Say Anything

Talk about a non-sequitur. Developing energy resources in America won’t help make America energy independence? Clearly, Obama’s Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar holds the public in pretty low esteem if he expects us to buy that whopper.

From CNS News:

“We don’t believe that you need to drill everywhere and we don’t believe that the ‘drill, baby, drill’ program is the way that’s going to get us to the energy independence that we need for America or that will power our economy and that’s why the President has been so clear from day one and we in the Department of Interior have been so clear that what we need to do is need to have a robust energy program that includes a number of different sources of energy and while yes, we are pushing forward with oil and gas development both offshore and onshore which was the subject of much of the hearing today, we’re also moving forward with renewable energy,” he told CNSNews.com after testifying before the House Natural Resources Committee about his Department’s FY2012 budget.

“The President has said we are supporting nuclear, we’re support other clean air energy forms and at the end of the day, this is a place where there is hope that perhaps some of the Republicans in the House would come together and say that we can move forward with energy legislation that moves us into this new energy future.”

The Obama administration “moving ahead with oil and gas development” has looked a lot like them doing everything they can to inhibit oil and gas development. If you don’t let the oil and gas producers drill, then they can’t move ahead with development. It’s as simple as that.

By the way, isn’t it interesting how Secretary Salazar talks about energy development? He says “we’re moving ahead” with energy development. It’s almost like the Obama administration views itself as in charge of energy of America and not, you know, private sector energy producers.

That sort of attitude of micromanagement is dangerous. In modern economies, energy freedom means economic freedom. Given how dependent our economy is on energy, the more free we are to produce the needed energy to turn the lights on in the stores and power the servers and keep the trucks rolling the more flexible, free and productive our economy will be.

What the Obama administration has done, since coming into office, is make our energy markets less free in an attempt to manipulate those markets toward embracing nebulous “green energy” initiatives. But “green energy” is unreliable, inefficient, terribly expensive and almost entirely dependent on government subsidy.

Crippling traditional energy sources like oil, gas and coal to push the nation toward “green energy” will inflate energy prices. Higher energy prices mean less economic activity. Less economic activity means less employment, lower wages and less prosperity. It’s a recipe for economic disaster.