For too long, the conservative right has blasted liberals and environmentalists for proposing legislation to curtail our nation’s Middle East energy dependence and global climate change issues. In a disguised effort to protect personal financial assets and large campaign contributions, the top-dog Republican leadership has consistently brushed aside these major issues at the expense of our national security.
Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 to change this course. His proposals — as a candidate — to make the changes necessary to bring about energy independence and to reduce America’s carbon footprint resonated with the American people, and the action he is taking as president reflects America’s new image as a morally responsible global leader.
A CNN survey found that 97 percent of climatologists believe that global climate change is a real threat and that human contributions play a role in this phenomenon. Without going into the complexities of global climate change, the nearly indisputable fact that mankind needs to practice better stewardship of the earth is among our nation’s top priorities. For years, conservative Republicans have taken this issue and dubbed it as environmental radicalism. The fact of the matter is that climate change is not a partisan issue; it is a scientific fact. Partisanship should exist in the methods used to fix the problem, not in the problem’s existence.
President Obama’s new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards mark the beginning of a more environmentally cognizant America. With a platform that reduces the United States’ carbon footprint, increases national security, and benefits the auto industry, it is hard to understand why the Republican Party so adamantly opposes it.
Obama’s aim is to have automakers produce their 2012 fleet with an average gas mileage of 35.5 miles per gallon. With automakers reevaluating their car production lines, this year marks the most opportune time to create this new benchmark. By lowering emissions, we are obviously reducing our carbon footprint, but what other advantages does this proposal have? At 35.5 mpg, the United States will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of the vehicles sold. That is more oil than we imported last year from Saudi Arabia, Libya, Venezuela, and Nigeria, combined.
This independence from foreign oil brings up the issue of national security. U.S. dependence on foreign oil has been a bipartisan issue for a long time, and the two parties have developed different plans to deal with the issue. While Democrats propose practical emission standards and fair cap and trade levels (which economists favor), Republicans have consistently come to the floor with proposals for domestic oil drilling and the use of nuclear energy. These ideas show no relief for the American people and only present further problems for the future of American energy.
Sarah Palin’s campaign chant “drill baby drill” made domestic oil drilling a forefront issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. While domestic drilling seems to be a plausible alternative to foreign oil, it is still a limited resource that does nothing to end U.S. dependence on oil. In fact, estimates say that it would take over ten years for the oil economy to see the first drop of domestic oil. This source of energy is not a solution; it prolongs the problem.
Another proposition by the Republicans that surfaced during the 2008 campaign was the idea of nuclear energy. Many proponents point to France as a model for using this source of alternate energy. While it seems like a likely alternative, it would be decades before the United States would be able to build the infrastructure necessary to use nuclear energy as a replacement for fossil fuels. The nuclear power plants that the United States would need in order to generate the amount of energy that it consumes today would be among the largest and most numerous in the world. Contrary to popular belief, plutonium and uranium are not renewable resources, and estimates show these resources being depleted within ten years of using nuclear energy. These facts alone make the call for nuclear energy empty campaign rhetoric.
Another conservative argument against Obama’s plan has economists rolling their eyes. The Republican Party has been seen as the protector of businesses, but in fact, the auto industry is on the left side of this issue. Auto industry executives happily signed on to Obama’s agreement because the blanket federal standard makes the market more predictable than individual state standards that Republicans proposed.
By making these changes viable for businesses, President Obama has succeeded in producing legislation that should be bipartisan legislation. Unfortunately, the party of divisive rhetoric and indecisive action has managed to make even the most feasible of energy solutions a deeply partisan issue based on misinformation. If the Republicans hope to rebuild their party, using worn-out platforms and backwards logic will not help.
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