Republican Energy Bill Punishes Next Generations

At a time when the oils industry is reaping record profits, Americans are dying in Iraq (an oil rich country not coincidentally) and scientist are practically jumping out of windows to get someone to notice that Global Warming is REAL and a serious threat to our way of life, what does the Republican Energy Bill do? Reward fossil fuel companies with billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks.

Call me crazy, but this is nothing but generational politics at its worst. The GOP is rewarding its rich contributors today all while risking the health, safety and economic security of American generations to come by putting off their responsibility to solve our energy dependence on foreign fossil fuel.

America should be investing in clean, renewable, homegrown energy technology NOW? Can anyone explain to me why oil, gas and coal should get one cent of my tax dollars?

For more see: The energy debacle
To do stuff like this responsibly, there would have to be a reliable stream of revenue -- and it could have been tapped simply by diverting existing revenues from the royalties energy companies are already paying the government. The flow of funds would have been at least $2 billion annually, enough to carry out the alternative policy.

That, oversimplified, is what one of Congress's most effective leaders on energy and environmental matters proposed. Senator John Kerry was right last year, and his ideas remain to mock the outrage of what has actually transpired.

The irony is that as America's energy situation worsens, Kerry's ideas remain the ones most likely to be followed -- once the country wakes up.