Quote

Federal policy should not block those who are prepared to risk their own wealth to create an enormous energy export industry here in America.

Policymakers, elected and unelected, need to be ever-mindful that the U.S. economy does not exist in isolation.

Over and over, we hear politicians say they can't spend our tax dollars on environmental protection when the economy is so fragile.

The fossil fuel industry commands outsize sway over U.S. politics, markets, and democracy. I knew these companies were formidable, but when I served on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, I got a close up view of how the industry disregards government safeguards.

Most climate debates have focused on cutting the use of fossil fuels. But besides a few high-profile scuffles over fuel extraction in vulnerable wild places like the offshore Arctic, political leaders have ignored fossil fuel production as a necessary piece of climate strategy.

You can't turn on your television without seeing these advertisements about clean coal, clean tar sands and the claim that there's more jobs associated with fossil fuels than other industries. That's of course not true. But they're hammering that into the voters' heads.

The problem is, is that President Bush and the Republican leadership in the Congress have resisted attempts to increase dramatically our fuel economy standards over the last five years.

Nationalized industries are notorious for their inability to operate at a profit.

Liberal democratic states can't remain globally competitive.

The American people know that we cannot spend our way to prosperity.