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March 12, 2011

Obama's Great LEAHP Backward

By Jim Guirard
In most discussions about our ever-increasing oil imports, our skyrocketing gasoline prices, and our enormous energy-related job losses, the blame is attributed to the fact -- actually, the patently false belief -- that "we have no energy policy."

But of course, the Obama-Pelosi-Reid "progressives" and militant "greens" most certainly do have an aggressive, multi-layered, no-holds-barred energy policy whose overarching goal is quite clearly that of Less Energy At Higher Prices -- LEAHP for short.

First: Obama's OutForcing of Jobs

While Barack Obama and his entourage foretell a bright future of "energy independence" and of millions of new "green" jobs, here are more than a dozen general -- as opposed to energy-specific -- elements of their relentless "outforcing" of American jobs (especially high-carbon mining, refining and manufacturing jobs) and of urgently needed capital investment. This first batch of disincentives is as follows:

  • Strident NIMBY (not in my backyard) opposition to most new industrial sites -- especially petrochemical and heavy manufacturing facilities.
  • Overly stringent environmental and "environmental justice" regulations, restrictions, and even outright prohibitions on both new and existing plants.
  • Excessive taxation -- in addition to threats of a value-added tax (VAT), prospects of ever-higher (a) corporate taxes (already the second-highest in the world); (b) "excess profits" taxes -- whatever "excess" means; (c) personal income taxes; (d) capital gains and dividends taxes; (e) "Cap and Trade" taxes, fees, and penalties; (f) excise taxes; (g) death and inheritance taxes; and (h) multiple Obama health care taxes, fees, penalties, and compliance burdens.
  • Excessive paperwork, OSHA, Workman's Comp, and enviro- and other "compliance."
  • Excessive union-driven fringe and overhead costs, often exceeding wages.
  • Blocking tort reform and major "class action" reform at state and federal levels.
  • Attacking and undermining state "right-to-work" laws.
  • Widely expanding Davis-Bacon wage rates, including to all "Stimulus" projects.
  • Trying to expand Big Labor's power via "Card Check" voting rules in union affairs.
  • Fomenting such an uncertain atmosphere of anti-profit, anti-credit, and anti-investment policies and practices as to keep normally energetic small business virtually comatose.

While no single one (or even two or three) of these anti-business and high-tax factors is fatal to the U.S. economy, the cumulative disincentives they impose on job retention, job creation, and capital formation are plainly "headed in the wrong direction" at best -- and suicidal at worst.

Importantly, both this group of job- and capital investment-killers and an equal number of energy-specific items presented below are traceable entirely to the Pelosi-Reid-Clinton congressional Democrats -- and to a "progressively" worse President Barack Obama.

Second: Obama's Great LEAHP Backward

Next come the deadly job-killing aspects of the Obama Democrats' steady downforcing of virtually all major domestic energy supplies -- except for the marginal ones of wind, solar, geothermal, and enormously subsidized ethanol -- which are as follows:

  • Either inhibiting or forbidding oil and gas exploration and production (a) from the ANWR Coastal Plain; (b) fromthe Alaska National Petroleum Reserve; (c) from all new "offshore" waters -- and some vital existing ones, as well; (d) from many previously-leased Western Federal Lands; (e) from Rocky Mountain shale oil deposits; and even (f) from Canadian oil sands, which are vital to us for exports.
  • Restricting most coal-fired (even "clean coal") power plants -- and blocking surface mining of the coal needed to power them.
  • Opposing new nuclear power plants and centralized nuclear waste storage for over thirty years -- along withthe total defunding ofthe Yucca Mountain depository in Nevada,
  • Blocking all new petroleum refineries (except one) for over thirty years -- and many petrochemical plants, as well.
  • Opposing new hydropower plants -- and talking about bypassing some existing ones.
  • Imposing a highly restrictive assortment of "carbon footprint" edicts, penalties, and fines in order to achieve the so-called "greening" of America -- no matter the cost.
  • Proposing in the FY 2012 budget to eliminate many tax code incentives for increased domestic oil andgas production.
  • Subtly impeding rapid development of vast newly discovered natural gas resources via the new "fracking" method.

Under these onerous circumstances, the empty Obama-Pelosi-Reid drumbeat of "jobs, jobs, jobs" needs four more words inserted therein -- jobs outforced, jobs downforced, jobs forsaken, and jobs aborted.

Third: Blame the Branch Carbonian Cult and its anti-CO2 Crusade

In the final analysis, it is those zealots of what should be called the "Branch Carbonian Cult" -- now in lockstep with the Code Pinks and the Van Jones-style communists (self-labeled as such) -- who are threatening to bring this great nation to its knees via the unforgiving nature and tactics of this name:

  • "Branch" because it is a radical, pseudo-religious offshoot from the main body of science-based environmentalism.
  • "Carbonian" because of its (deliberately?) mistaken fear of carbon dioxide as a primary cause of the alleged anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
  • "Cult" because of its self-evident structure and practices -- which are in full accord with most elements of the typical religious cult, whether Branch Davidian, Branch Jim Jonesian, or Branch Barack Obamanoid.

Led first by the dour, tree-hugging Al Gore and his EPA secretary and "ghostwriter" Carol Browner, the Cult is guided now by the Elmer Gantry-style Barack Obama and his own "energy czar," Carol Browner -- same name, same game! -- with this lady's latest masterwork having come to the Obama White House via Socialist International, to which she may now be returning.

And of course, these perpetrators are doing all of this in the "progressive" spirit of President Obama's loudly proclaimed "Audacity of Hope" -- which in this case is actually an audacity of hype about a vital trace gas (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere which over the last century and a half has risen from a normal 1/4,000 to an "alarming" 1/3,000 of the whole.

According to these Branch Carbonians and their prophet's "Great LEAHP Backward" on both jobs and energy, only a stringently lower (and therefore suicidal) carbon footprint will save the planet -- even if it destroys the U.S.'s economy and national security in the process.

And anyone who dares to disagree is condemned as a corporate polluter, a tool of "Big Oil," and (alas) a heretic.

A D.C.-area attorney, writer, and national security strategist, Jim Guirard was longtime chief of staff to former U.S. Senators Allen Ellender and Russell.Long of Louisiana.  His TrueSpeak.org website is devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse.
on "Obama's Great LEAHP Backward"