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Redstate...
Let’s get serious
about domestic energy
by Senator David Vitter
Thursday, March 31st
In his speech at Georgetown University this week, President Obama
acknowledged the alarming increases in prices at the gas pump, which in
many states are approaching $4 per gallon. The president restated
some vague platitudes about the need to reduce our dependence on
foreign oil, but offered no concrete plans to rein in those prices,
which are putting a strain on family budgets across the country.
On his recent trip to South America, the President expressed hope that
Brazil would aggressively develop its resources so that the United
States could become one of the “best customers” of Brazil’s oil
industry. This comes on the heels of his administration sending a
loan of more than $2 billion to Brazil to expand its offshore drilling
operations. Obama reaffirmed that insulting endorsement of
boosting Brazil’s energy economy in his speech yesterday, leaving
drivers across the country wondering why we continue to import over 60
percent of our nation’s total oil consumption from foreign countries
and leave vast resources here untouched.
What we need is a strong energy policy that starts, first and foremost,
with developing our abundant resources here at home to spur our
economy, reduce our reliance on oil from unfriendly regimes overseas
and bring down the deficit. Today, I laid out my plan by introducing
new legislation, 3-D: The Domestic Jobs, Domestic Energy, and Deficit
Reduction Act of 2011. It would unleash our vast domestic energy
potential to create American jobs, help free us from our reliance on
foreign oil and begin to reduce our $14 trillion dollar national debt.
The 3-D Act speeds up the permitting process while ensuring the
responsible development of our abundant domestic resources.
The 3-D Act would also put us back on a revenue-producing fiscal
path. Energy production is second only to your tax dollars as a
source of revenue for the federal budget. And yet in his speech
yesterday, President Obama restated his desire to shift us away from a
revenue-producing energy economy – one that develops our own proven
resources – toward massive subsidies for unproven energy sources like
wood chips and switchgrass.
That approach won’t bring down our catastrophic levels of debt.
Like other Obama policies that shift power from the free market and
toward entitlements and government subsidies, it will only make them
worse.
We can’t afford to shut off our most valuable natural resources and
just hope for a miracle. We’ve had too many job losses already due to
the Obama administration’s shutdown of our energy economy; allowing
them to multiply across the country would be devastating. Given the
recent unrest in the Middle East, placing our energy security in the
hands of unstable dictators isn’t a “plan;” it’s self-destructive.
We can take concrete steps to build a more secure foundation for our
economy – one based on developing our own resources, creating good
American jobs and lowering the deficit. I’m starting in Congress
with 3-D: The Domestic Energy, Domestic Jobs and Deficit Reduction Act
of 2011.
Read it at Redstate
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