|
Townhall
Finance
Obamaspeak Takes Failure to New
Highs
by
Bob Beauprez
A
new language was introduced in Washington when President Obama
began his first term in office. For a time, it flummoxed his observers,
including many Republicans, who were caught off-balance by the
combination of
the President’s soaring rhetoric and his Chicago-style politics.
The
language is newspeak. Introduced by George Orwell, it is
characterized by using familiar words and phrases in unfamiliar ways.
In the
President’s parlance, “fair” means skewering the upper middle-class and
redistributing their wealth. "Necessary investments" are excuses to
raise taxes and grow government.
Similar
convoluted definitions exist in the President’s energy
policy pronouncements. His “all-of-the-above” approach apparently means
wasting
precious federal revenues on failed renewable projects while
bankrupting the
coal industry and slapping new taxes and regulations on U.S. oil and
natural
gas producers.
Promoting
renewables is hardly a new idea. President Jimmy Carter
tried it in the 1970s when the Iranian Revolution and gasoline lines
made
America fearful of its dependence on foreign oil. Speaking to the
nation in
April 1977, he called the energy crisis the “moral equivalent of war”
and said
“we must prepare…permanent renewable energy sources” because “we are
now
running out of gas and oil.”
Although
many in America apparently don’t remember that President
Carter’s renewable energy investments were an expensive failure, his
warning
stuck in the American psyche. Today there are still countless Americans
in
denial about our ability to achieve North American energy independence
in the
near term.
The
latest global energy projections from the U.S. Energy
Information Administration (EIA) shatter the Carter-era myths. According to EIA, U.S.
imports of foreign oil
are plummeting and are expected to continue to fall in 2013 and 2014.
Oil
production in both OPEC and non-OPEC countries is expected to rise. New
technologies, including hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling,
are
rapidly expanding U.S. oil and natural gas production, while improved
vehicle
fuel economy and other factors are likely to continue reducing demand
for
oil...
Read
the rest of the article at Townhall Finance
|
