ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
Rep. Mike Morley
On Saturday, I was pleased to participate in the Sky Spectacular celebrating the completion of the new wind farm in Spanish Fork. My congratulations and thanks to Elaine Hansen and her committee for a tremendous community celebration. I sponsored a booth promoting energy independence – wind, oil shale, clean coal, solar, geothermal, nuclear, osmosis – and am ever more convinced that this single issue is key to the continued economic vitality and security of our state and our nation.
America’s energy challenge is about so much more than today’s gas prices, or even tomorrow’s gas prices. Our energy challenge reaches out and affects every product and service we buy. It affects our personal wealth and our wealth as a nation. Our dependence on foreign energy certainly affects our foreign policy decisions. Indeed, America’s challenge to produce energy equal to our usage – that is, our challenge to end our dependence on foreign energy – is of such paramount importance to our individual and national well-being that we, as a nation, must today embark on a new course and embrace a new national goal of U.S. energy independence within five years.
America is an energy rich nation. This is a goal we CAN meet. And, for the good of America, we know that it is a goal that we MUST meet.
Our U.S. foreign trade imbalance affects our U.S. dollar and our U.S. economy. If America began to produce energy equal to our usage, our foreign trade imbalance would shift significantly in our favor. It’s hard to miss the fact that our U.S. stock market and the 401(k) plans of millions of Americans seem to nosedive every time there is a threatened disruption to oil supplies in Venezuela or Nigeria.
With every purchase we make, both of fuel and other products that have a fuel component in their price (which is almost everything), we EXPORT our wealth to the energy exporting nations. I am NOT comfortable exporting $700 billion per year of our personal and national wealth to these individuals and nations – not under ANY circumstance. But, what is even more troubling is that much of this wealth is being used to fund terrorism and aggression against us and against our freedom loving allies around the world.
It IS time for change in America. It is time for America to change to policies of American Energy Independence. Yes, it is time for industry to create fuel efficient automobiles – electric, hydrogen, hybrid, and many more innovative products using good, old American ingenuity. It is time for America to increase electric production with wind, solar, osmosis, and wave technologies. It is time for Americans to consider our habits; conserve more, maybe drive less. But, it is also time for America to tap into her vast energy resources and begin now to produce energy equal to our needs. It is time for America to produce crude oil from the reserves located right here at home – in those portions of ANWR that were reserved for that very purpose – in the outer-continental shelf, and elsewhere. It is time for the federal government to lift the bans and change the regulations to allow for the development of the abundant oil shale in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming that lies on federal lands. It is time for America to expand her refinery capacity.
It is time for America to embark on an ambitious plan of expanding safe, clean nuclear energy. The French meet 80% of their electric needs from nuclear power generation. If we in America were to do the same, it would move us light years closer to energy independence. In fine, it IS time for change in America – it is time for America to pursue all energy options to bring about energy independence.
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