RightsideVA

With the election being the main focus for so long it's great to have the opportunity to speak with friends about issues we have supported and worked for all along. Received this from and friend and GOOD STUFF!!!

One of the chief benefits that the nation would receive under a Romney-Ryan administration is a return to what I call “energy realism.” By that I mean understanding that oil and gas are the key drivers of our national economic engine and will be for decades to come.

In sharp contrast to this view are the policies of President Barack Obama who has attempted to “remake” America’s energy reality through top-down, central planning strategies that chase after a pie-in-the-sky “green jobs” economy. He has piled on the tax increases, regulations and green subsidies for companies like Solyndra and others. Remember, Obama is the one who pushed hard for but failed to pass cap-and-trade, warned that he would “bankrupt” anyone who wanted to build a new coal-fired power plant, has done nothing to open up federal lands for oil and gas development, and killed the Keystone XL pipeline that would have connected U.S. refineries to vast new oil deposits in Canada. Makes you wonder if the president is running our energy policy for our country or for special interest groups.

It is really ironic when you have a president continuously advocating for “corporate welfare” for Big Oil when, as the Congressional Research Service pointed out in a report last year, the most expensive energy tax breaks are not for U.S. oil and gas companies but for renewable energy startups. Yes, and we’re always shocked -- shocked I say -- to find out that a lot of these green subsidies go to “investors” who are politically connected to the White House.

So when you hear Obama talking about an “all of the above” energy policy, he’s probably looking at a list of DNC-linked donors, bundlers and crony capitalists.

Here’s Obama in the Oct. 3 debate with Romney:

The oil industry gets $4 billion a year in corporate welfare. Basically, they get deductions that those small businesses that Governor Romney refers to, they don’t get. Now, does anybody think that ExxonMobil needs some extra money, when they’re making money every time you go to the pump?

Two major problems with this scapegoating of oil companies for Obama’s own economic failures:

The first is that there truly are no government “subsidies” or “corporate welfare” for Big Oil. What we’re talking about are for the most part legitimate tax provisions that apply to virtually all American manufacturers and producers.

The second problem is that, in truth, Obama fails to mention that his plans call for raising taxes on our biggest domestic oil and gas producers by more than $40 billion over the next few years.

Let’s see if I understand this. Obama wants to selectively raise billions in new taxes on one of the most productive sectors of the U.S. economy, one that employs more than 9 million Americans with good paying jobs? At a time when sluggish GDP growth has brought job creation to a virtual standstill?

The oil and gas industry also sends $86 million dollars a day to the U.S. Treasury, and many more millions daily to states like North Dakota, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and others enjoying an energy boom. Here in Virginia, where the energy industry amounts to an $11.6 billion sector, there are more than 128,000 jobs provided or supported – with an average salary of $57,281 for non-gas station oil and natural gas employees. Just think where we’d be today if Obama hadn’t put energy resources off the coast of Virginia on his list of “none of the above” places to develop.

What the White House also fails to see is that, if you want a technological solution to greenhouse gases, the free market is the best way to get there. The U.S. oil and gas industry invested $71 billion in greenhouse gas-reducing technologies from 2000-2010. That’s nearly twice as much as the federal government ($43 billion) and almost as much as all other investors combined ($74 billion). When private industry invests in green technologies, it does so with a market test in view. Not so with government planners, whose idea of a sure thing has ended in multiple failed businesses. But of course when you’re picking winners and losers in the economy, from the commanding heights of the Obama White House, you also get to hand out a lot of favors.

Voters will do us all a big favor on Nov. 6 by putting Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in charge of America’s energy policies. And none too soon.