THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA

An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 189, October 11, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
Home Page   Main Menu   Recent Articles   Site Map   Website Index   Issues & Controversies
  Cyberland University   Political Science, Philosophy, & History: Lectures   U.S. Constitution
  American Constitutional Law   American Constitutional System   American Political System
  Conservatism, Liberalism, & Radicalism   How America Goes to War
  World War IV: Islamist Terror War Against the U.S.A. & the West

AN OPPORTUNITY SQUARDERED:
The Congressional Black Caucus Is Shortchanging
Poor & Minority Energy Consumers
By Roy Innis

ENERGY POLICY ANALYSIS & THE SHORTCOMINGS OF THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS:  SERVING AS A PROPAGANDA OUTLET FOR POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS & DEMOCRATIC PARTY LIBERALS, BUT FAILING TO EXPLORE WAYS AMERICA'S ENERGY & ECONOMIC REGULATORY POLICIES COULD BE MODIFIED TO IMPROVE THE ECONOMIC CONDITION OF LOW-INCOME & MINORITY FAMILIES -- MOUTHING PLATITUDES & MARCHING IN LOCKSTEP WITH RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS & LIBERAL LEFTIST LEGISLATORS WHOSE STATIST POLICIES LOCK UP AMERICA'S NATURAL RESOURCES & CRIPPLE OUR ENERGY SECTOR WITH HIGH TAXES, OVER-REGULATION, & ILL-ADVISED LAWS THAT MAKE HEATING, DRIVING, & MANUFACTURING MORE COSTLY & MAKE THE POOR AMONG US SUFFER THE MOST
FULL STORY:   The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation recently hosted its Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C. A keynote session, billed as an “energy braintrust,” promised a lively three-hour discussion by top executives from oil companies, associations, government agencies, and universities. It would “transform dialogue into action” and “bolster the relationships between the energy industry and African-American community.”

Unfortunately, the Session Moderator squandered the opportunity and failed to explore ways America’s energy policies could be improved.

U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas knows the oil business and stressed that “energy is the foundation of our economy, the engine that drives the world.” But she showed up 40 minutes late, posed for photos, bemoaned oil industry shortcomings, and only then introduced the speakers. The session was half over.

The first panelist noted that many “public policy barriers” restrict exploration, production and delivery of needed energy. Several said more minorities and minority businesses must be involved in the energy industry, while others noted that U.S. laws and policies raise energy prices, make excellent prospects off limits to drilling, and reduce opportunities for businesses and employment. Representative Lee did not pick up on any of these critical issues, but nodded as her “good friend,” the CEO of CITGO Petroleum, extolled Hugo Chavez’s generosity to Katrina victims and pontificated about “building bridges” between Venezuela and poor U.S. communities.

Most speakers kept to five minutes, to leave time for questions and debate. But, after each talk, Mrs. Lee introduced various “good friends” in the audience – and her son, who “needs a job” – frittering away more time.

There was little dialogue, much less an effort to analyze U.S. energy needs or improve industry-community relationships.

An hour later, presidential aspirant U.S. Senator Barack Obama declaimed that climate change is the most serious threat facing African-American families, and “environmental justice” demands that factories not be built in minority communities, because they might pollute.

The message was politically correct, reminiscent of Democratic Party and Sierra Club talking points. But it was the same deficient analysis that brought us child welfare mothers “raising” children in fatherless families, schools ruled by incivility and violence, and uneducated youths suited for gangs, but not jobs.

These are critical issues. African America cries out for thoughtful leadership. Our country hungers to embrace a strong black candidate for national public office. Instead, our Black Caucus mouths platitudes and marches in lockstep with activists and legislators whose policies are disastrous for low-income and minority families.

Energy is the “master resource,” on which everything else depends. Abundant, reliable, affordable electricity, natural gas, and transportation fuels make our jobs, health, and living standards possible. They are the great equalizer, the creator of economic opportunities and true environmental justice.

Lock those resources up, or cripple our energy sector with taxes, over-regulation, and ill-advised laws that make heating, driving, and manufacturing more costly – and the poor suffer most. Destroy jobs, or make poor families pay an ever larger portion of their meager incomes for energy, food, and clothing – and the hard-won victories in our struggle for civil rights will quickly be reversed.

Keep businesses out of neighborhoods blighted by slum dwellings and brownfields, and you take away jobs, health insurance, a stronger tax base for better schools, environmental cleanups, and a chance for the American dream. Lock up oil, gas and coal prospects, and there will be fewer job opportunities even in companies that are committed to diversity.

The Kyoto Protocol would reduce average global temperatures by 0.2 degrees by 2050. Pending congressional bills might achieve a 0.05 degree reduction – assuming CO2 drives climate change, which numerous scientists doubt. The bills are symbolic gestures that raise energy prices for no environmental benefit.

America could get 20 billion gallons of gasoline a year from an area 1/20 the size of Washington, D.C., in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Instead, lawmakers exult over getting 5 billion gallons of ethanol from an area the size of Indiana, and using some 4 billion gallons of fossil fuel to grow, harvest, process, and transport the corn.

Legislators, regulators, judges, and pressure groups have made billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of gas off limits. They’ve helped drive up energy costs more than $1000 per family since 2000, and caused every barrel saved through efficiency and conservation to be offset by oil locked up on questionable ecological grounds.

These energy deniers want to shackle the fossil fuel system we have, and replace it with a utopian system that isn’t even on the drawing boards.

This isn’t energy policy or environmental justice. It’s feel-good grandstanding. It would replace our efficient free enterprise system with one based on government dictates, mandates, subsidies, and decisions about which companies, technologies and lobbyists win, and how much more consumers must pay.

These issues demand serious, robust debate. But the Congressional Black Caucus isn’t even asking the right questions, much less providing leadership and challenging dominant Liberal dogmas. The path it is taking betrays the gains that generations of civil rights champions fought so hard to achieve.

Let us hope this election season generates the healthy debate we so sorely need.


LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Ethnic & Racial Politics

Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources

Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity

The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy



Roy Innis is National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, one of America’s oldest and most respected civil rights groups.




Return to Top of Page

Go to the WEBSITE INDEX

Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume IX, 2007


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights


Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage

CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION




LINKS TO PARTICULAR ISSUES & SUBJECT MATTER CATEGORIES
TREATED IN THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, U.S.A.:

Africa: Black Africa * Africa: North Africa * American Government 1
American Government 2 * American Government 3 * American Government 4
American Government 5 * American Politics * Anglosphere * Arabs
Arms Control & WMD * Aztlan Separatists * Big Government
Black Africa * Bureaucracy * Canada * China * Civil Liberties * Communism
Congress, U.S. * Conservative Groups * Conservative vs. Liberal
Constitutional Law * Counterterrorism * Criminal Justice * Disloyalty * Economy
Education * Elections, U.S. * Eminent Domain * Energy & Environment
English-Speaking World * Ethnicity & Race * Europe * Europe: Jews
Family Values * Far East * Fiscal Policy, U.S. * Foreign Aid, U.S. * Foreign Policy, U.S.
France * Hispanic Separatism * Hispanic Treason * Human Health * Immigration
Infrastructure, U.S. * Intelligence, U.S. * Iran * Iraq * Islamic North Africa
Islamic Threat * Islamism * Israeli vs. Arabs * Jews & Anti-Semitism
Jihad & Jihadism * Jihad Manifesto I * Jihad Manifesto II * Judges, U.S. Federal
Judicial Appointments * Judiciary, American * Latin America * Latino Separatism
Latino Treason * Lebanon * Leftists/Liberals * Legal Issues
Local Government, U.S. * Marriage & Family * Media Political Bias
Middle East: Arabs * Middle East: Iran * Middle East: Iraq * Middle East: Israel
Middle East: Lebanon * Middle East: Syria * Middle East: Tunisia
Middle East: Turkey * Militant Islam * Military Defense * Military Justice
Military Weaponry * Modern Welfare State * Morality & Decency
National Identity * National Security * Natural Resources * News Media Bias
North Africa * Patriot Act, USA * Patriotism * Political Culture * Political Ideologies
Political Parties * Political Philosophy * Politics, American * Presidency, U.S.
Private Property * Property Rights * Public Assistance * Radical Islam
Religion & America * Rogue States & WMD * Russia * Science & Ethics
Sedition & Treason * Senate, U.S. * Social Welfare Policy * South Africa
State Government, U.S. * Subsaharan Africa * Subversion * Syria * Terrorism 1
Terrorism 2 * Treason & Sedition * Tunisia * Turkey * Ukraine
UnAmerican Activity * UN & Its Agencies * USA Patriot Act * U.S. Foreign Aid
U.S. Infrastructure * U.S. Intelligence * U.S. Senate * War & Peace
Welfare Policy * WMD & Arms Control


This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics, civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy, and political philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.



POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS

POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE

Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.

Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs, International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests, Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy

INDEX FOR THE ENTIRE WEBSITE

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z




THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA

An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis

Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor

Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic, Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues


Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity