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Dick Cheney is known to snarl more than he smiles, but the former VP and ex-oil executive must be grinning from ear to ear now that Mitt Romney has issued his energy plan.
By “his,” I mean Cheney’s – the one he drafted in secrecy with a cabal of industry chieftains a decade ago. They couldn’t get all of their agenda enacted, however, so imagine their excitement over Romney’s recent proposal, which out-Cheneys Cheney. In a breathtaking surrender of America’s energy future to Big Oil profiteers, Romney revives the maniacal fervor of the “drill, baby, drill” crowd, pushes “fracking” with a vengeance, runs the filthy XL pipeline right through the heart of America, zeros-out federal tax credits for wind and solar alternatives to oil, and maintains the $4-billion-a-year subsidy for oil corporations – among other giveaways.
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Then he doubles down on energy stupidity by undoing Teddy Roosevelt’s logical decision that our national lands should be under the control of… well, national policy makers. Instead, capitulating to industry’s wildest dream, Romney would cede control over drilling and mining on nationally-owned public land to the various states, most of which are run by industry-coddling, corporate-financed politicians. It’s like asking a coyote to guard your last lambchop!
Who wrote this “plan?” Harold Hamm, for one. CEO of Continental Resources, an oil and gas fracking corporation, this Oklahoma billionaire chairs Romney’s energy advisory committee. A campaign aide insists that Hamm and other industry executives (who showered Romney with over $10 million in campaign funds in August alone) were allowed to write the policy, not as payback, but “simply to tap their expertise.”
Uh-huh – expertise at serving their own interests, our national interest be damned.
“Giving Reins to the States Over Drilling,” www.nytimes.com, August 23, 2012.
“Energy: Solar, wind efforts wouldn’t fare well,” The New Mexican, August 23, 2012.