...A New York Times headline from August 20, 2003, sums it up: "Ambitious Bush Plan Is Undone by Energy Politics."That's an understatement. Instead, Democrats ridiculed Vice President Cheney for meeting with oil industry representatives to craft U.S. energy policy — and for insisting on finding more oil.
They had no plan themselves, mind you — apart from massively expensive global warming initiatives that would force Americans to lower their standard of living to Third World levels by spending as much as $800 billion a year to cool Earth.
Yet, if Bush's plan had been put in place in 2001, we'd have replaced millions of barrels of oil, billions of tons of coal and untold trillions of acre feet of natural gas with clean, safe nuclear power.
We'd be pumping millions of barrels more of oil, creating thousands of American jobs, cutting prices and saving literally hundreds of billions of dollars every year —money that today goes to line the pockets of the Saudi royal family, Venezuelan petrotyrant Hugo Chavez, Libyan leader-for-life Muammar Qadhafi and Vladimir Putin's Russia.
When the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, and oil was $50 a barrel and corn $2 a bushel, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised an energy plan. We're still waiting for it. Today, crude oil is $134 and corn is $6.50.
It's pretty clear who's to blame: Congress. In fact, House and Senate Democrats have obstructed any progress in America's fight to regain some semblance of energy independence.
"Now is the time for Congress to move and get something done," President Bush said all the way back in August 2003. He's still waiting, and so are we...
The entirety of this brilliant June 16 editorial from Investor's Business Daily is reprinted by Smart Green USA right here.
