Which Way, USA? America At A Crossroads With Economic And Energy Policy

 by Austin Hill

 Will Americans continue allowing a radicalized environmental agenda to animate Washington, one that prohibits the utilization of natural resources – oil in particular – and that squelches the nation’s economy? Or could it be that, at such a time as this, rationality might take-hold in the USA yet again?

As if our own problems aren’t a sufficient reason to bolster the U.S. energy industry, the world is now upended by a Russia that appears intent on re-creating another Soviet Union while simultaneously forming an energy axis with China. If America could supply more of the world’s natural gas and oil supplies, it would mean more wealth flowing in to the U.S., more American employment, and greater stabilization for the Western world, even at a time when the NATO nations appear to be in a leadership vacuum without steady leadership from the U.S. 

 Instead, eco-warriors on the left are poring big money in to political advertisements bashing congressional Republicans who support the Keystone pipeline project with Canada, and some are even threatening to abandon the Democrat party if President Obama doesn’t abandon the pipeline project altogether.

The real needs of human beings – needs for employment, expanding opportunity, and a stable economy – take a backseat to the “one true religion” of green energy.  Yet as the American left continues to worship at the same altar and the American president tries not to offend them, other nations of the free and industrialized world are actually trying to improve their economies and get out of debt.   

 Consider Canada and its Prime Minster Stephen Harper. First elected in 2006, Harper has over the past eight years championed free trade, federal government spending reductions, and  - a dramatic boost in oil production. Today the Canadian government is on track to be debt-free in 2015, as Harper tirelessly lobbies the U.S. to become more cooperative with pipeline projects and energy exploration.

Then consider the country of Australia and it’s new Prime Minister Tony Abbott. It wasn’t sufficient that in 2013 Australia was already a global leader in iron ore and timber production and that its’ government was set to close out the calendar year debt-free – no, the citizenry of the land “down under” wanted an even more business-friendly and fiscally sound government for themselves, so they elected a candidate for Prime Mister who repeated from the campaign trail that the global climate change agenda is “absolute crap.”

Shortly before his election victory Abbott was asked in a nationwide television interview “with our government debt so low, why do you want to cut government spending even further?”

“Because there’s still waste in our government, that’s why” Abbott replied. After his September 7, 2013 landslide win he set a date of July 1, 2014 by which he intends to eliminate his nation’s “carbon tax.”

And despite that fact that American eco-zealots ignore this, it is nonetheless a fact that the European nations are abandoning their “green” status. In January the European commission, the legislative body of the union that sets policies shared among the member nations, voted to officially abandon specific sets of “climate change protocols.” Even more stunning, the commission appears to be preparing to allow fracking among the member nations, with the hope of making Europe a leader in the global natural gas and oil shale markets.

America may continue to embrace the economic hostility of Obama, Biden, and the radicalized Democrat party.  But the rest of the industrialized world is moving in the exact opposite direction of our President and Vice President, away from the Obama traditions of dangerous government debt and economy-killing environmental zealotry. 

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