Energy Security Legislation: Why Wait?

Heartland Consumer Power District chief Mike McDowell is just peachy-keen-thrilled at the prospect of America drifting for another year without a coherent, serious energy security law. I am not. Why should the Senate listen to me and not Heartland and pass energy security legislation?

1. Teabag Vote: Acting now on energy security legislation would cut the deficit. One flavor of energy legislation, the Kerry-Lieberman(-neé Graham) bill, would cost $723 billion over the next ten years, but bring in enough revenue to cut the deficit by $19 billion. That's not much, but it's even better than the $9 billion the House bill would save.
2. Science Vote: There's still a problem waiting to be solved. Climate change is real, the science is solid, and the claims of the "Climategate" criers from last year have been investigated and deemed bogus.
3. Bomb-Iran Vote: Why spend another year lining Ahmadinejad's pockets? The sooner we pass energy security legislation, the sooner we reach the day (years from now, yes, but it will come) when our economy does not depend on shipping money to Iran. (And don't forget: even the oil we buy from those nice Canadians has connections to Iran.)

We can act now and ease our way into the transition to clean energy and independence from foreign oil, or we can keep drifting, putting off action because it's just too hard, until we wake up one morning and find the tank dry.

Act now. Pass energy security legislation this year. That's Forward Thinking®.

------------------------
Update 09:20 CDT: Maybe energy security legislation could save even more money by cutting subsidies to the oil industry. Consider that you and I, fellow taxpayers, covered 70% of BP's rent on the Deepwater Horizon rig before it went boom. $225K per day... $82M per year... for just one rig.