Imagine that the price of food in America was prone to volatile increases of 50 percent or more in a given year. Now imagine that while people struggled to afford food, government bureaucrats went around setting limits on how much food some American farmers can grow, while radical anti-obesity crusaders sued other farmers across the country to seize their farmlands and declare them off-limits to crop production. Such an untenable situation would likely produce a popular revolt that dwarfed the Tea Party movement.
Yet that scenario is almost perfectly analogous to America’s current energy and environmental policies. Ambitious professional politicians and federal bureaucrats are working hand-in-glove with an $8 billion-a-year Big Green environmental lobby in an effort to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. The result: lost jobs in the energy industry, skyrocketing utility costs, mind-numbing traffic jams, and a decline in critically needed domestic energy production.
Fixing this deplorable state of affairs will begin with some common sense reforms:
» ?Restore a human balance: Government policies must respect the long-standing public consensus that energy and environmental factors are equally important and that neither should be made subordinate to the other. Protecting the environment does not mean government should tell Americans how big their cars or homes must be, that they should pay energy prices maintained at artificially higher levels by government fiat to satisfy influential special interests, or that millions of acres of public land that teems with critically needed resources must be placed forever off-limits to protect an obscure insect, fish or animal. These things can be balanced.
» ?All-of-the-above: Renewable energy sources now generate 8 percent of America’s total energy supply, while fossil fuels account for 84 percent (the balance comes from nuclear). This ratio won’t change significantly for at least two decades. Encourage renewable energy sources, but not at the expense of fossil fuels. It’s an all-of-the-above decision, not an either/or choice.
» ?Rein in the lawyers. The Supreme Court is currently considering a case that, if upheld, will encourage suits by anyone claiming to have been harmed by “climate change.” That’s nuts. Big Green environmental groups — often funded by taxpayer dollars — have long forced expensive and unnecessary litigation despite having suffered no demonstrable harm from the contested policies. Raise the bar for legal standing in environmental cases.
» ?Leverage more conventional energy production for more renewable development: California Rep. Devin Nunes’ “Energy Roadmap” would allow more domestic energy exploration in places currently off-limits, plus a speedier approval process for up to 200 new nuclear plants. Portions of the resulting energy royalties would be used as incentives for renewable development via a “reverse auction” in which firms bid for the income in return for producing more energy at lower cost. New jobs would be created, needed energy infrastructure improvements funded, foreign oil dependence slashed, and carbon emissions cut.
