The Energy Crisis Is Over

While doing some research on impending legislation currently under review in Congress, I suddenly discovered that the Energy Crisis was over! I mean it must be or the Senate would not have passed omnibus legislation to set aside almost 2.2 million acres of land, significantly expanding National Parkland, Heritage areas, and of course Conservation areas (by about 60 sites in all). of oil rich land, banning any exploration or drilling on it.

The legislation, for those of you who love to look up the details (or to make sure that I am not pulling this stuff out of an orifice better left without discussion) is S.22 The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. I won't go into the details of this particular bill, as the link will allow you to do so at your leisure. I will tell you however, that it only failed to become a national reality on a political technicality. This legislation actually passed in the Senate by a vote of 73 to 21. It then moved on to the House, where it passed by a vote of 282 to 144. It failed to become the law of the land only because that vote was taken on a motion to suspend the rules, which requires a 2/3 rather than a simple majority for actual passage.

Knowing that Congress is the best and brightest of us all, I can only assume that we would only take potential oil rich land out of the mix during a time when the price of energy may help to determine the pace of economic recovery if in fact there were abundant sources of cheap power throughout the world. Certainly the senior legislative body of the Congress would not tamper with the future of the country in a time of impending economic crisis unless they knew that there was no possibility of negative repercussions, right? This whole thing certainly wouldn't have been perpetrated as political gamesmanship which would appease the radical environmental left and their virulent objection to any new oil exploration, while still managing to hold off the more moderate and and right wing elements who want to "drill here and drill now" to avoid seeing gasoline prices go back up to $4.00 per gallon.

Why isn't this all over the news? Why isn't the Obama Administration calling non-stop prime time press conferences to announce that they have resolved the energy crisis, one of the most baffling conundrums of the 20th and 21st Century? Why isn't gas under $1.50 per gallon?

I must tell you that I am amazed! Who would have thought that a bunch of politicians who can't seem to balance a checkbook (personal or governmental), can't pass gun control law that actually control anything but the right of law abiding citizens to defend themselves, and can't seem to remember which CIA questioning techniques they have been briefed on could possibly be smart enough to understand something as complex as economic energy policy and the distribution of natural resources in our country?