The current scandal of the century, Enron, leaves a bad taste in my mouth and awful thoughts knowing the current administration met with and designed our current energy policy. This explains the lack of vision for a true energy policy, a policy made up of sound bites and empty slogans to make you feel good about the need to be dependent on oil.
One of the false promises that comes to mind is the drilling in the national wildlife refuge. Mr. Bush says that this will create jobs and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. The jobs created will be for Mexican laborers who will work for pennies, with no one to look out for their welfare, such as job injuries, lack of health insurance and, least of all, a retirement plan.
Mr. Bush believes that oil is the crown jewel, and his energy proposals make us more dependent on oil. It disregards the environment, our land, our water, our air and our public health.
The new millennium and century gives us urgent reasons to be serious about our energy future. We need energy policies that improve our quality of life and protect the environment. We have the opportunity today to produce new energy concepts. We need to produce and transform new types of energy. We need to give incentives for new inventions and unharness the energy in the sun. We need a real energy policy that involves private citizens’ input, not big oil magnets in private meetings finding ways to pad their pockets with money created by the need to produce or capture more oil. We need a sound energy policy aimed at becoming less dependent on oil and eliminating the ability of foreign countries to hold us hostage for it, which in turn may lead to less terrorism.
Snohomish
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