America is still dependent on fossil fuels despite the Obama administration’s attempts to curb consumption by playing favorites with alternative energy companies, including companies that produce solar, wind, geothermal, biofuel and ethanol products. I fill up my car every week with gasoline and, being from Appalachia, a coal-powered plant keeps the lights on at home.
Regardless of what energy-obsessed liberals will tell you, America’s dependence on fossil fuels is fine for now. Nothing happens overnight. We’ll be using oil and coal for a good time to come.
There’s nothing wrong with looking for and using alternative forms of energy, but there is something wrong, however, when the government tries to force alternative energy on Americans against their will at to their financial detriment. Currently, President Obama is out stumping for reelection on a peculiar pitch while gas prices are approaching or at $4 a gallon: use less oil and end subsidies for the oil industry. Then he goes on and touts “investments” (read: subsidies) for alternative energy.
Who is the President to tell you and I how much oil we should consume? It is the height of hypocrisy to demand an end to the subsidies for one industry, while advocating for them for another. Obama claims he supports an “all of the above” strategy. That’s simply not true.
What’s worse is that the President is willing to play politics with the oil industry (end their subsidies because they charge you so much) at the expense of the average American. At best, an end to oil subsidies will not affect the price. At worst, prices will increase while the government takes that $2.5 billion and adds it to the $16 million it already gives to the alternative energy industry.
That’s right. Alternative energy gets more in subsidies than fossil fuels do, and we know which one this big government President wants to end.
The bottom line is that the President is willing to end subsidies for the sources of energy we do use while advocating for taxpayer subsidies for sources we don’t (does Solyndra ring a bell?), all while saying he supports an “all of the above” approach to energy.
It’s time to either end all subsidies or none, and to stop playing politics with America’s energy security.
