THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 189, October 11, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
AN OPPORTUNITY SQUARDERED:
The Congressional Black Caucus Is Shortchanging
Poor & Minority Energy Consumers
By Roy Innis
ENERGY POLICY ANALYSIS & THE SHORTCOMINGS OF THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS: SERVING
AS A PROPAGANDA OUTLET FOR POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS & DEMOCRATIC PARTY LIBERALS, BUT FAILING TO
EXPLORE WAYS AMERICA'S ENERGY & ECONOMIC REGULATORY POLICIES COULD BE MODIFIED TO IMPROVE THE ECONOMIC
CONDITION OF LOW-INCOME & MINORITY FAMILIES -- MOUTHING PLATITUDES & MARCHING IN LOCKSTEP WITH RADICAL
ENVIRONMENTALISTS & LIBERAL LEFTIST LEGISLATORS WHOSE STATIST POLICIES LOCK UP AMERICA'S NATURAL
RESOURCES & CRIPPLE OUR ENERGY SECTOR WITH HIGH TAXES, OVER-REGULATION, & ILL-ADVISED LAWS THAT MAKE
HEATING, DRIVING, & MANUFACTURING MORE COSTLY & MAKE THE POOR AMONG US SUFFER THE MOST
FULL STORY:
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation recently hosted its Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C. A
keynote session, billed as an “energy braintrust,” promised a lively three-hour discussion by top executives from oil
companies, associations, government agencies, and universities. It would “transform dialogue into action” and “bolster
the relationships between the energy industry and African-American community.”
Unfortunately, the Session Moderator squandered the opportunity and failed to explore ways America’s energy policies
could be improved.
U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas knows the oil business and stressed that “energy is the foundation of
our economy, the engine that drives the world.” But she showed up 40 minutes late, posed for photos, bemoaned oil
industry shortcomings, and only then introduced the speakers. The session was half over.
The first panelist noted that many “public policy barriers” restrict exploration, production and delivery of needed energy.
Several said more minorities and minority businesses must be involved in the energy industry, while others noted that
U.S. laws and policies raise energy prices, make excellent prospects off limits to drilling, and reduce opportunities for
businesses and employment. Representative Lee did not pick up on any of these critical issues, but nodded as her “good
friend,” the CEO of CITGO Petroleum, extolled Hugo Chavez’s generosity to Katrina victims and pontificated about
“building bridges” between Venezuela and poor U.S. communities.
Most speakers kept to five minutes, to leave time for questions and debate. But, after each talk, Mrs. Lee introduced
various “good friends” in the audience – and her son, who “needs a job” – frittering away more time.
There was little dialogue, much less an effort to analyze U.S. energy needs or improve industry-community relationships.
An hour later, presidential aspirant U.S. Senator Barack Obama declaimed that climate change is the most serious threat
facing African-American families, and “environmental justice” demands that factories not be built in minority communities,
because they might pollute.
The message was politically correct, reminiscent of Democratic Party and Sierra Club talking points. But it was the same
deficient analysis that brought us child welfare mothers “raising” children in fatherless families, schools ruled by incivility
and violence, and uneducated youths suited for gangs, but not jobs.
These are critical issues. African America cries out for thoughtful leadership. Our country hungers to embrace a strong
black candidate for national public office. Instead, our Black Caucus mouths platitudes and marches in lockstep with
activists and legislators whose policies are disastrous for low-income and minority families.
Energy is the “master resource,” on which everything else depends. Abundant, reliable, affordable electricity, natural gas,
and transportation fuels make our jobs, health, and living standards possible. They are the great equalizer, the creator of
economic opportunities and true environmental justice.
Lock those resources up, or cripple our energy sector with taxes, over-regulation, and ill-advised laws that make heating,
driving, and manufacturing more costly – and the poor suffer most. Destroy jobs, or make poor families pay an ever larger
portion of their meager incomes for energy, food, and clothing – and the hard-won victories in our struggle for civil rights
will quickly be reversed.
Keep businesses out of neighborhoods blighted by slum dwellings and brownfields, and you take away jobs, health
insurance, a stronger tax base for better schools, environmental cleanups, and a chance for the American dream. Lock up
oil, gas and coal prospects, and there will be fewer job opportunities even in companies that are committed to diversity.
The Kyoto Protocol would reduce average global temperatures by 0.2 degrees by 2050. Pending congressional bills might
achieve a 0.05 degree reduction – assuming CO2 drives climate change, which numerous scientists doubt. The bills are
symbolic gestures that raise energy prices for no environmental benefit.
America could get 20 billion gallons of gasoline a year from an area 1/20 the size of Washington, D.C., in Alaska’s Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. Instead, lawmakers exult over getting 5 billion gallons of ethanol from an area the size of Indiana,
and using some 4 billion gallons of fossil fuel to grow, harvest, process, and transport the corn.
Legislators, regulators, judges, and pressure groups have made billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of gas
off limits. They’ve helped drive up energy costs more than $1000 per family since 2000, and caused every barrel saved
through efficiency and conservation to be offset by oil locked up on questionable ecological grounds.
These energy deniers want to shackle the fossil fuel system we have, and replace it with a utopian system that isn’t even
on the drawing boards.
This isn’t energy policy or environmental justice. It’s feel-good grandstanding. It would replace our efficient free
enterprise system with one based on government dictates, mandates, subsidies, and decisions about which companies,
technologies and lobbyists win, and how much more consumers must pay.
These issues demand serious, robust debate. But the Congressional Black Caucus isn’t even asking the right questions,
much less providing leadership and challenging dominant Liberal dogmas. The path it is taking betrays the gains that
generations of civil rights champions fought so hard to achieve.
Let us hope this election season generates the healthy debate we so sorely need.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Ethnic & Racial Politics
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Roy Innis is National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, one of America’s oldest and most respected civil
rights groups.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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