Before you read on, consider this: Much like with patients and doctors in the case of the healthcare debate, neither folks who have to live in the filth nor those who actually work in the energy industry get a say in the policymaking. In other words, this conversation is held at all the wrong levels.
… the part that has liberals really foaming at the mouth is [Rick Perry’s] suggestion to severely check the power of the EPA and give states more leeway to set their own environmental regulations. The standard criticism of such rollbacks is that states, released from Uncle Sam“s iron fist, will engage in a race to the bottom and gut environmental standards to attract business. But states have a far greater incentive than distant bureaucrats to look for ways to protect their natural resources with minimal sacrifice of economic and other priorities.
A state government is no less reckless and capricious than its federal counterpart. Are we sure states truly have the wellbeing of all of their people as well as the required long-range thinking to hold themselves up to such high standards? Ask and the Louisiana news will answer.
The Gambit | Landry, Vitter Meet With Oil Regulators On Drilling
“The purpose of this meeting is to make sure the information given to us in Washington is the same going on here as well,” Landry said. “And how we as legislators can help to address the lack of permitting going on in the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon incident. We hope it’s a step in the right direction to getting the Gulf back up and running and people back to work.”
… “These are great American jobs we need to preserve and build here,” Vitter said. “As these two charts illustrate, it’s major revenue for the federal government to help with lessening deficit and debt. (It’s the) second biggest source of revenue (for) the federal government after only federal income tax.”
What about the tourism and fisheries jobs and protecting the natural environment for our descendants along with responsibly drilling for oil? But wait, let’s look at how many of those great American jobs we will preserve here. Dalmia again, from the same article as above:
[Job] projections are notoriously difficult to make accurately, and there is every reason to believe that Perry“s claims, largely lifted from oil industry studies, are way off. Michael Levi, senior fellow for energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, estimates that Perry“s plan will create 620,000 jobs at best [vs. 1.2 million as predicted]. If Levi is right, Perry has needlessly opened himself up to attack by using inflated numbers. And for what? The main point of energy liberalization is not to create jobs. It’s to make cheap and reliable energy available to individuals and businesses. That’s the message that Perry should be hammering.
Cheap, reliable, fast. You pick two. Anyway, I’ll leave you with that.
