By Eugene J. Koprowski, Esq.
January 6, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
A few days ago, former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) took to Twitter, and twitted Barack Obama once again. This time, she took on the president over how his weak, seemingly socialist policies have increased gasoline prices, and harmed the U.S. economy. She’s absolutely correct in her assessment of Obama’s energy strategy.
Palin knows what she’s talking about on oil and gas and energy issues. From 2003-2004, she was chairman of the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, and became quite well known as a corruption whistleblower there.
As governor, Palin signed the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act into law. The Act set a timeline for oil companies to get serious about transporting oil from Alaska to the lower 48 states.
Palin supports energy independence to strengthen the U.S. dollar and decrease oil prices. She stated as much on the campaign trail as vice president more than two years ago, and more recently, when stumping for conservative candidates in 2010.
But President Obama has pursued policies that have weakened the dollar and increased oil prices – the exact opposite of what Palin and the grassroots conservatives she helped elect last year have articulated.
Obama’s energy policies have been nothing short of an unnatural disaster for the U.S.
The brilliant new Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, proposed nearly a year ago to Obama a straightforward plan for oil drilling off the coast of Virginia. That would increase American energy independence, and create thousands of new jobs in the mid-Atlantic region. Last year, other policies pursued by Gov. McDonnell jump-started Virginia’s economy, and created 55,000 jobs there. So he’s very savvy on that issue.
But the Obama administration has been dragging its feet on McDonnell’s proposal, and progress has been slow in signing off on leases for off shore drilling there in Virginia. Shallow water and on-shore drilling, as proposed for Virginia, by the way, are proven safe and effective methods for obtaining domestic oil.
Meanwhile, Obama has kept the energy potential of another state, Alaska, from being realized as well. Gov. Palin has long argued that the U.S. can “safely drill” for oil not only offshore the coast of Virginia, and off other U.S. coastal lands, but on the tiny, 2,000 acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), if Obama and his left-wing collaborators in Washington D.C. would get out of the way.
Obama has also used his bully pulpit as president to advocate for so-called “renewable” energy sources, like wind energy. He’s stalled on other proven technologies – like nuclear energy – which even the French have long embraced.
ANWR the Answer
But despite the setbacks, there is some progress that Obama hasn’t stopped through overregulation, rather than oversight of industry, as allowed for in the Constitution of the U.S.
Palin’s GOP successor as governor of Alaska has continued her policy, and companies there are making progress on the largest private sector energy project in U.S. history, moving forward on a 3,000 mile natural gas pipeline that will soon transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean natural gas to local markets all across America.
The phrase popularized by Palin, “drill, baby, drill,” is still sometimes mocked by the media. But in their condescension, they miss the grand strategic point of Palin’s pithy phrase. Were the U.S. to further develop its natural resources, and reduce its dependence on foreign oil, we would be free of many of the entanglements that we’ve had in foreign policy during the last few decades. We’ve fought Iraq twice, once to defend the Kuwaiti oil upon which our economy relies. We’re also always on edge over Iran, another major oil producing nation. We’ve had to take insults from the lunatic Hugo Chavez, the dictator who runs Venezuela, also because of oil.
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Were we to move past this, we might be able to once again realize founding father George Washington’s dream of limiting America’s foreign entanglements. To be sure, the world is a lot different than it was during his day, and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans don’t provide quite the security that they did in the 18th Century. We also have some strategic interests overseas which will continue to require our attention, no matter what our energy supply situation is, as I argue at our new online community for tea party activists web site.
Taking control of our energy future is a much better strategy than tilting at windmills, literally, as Obama is doing with his energy policy.
� 2011 Eugene J. Koprowski, Esq. - All Rights Reserved
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Attorney Eugene J. "Gene" Koprowski is Chairman of the Young Guns Conservative Fund, a non-profit, 527 political action committee which aims to keep the pressure from the Tea Party movement on the new freshmen Republicans elected to the Congress this fall, and to keep them focused on core conservative principles. The PAC raises money online to run issue ads on the Internet and on the radio and TV in the Washington D.C. metro market on immigration reform, repealing Obamacare, and other issues of importance to true grassroots conservatives. He holds a law degree from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, a master's degree from the University of Chicago, and completed his undergraduate work at Northwestern University. An award-winning journalist, Mr. Koprowski earned an Emmy Award Nomination in 2008 from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) for his work for FoxNews.com.
See some of his opinion pieces/columns for Fox News.
E-Mail: conservativeyounggunspac@gmail.com
