Four Reasons Why Romney’s Energy Plan Won’t Work

Mitt Romney’s claim that we can be energy independent by 2020 relies on using oil, and coal, which is not the way to energy independence.

• Asked if the United States could ever reach energy independence, Alex Flint, a nuclear energy industry official and former top Senate GOP aide, replied that such a plan wouldn’t rely so heavily on oil.
• Romney’s efforts to encourage a sweeping expansion of U.S. offshore oil production would expose him to the same set of challenges faced by Obama, who has been president amid record increases in domestic oil and gas production despite fallout from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster…The environmental community also would be itching to fight Romney. As they proved during the George W. Bush administration, greens often are most effective when forced to play defense. “The energy independence plan that truly matters is the one that makes us independent of dirty energy sources that are destroying our health and our planet. And the Romney energy plan makes no progress toward that goal,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, a green group that has endorsed Obama’s reelection. “His plan is of, by and for his Big Oil buddies.”

• Romney’s plan would give states pretty much carte blanche to impose their existing permitting and regulatory powers when it comes to drilling on federal lands…“It’s a nonstarter for the federal government to retreat and say we don’t care what you want to do on federal lands,” said former North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, one of the most outspoken Democrats when it comes to energy production. “It’s not in our national interest.”

• Romney’s plan calls for North American energy independence, but that relies on two countries he wouldn’t have authority over even if elected.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.