OPINION:
Americans are suffering unnecessarily under misdirected energy policies. Recent Department of Labor statistics showed that millions are still without jobs and our economy is sputtering, perched on the precipice of another recession. A bright spot in our economy seems to be Washington, where swamp gas is manufactured. North Dakota is another, where production of real natural gas and oil is occurring, producing an unemployment rate of 3 percent, and Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry is a staunch advocate of recovering our energy resources.
Oilmen have known about the Bakken reserve for years but the technology only recently became capable of extracting the gas. We are now capable of recovering massive amounts of natural gas, a clean-burning, economical fuel. Some estimates have reported the United States has a 100-year supply.
You would think the administration would be championing this new technology and promoting its use in making our country energy self-sufficient, but facts are proving otherwise. Besides the shock of seeing taxpayer-funded solar companies going belly-up because they aren’t economically feasible, it seems the administration wants to punish traditional energy.
It seems when then-candidate Barack Obama said his policies would make energy prices necessarily skyrocket, he was serious. Even though we are sitting on some of the largest reserves of oil, gas and coal in the world, we are being hamstrung by administration policies and these, in turn, are crippling our economy.
America could become energy self-sufficient with the right leaders. If our focus was directed at exploiting our vast resources, our economy would explode. Cheap, plentiful, domestic energy is the key to a healthy growing economy. It is the real engine of growth.
ED FARNAN
San Francisco
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