September 15, 2008
Democrats on Energy
My illustrious Senator, Ken Salazar, was picked to provide the Democratic response to the President's radio address. I'm sure nobody missed hearing that, but let's go over some of our favorite parts, as the Senator sent me a copy:
Democrats are working for change, and it starts with being honest about our energy future.We consume 25 percent of the world’s oil, but we have less than 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves. We simply can’t drill our way to energy independence.
In Colorado, we’re doing our part on drilling. We have more than 34,000 active gas wells. And we’re going to drill a whole lot more in the coming years.
But we also know that drilling alone is not sufficient. Yet that was the only idea that John McCain and his friends at the Republican National Convention offered. “Drill baby drill” – that’s not enough.
We need it all.
We need to replace the oil we import from countries that don’t like us with alternative energy sources that we produce right here at home. Biofuels. Wind. Solar. Hydrogen. Geothermal. Clean Coal. American energy, American jobs. That’s what we need.
There's more but you get the drift. Here's the audio if you want to relive the excitement!
This strikes me as one of the most amazing misrepresentations I have heard since "I did not have sex with that woman." Drilling was the only idea at the RNC? GOP legislators have been pretty clear about an "all-of-the-above" strategy with all of Senator Salazar's kumbaya fuels plus nuclear plus expanded offshore drilling. Salazar downplays the environmentalism that he knows won't sell too well with his rural constituents, completely ignores nuclear, and misrepresents the rest.
I'm a big boy. I can handle and dig a little spin, a little shading, and a little aggressive positioning. But this is an outright lie.
And it was heard by at least ten or twenty people!