Romney to Call for Energy Independence by 2020

Mitt Romney traveled to Hobbs, New Mexico yesterday to push energy independence for North America in eight years.  As president, Romney would embark on energy independence by first empowering the states.

Reported Yahoo! News: 

In what his campaign is billing as a major policy speech, Mitt Romney will unveil an energy plan Thursday that would give states the power to determine whether drilling and mining should occur on federal lands within their borders as part of a larger effort to increase domestic oil, coal and natural gas production and achieve energy independence.

The Obama administration has emphasized expensive, unreliable, and technologically difficult alternatives like wind and solar power.  Mr. Obama's alternative energy policies have also been plagued by scandal -- namely, the Solyndra debacle.  And the president is waging an ongoing war against the coal industry, as U.S. News reported in June:

His [President Obama's] administration, especially the Environmental Protection Agency, is engaged in a war on coal that threatens America's long-term energy security. Put simply, they want to shut down all the coal-fired power plants producing electricity in the United States and are using regulatory mandates to try and do it.

Mr. Obama was instrumental in shutting down the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have delivered Canadian oil to the U.S. and generated tens of thousands of jobs.

The president has taken to the campaign trail recently calling for an "All of the Above" energy policy. 

If anything, the president's failure to promote conventional energy production has led to dramatic increases in gas pump prices.  During Mr. Obama's first 26 months in office, consumers paid a whopping 67% more for gasoline.  Compare that with President Bush's first 26 months in office.  Gas prices rose only 7%.   

At Hobbs, Romney will argue that politics, not lack of resources or ability, are the stumbling block to greater national energy independence. 

Again, from the Yahoo! News report:

"The challenge in getting there is not about the resources we have. It's not about the technology we have. It's about the government we have," Oren Cass, Romney's domestic policy director, said. "The real question is are we going to pursue the political reforms that will allow us to develop the resources to their fullest."

President Obama and congressional Democrats have pursued policies since 2009 that have made the U.S. more, not less, energy-dependent on Arab nations, among others.  A policy of freer energy production domestically, and strengthened energy alliances with Canada and Mexico, will not only better ensure U.S. security, but save consumers money and boost the nation's economy.