Those damn polar bears are up to no good. You think they are all cute, but then they go and screw us. Or rather, US Senators are up to no good in the name of polar bears – no good that will very likely get in the way of economic recovery and any efforts to encourage more energy independence.
Last year, the Bush Administration put the polar bear on the threatened species list. We interviewed NRA-ILA’s Darren LaSorte at the Blog Bash about the issue since he works on hunting policy.
As part of the listing, they Administration also said that federal permits could not be held up to lawsuits seeking to stop projects based on their potential threats to polar bears. Now, the Senate has voted to repeal that protection. You want more power plants? Sorry, that might kill a polar bear which might be threatened at some point in the future. You want more oil exploration? Lawsuits won’t be about the actual impact on animals around the exploration site, now they will be about the potential impact on animals thousands of miles away. This should be fun.
There could be no better investment in America than to invest in America becoming energy independent! We need to utilize everything in out power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil including using our own natural resources.Create cheap clean energy, new badly needed green jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.The high cost of fuel this past year seriously damaged our economy and society. The cost of fuel effects every facet of consumer goods from production to shipping costs. After a brief reprieve gas is inching back up.OPEC will continue to cut production until they achieve their desired 80-100. per barrel.If all gasoline cars, trucks, and SUV’s instead had plug-in electric drive trainsthe amount of electricity needed to replace gasoline is about equal to the estimated wind energy potential of the state of North Dakota.We have so much avzilable to us such as wind and solar. Let’s spend some of those bail out billions and get busy harnessing this energy. Create cheap clean energy, badly needed new jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. What a win-win situation that would be for our nation at large! There is a really good new book out by Jeff Wilson called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now.
Sherry –
Not to rain on your parade, but you do realize that the electric power to recharge the batteries on all those wonderful electric vehicles has to come from somewhere.
And it sure as hell ain’t going to be coming from the 1% or so electric power currently generated by all of the hopey/changey/ windmill/solar/unicornfarts/renewable whatever in the US.
Yes. What we really need to create is a tree that grows $20 bills. Or slippers we can tap three times to take us back to Oz.
Of course, we do have a cheap reliable source of domestic power. Coal. We got more of it than anyone. We also have tons of oil and natural gas. And tar sands.
But the Anti American Commies (eer, I mean EnviroDemocrats) have decided to put them strictly off limits. Its like slicing off our hands and feet. Now, of course, they want to chop off our head (and cut out our hearts).