GOP Stalls Legislation in the Senate, Democrats Concede Energy Defeat

Stubborn GOP, the party of NO, stalls meaningful energy legislation in the Senate. This is not the headline we wanted to see. We want the Congress to pass a comprehensive energy bill that will seek to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Instead the Democrats are going to introduce a more limited bill that increases liability costs that oil companies would pay following spills like the one we are currently experiencing in the Gulf of Mexico.

What a sad day when the majority party in both Houses of Congress can't fulfill a campaign promise. If the Democrats lose the House and the Senate this year, then energy regulation and efforts to reduce the level of greenhouse emissions will be over for two to four years. If we lose the Congress, you can forget any serious efforts to get America off its addiction to fossil fuels and seriously cut our dependence on foreign oil. There are proposals out there that the President and Congress should seriously look at. The T Boone Pickens proposal is one of them.

"The Pickens Plan" reduces U.S. reliance on foreign oil, and helps secure our energy future, while reducing air pollution and the emission of gases that cause global warming. Pickens says that we can reduce our oil dependence by 30% or more within 10 years if we start using clean, abundant and American natural gas to fuel our trucks, buses and fleets. T Boone proposes that we begin to convert all the Federal govt. vehicles immediately to natural gas.

What are the benefits of natural gas? It is domestic and it's clean. It produces less green house gas emissions than diesel or gasoline-powered vehicles; and it works. The point here is American natural gas is abundant. We have enough domestic natural gas to fuel our trucks and fleet vehicles and produce power to our homes.

I recall when I was working in the Legislature and especially working on energy and utility issues, the conventional wisdom was that natural gas is really expensive when used to run energy plants instead of oil. The Pickens proposal advocates the use of natural gas as a bridge between our dependence upon fossil fuels to our development of wind, solar , and other forms of renewable energy.

In 1970, we imported 24% of our oil. Today, it's more than 65% and growing. Anyone who lived through the OPEC oil embargo remembers the havoc it caused our economy and foreign policy. Nearly 70% of the oil we consume today is produced elsewhere and much of it from nations unfriendly to the US. This is a matter of national security and economic stability. Note: green energy will produce green jobs.

The Congress should pass the NAT GAS Act,   H.R. 1835 and S. 1408. This bill provides the incentives and long-term stability to make the move from imported oil, diesel and gasoline to domestic natural gas. I must offer this aside to the discussion. T. Boone Pickens owns most of the rights to available natural gas sites in the country and parts of Canada. He does have a vested interest but the message is still valid.

This leads me to the effort to repeal Proposition 23 which will roll back the regulations in AB 32 until the economy improves. That is like saying we will roll back the laws regulating murder until we have more cops on the street. Proposition 23, funded by the oil industry to roll back the regulations placed into law by efforts of the Democratic majority and Governor Schwarzenegger. In fact Schwarzenegger thinks of this bill as his major legacy. It is ironic that many of the big funders of the repeal of AB 32 were and are major donors of the Governor. A repeal of AB 32 will set the state back to the beginning in efforts to control greenhouse emissions. These folks if they succeed in rolling back progress will some day be standing on the edge of what was San Francisco as global warming raises the level of water on our coasts and watching San Francisco and the rest of the coastline slowly sink into the ocean just like the Titanic.

The majority party in Congress needs to pass legislation that will limit greenhouse emissions. The Congress under the leadership of the Democratic majority must pass a strong energy bill this year. If the Reeps take over, forget it. In California we must stop this dark and conniving effort by the oil companies that are based out of the state as well as some of the oil and energy companies right here in our Golden State.  I must give PG&E credit for deciding not to contribute to or support Prop 23. Pacific Gas & Electric officials said last July 6^th that the company won't support Proposition 23.
Get to work with your democratic members of congress for energy legislation now more than ever. Get out and work hard to defeat Proposition 23. That is your summer assignment. Take a deep breath of clean air and rock and roll.

 

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