislation passed in spite of important national security concerns---both military and economic---that expansion of ANWR would address. How is this possible?

I firmly believe that the Republican Party has lost its nerve, almost literally, and is addressing issues in a sideways, mincing fashion---seemingly more worried about offending important elites [who couldn't care less about them, as these elites will always be implacably opposed to Republicans] than in defending the very efficient and world-class oil companies like Exxon/Mobil & Chevron, to name two, which could exploit the expanded ANWR acreage with a "footprint" on the ground of less than two square miles.

I heard Sen. McConnell of KY yesterday verbally putting his foot down on the outrageous new carbon taxes proposed by a House/Senate bill designed by ideological zealots like Barbara Boxer and supported by an illiterate scientific type like Senator Reid of NV. Just how did the USA get into a fix where its energy policy is fashioned by moronic one-issue zealots who are more concerned about the fate of some caribou above the Arctic Circle than by insane oil nations developing nuclear weapons with money from absurdly inflated prices due to a twenty-year hiatus on drilling? Always for the same reason: it would take a decade to get to the oil and send it south to refineries.

And refineries are no longer allowed on US soil---at least turnkey state of the art refineries. These are being built in China by Exxon due to the Luddites in DC. The level of public illiteracy about oil is shocking in a country with companies possessing the highest level of oil technology in the industry. It's not just bad PR, though the American Petroleum Institute appears dead-set against interesting and informative commercials on the need for oil drilling and refineries in the USA---still the world's number three oil producer.

Why this failure of nerve? I saw it again in Sen. McCain's speech Tuesday night when he had a national forum. He is turning from being a maverick Republican-in-name-only [RINO] into becoming an avowed Democrat on energy issues. He sidles and simpers his "my friends" and a silly laugh at the end of each sentence into a pantomime of second-rate me-tooism on the most important domestic issue facing the country---independent sources of energy.

I think McCain reminded me most of those washed-up old middleweight boxers whose punches had long ago lost their zing and pop---now his feisty straight-talk express style has morphed into a Gore-lite Global Warming alarmist just when about 35,000 scientists have gone on record refuting the IRCC UN gibberish & Gore's deceitful hoax "An Inconvenient Truth."

It's sad to see a guy past his prime put into the fight of his life---without the drive and passion that once made him an interesting politician with eccentric, but justifiable policy positions. Now he has practically defected to the enemy before even engaging in battle---his call for town-hall gatherings where he would debate Obama face-to-face will be ignored. Obama is untested, but McCain's one advantage, his ability to score points in debates, will not be put on display. Obama knows the press will cover his backside on every slip he does make in public. McCain is vulnerable and no amount of his "across-the-aisle" bipartisan mode will be credited in a year when the Dems are desperate not to once again let the Oval Office slip from their grasp.

Once Obama is POTUS and a filibuster-proof Senate is in place, there will be no more talk radio, no talk of energy independence, and a drastic drop in national security. Israel will be perforce pushed into relying on its nuclear stockpile, the UN will take over areas where the US operated independently before, and the USA will recede into the second tier of world powers, voluntarily self-neutered by kowtowing Dems and nervous Reubs buffaloed by relentless MSM attacks. The Hagels & other centrists like Snowe and Collins will follow trail-blazer Jim Jeffords who showed them how to defect gracelessly in 2000.

I don't think John McCain is going to raise much Repub money if his speech Tuesday night has revealed his campaign strategy. Being a RINO-lite reminds me of the old Goldwater book, only this time the November vote can be called "An Echo, Not a Choice."

As for oil, I guess we are going to pay ala carte prices for something we still have a hundred billion barrels of under our own turf. And despite being "The Saudi Arabia of Coal," the Dem Luddites will prevent our using coalbed methane & other available technologies because their overarching goal is the subjection of the American economy to overall government supervision---the same policy which has hobbled EUtopia with high taxes and low productivity.

Rush Limbaugh today repeated again that zealous environmental regulation is the new Communism---keep switching strategies with the overall goal of destroying or at least hobbling American economic independence.