For decades, achieving energy independence has been the rallying cry of both Democrats and Republicans in Washington and across the country. Rising demand for oil from countries such as India and China, combined with increased tensions in the Middle East have been catalysts for rising prices at the pump. There is no question that America’s dependence on foreign oil is a major threat to our economy and national security, and a coherent solution must be found to mitigate these threats.
Thirty years ago, we imported 28 percent of our oil. Today, we import 70 percent, despite the fact that we have vast untapped energy resources below American soil. One quarter of the worlds coal reserves are found within the United States, there are an estimated 1 trillion barrels of oil, and an immeasurable supply of natural gas hidden deep within the shale rock below the earths surface. Unfortunately, excessive regulation and restrictions on the extraction of these precious resources has meant we’re no closer to ending our dependence on foreign oil.
The Obama Administration’s subsidizing of companies like Solyndra and Beacon Energy Corp. are prime examples of energy solutions that don’t work. Rather than focusing on increasing production, the Obama Administration has focused on partisan policies such as eliminating tax subsidies for American oil and natural gas industries and promoting renewable energy.
My opponent, Congressman Steve Israel has been instrumental in preventing an increase in energy production in this country, and promoting partisan politics. Yesterday, Congressman Israel voted against a bill called the Strategic Energy Production Act, which would advance a plan to increase oil and gas exploration, development, and production under oil and gas leases of Federal lands. Congressman Israel also voted to prevent offshore and intercontinental drilling, as well as voting against the job creating Keystone XL Pipeline plan.
We are the country that landed a man on the moon, and we certainly can be the country to achieve energy independence. As your Congressman I will work with any member of Congress who says yes to domestic energy production. It is my intent to work within Congress to reduce the amount of oil we import from foreign countries from 70% to at least 50% in the next eight years.
In order to accomplish this, what we need is a diversified “all-of-the-above” approach, which takes advantage of all potential energy sources, including wind, nuclear, solar, hydropower, geothermal, biomass, clean coal, domestic oil, and natural gas. We must also reduce government barriers, which prevent the development of these energy sources.
Unleashing our vast supplies of energy resources for development will reduce our energy costs, create millions of new jobs, stimulate our economy, and once and for all end the threat to our economy and national security that is caused by our dependence on foreign oil. It’s time to make energy independence more than a slogan. It’s time to make energy independence a reality.
Of course, I will not be voting for Mr Labate, whose distorted views I deplore. I care about our national future, energy, economic, and military, and Mr Labate's simplistic views would not be helpful to this nation. Additionally, I greatly appreciate the things which Congressman Israel has done over the past several years for veterans, members of the armed forces, and their families. We don't have to destroy the ecology in order to generate maximum energy independence, and our natural gas supplies are today unparalleled in American history. We can find the energy we need without destroying the nation. It isn't all about wind or solar, but those are going to be important for our future as an adjunct to petroleum-based fuels. Right now they are not the answer, but we need to continue work on developing renewable energy as a hedge for the day when global supplies dwindle.
As for energy, production - is safer and cleaner than it's ever been and getting better every day. 0bama and the Dems want to create scarcity and increase cost to use both as ways of controlling society and transferring wealth. If you really cared about your friends, neighbors, vets and family on Long Island you would be part of the Labate team. You are a very foolish and misinformed individual if you think things will get better by voting for a hack politician who has contributed so much to the catastrophe of the past 3.5 years.
We need someonr in office like Labate who will do something about it!
When George W Bush took the US into two wars, one a war of choice and the other a war of necessity, he also was cutting taxes. That is a dangerous combination and fiscally imprudent. I would be in favor of restoring tax rates to the levels in effect prior to the Bush tax cuts, and devoting half of that to military force support and the other half to national debt reduction. Besides, Phil is not telling the whole story. There is a strategic imbalance in the Pacific which began in the late 1980's when combined with a China which has been rising in power and influence. Vietnam and the Phillippines even are looking to the US to return some balance to the region, and Obama is wisely taking very deliberate and measured steps to return US influence, starting with plans to move Marines into Australia, and with a likely move of LCS (Littoral Combat Ships) into Singapore. Obama is doing anything BUT the nonsense that Phil B talks about and he has more effectively used drone strikes and other successful covert action to suppress our enemies.
Smart power is good power, and we can spend less on European support and allow our allies to take more of the burden, and tom shoulder the costs, than they had been doing for the past twenty years. We need to focus upon areas where our European allies have either no presence, or little presence. Smart is good. Wise planning is better the knee-jerk reactions. Undrstanding future threats is essential. And, last time I checked, Osama Bin Laden is dead, and both GM & Chrysler are alive. And none of that has anything much to do with Steve Israel or Peter King or other LI Congressmen.
Now to the point I believe was being made in the post.....oil, gas and coal are at this time the most readily available and reliable sources of energy today, (other than nuclear, but let’s not go there because I’m sure you are against that as well), not solar, not wind, not geothermal, not any of the so called alternative energy sources. Can they supplement, sure in some areas, but sustain the nation….be serious. The posting says that all efforts and all sources need to be investigated and yes that means utilizing the fabulous resources God has provided for us, while we work to create other sources. Really not to complicated when you use some logic. But when you shut down the ability to utilize what already works because of some ideological whim, that is just being ignorant and makes your argument irrelevant….as do analogies of heroin addicts.
"There is no certainty at all in any of this, and whoever tells you the opposite is not telling you the truth," said Stefan Finsterle, a leading hydrogeologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who specializes in understanding the properties of rock layers and modeling how fluid flows through them. "You have changed the system with pressure and temperature and fracturing, so you don't know how it will behave." Still, some experts see the well failures and leaks discovered so far as signs of broader problems, raising concerns about how much pollution may be leaking out undetected. By the time the damage is discovered, they say, it could be irreversible. "Are we heading down a path we might regret in the future?" said Anthony Ingraffea, a Cornell University engineering professor who has been an outspoken critic of claims that wells don't leak. "Yes." Injection Wells: The Poison Beneath Us <http://truth-out.org/news/item/9934-injection-wells-the-poison-beneath-us> Members Who Supported Big Oil Have Received $38.6 Million From the Industry <http://truth-out.org/news/item/9933-members-who-supported-massive-giveaway-to-big-oil-have-received-386-million-from-the-industry>
Almost 2 BILLION TAXPAYER DOLLARS have been spent on "wind". The problem is almost 80% of the money has gone to foreign countries. The estimates are some 6,000 jobs were created overseas, while "maybe a couple hundred have been created in the U.S." Congressman Israel voted for that spending.
I read a hell of a lot, in business papers and magazines, and not just in local newspapers, and I haven't seen what you have just created out of thin air. Are you simply regurgitating political propaganda from the radical right? And what the hell does Congressman Israel to do with your diatribe?
They take a small piece of truth, and then stretch it to the breaking point, and then throw in some mud and lies to make sure they can score points on anyone who isn't part of their political fringe.
It may interest you to know, maybe not, Senator Schumer is quoted in the article saying this outsourcing of taxpayer money "infuriates me." A diatribe is generally considered prolonged, and bitter. The comment was short and matter of fact. Congressman Israel voted to spend billions of our dollars that wound up creating exponentially more jobs in foreign countries than in the USA. Given the struggling economy and unemployment situation here, it would seem that policy is radical.
"One reason so much money is going overseas is that there is not much of a wind power industry in the United States -- only two major American manufacturers make wind turbines: General Electric Energy and Clipper Wind based in Carpinteria, Calif. Even those companies do a significant amount of their manufacturing overseas. General Electric told ABC News that GE's Renewable Energy business has 3,000 employees around the world, 1,350 here in the United States. Schumer said the way to revitalize the domestic wind power industry and to create green jobs is to require that at least some of the turbine equipment to be made in the United States." I think Chuck Schumer has identified a way to operate more insightfully. Of course, aside from the important issue of job creation in the US, wind power, effectively planned, and economically manufactured, is part of the solution to our energy independence in the future.
If you made a mistake like that while writing a proposal for a good company in the private sector, you'd be fired. Is I've stated, I'm for an all of the above approach, but the worthiness of a resource should be judged by it's success in the marketplace, not by out of touch politicians. We'll never genuinely find out about the kind of impact wind energy can have if our elected officials keep writing laws like this one.
Dead dinosaur fuel is already as obsolete as the horse & carriage, and if the USA doesn't get with the program, we're going to be right there next to the dead dinosaurs in the future.
Next time you want to post, give us something better than stereotyping all those who support extracting natural gas as man-cave monsters who have alcohol. it's completely unproductive and inaccurate. i'm an independent and i am so tired of seeing the extremes from BOTH sides in the comment section overpowering the voices of the middle. However I am more tired of hateful and offensive commentary.
And now we have the Bush/Reagan-dominated Supreme Court allowing, through their Citizens United ruling, corporate donations to dominate the political process and influence the national election. End the influence of corporate (or union) lobbyists. Stop donations to elections, or Super PAC's, from corporations (or unions). Otherwise, you'll end up with the same kind of flawed legislation, no matter how good the intent, and no matter whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans in charge at the time.
The legislation was flawed because either: 1) the people writing the bill were incompetent legislators, or 2) the people writing the bill were purposely carving loopholes, making them corrupt. If incumbents have had an unobstructed path in writing major legislation, and have written bad laws they are either incompetent or corrupt. The nation was founded by citizen legislators. It was a good idea then, and a good idea now.
Quit sucking on the gas pipe. Beware more dead money in natural gas euphoria: <http://www.businessinsider.com/north-america-is-poised-for-huge-natural-gas-shock-2012-6>