U.S. Representative Tim Walberg, from the 7th congressional district of Michigan, addressed the House of Representatives on Wednesday on the subject of energy policy.
“High gas prices demand action from Congress and we need to put all energy options on the table,” Walberg said.
When Congressman Walberg said “all energy options” are on the table, he didn’t mean things like:
- redesigning our cities so that Americans can get around using only walking, bicycles and public transportation
- banning the use of wasteful, outdated internal combustion engines
- rationing electricity and gasoline
- any other programs to encourage energy conservation
As far as Congressman Walberg is concerned, energy conservation is off the table.
Walberg also didn’t meant that oil companies that are squatting on oil and gas leases on federal lands, but not using those leases, should be required begin work on extraction of petroleum products or lose their leases. No, that was proposed in a bill last month, and Walberg voted to take that energy option off the table.
What Representative Walberg meant is that people should pay attention to just one particular “energy option” – H.R.3089, a law written by Mac Thornberry of Texas that would legalize oil drilling anywhere along the coastal waters of the United States and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, provide special tax exemptions to oil refineries, and require permits to be issued for the construction of new nuclear power plants even when it has been certified that there is no place to put the nuclear waste that will be produced by those plants.
Isn’t it funny how, when Tim Walberg says that we must “put all energy options on the table”, he is only willing to support the energy options that the big energy corporations support?
When it comes to energy, Tim Walberg is willing to put any options on the table… except any option that would lead Americans to change the way that they use energy. Walberg’s idea for dealing with the current energy crisis is to continue on doing things in the same old way that got us into this mess in the first place.
What did you expect?