June 22, 2007
Again, Bullwinkle?
That trick never works. So say Senators J. Bennett Johnson and Don Nickles in a guest editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal. (Paid link, TNSTAAFE[ditorial])
If the American people are suspicious of bold pledges from Washington about energy independence and reform, they have good reason to be. Since the first energy crisis almost 35 years ago, our nation has had a very expensive education in such matters. Whether it was President Nixon's Project Independence that called for the elimination of foreign oil imports, or President Carter's mandate that 20% of all domestic energy be supplied by solar technologies -- both of which were set to be achieved by 2000 -- projects have come and gone to no avail.Wishful thinking is again on full display this week as Democrats and Republicans alike have assembled an ambitious energy policy agenda. Our hope was that Congress would embrace past lessons and forge pragmatic and workable solutions. But that hasn't happened.
They then enumerate a frightening list of Congressional intrusion: price-gouging, alternative energy mandates, renewable fuels standards, windfall profits tax, &c.
The bipartisan team, to be fair, hails from the oil states of Oklahoma and Louisiana. But they puncture each mandate and ask the current Congress to "recognize and act upon the difference between hope and reality."