Please, Don't Spoil Our Views

The Democrats' energy plan for America.

The term “NIMBY” or Not In My Back Yard means we need it but don’t want to live next to it.  Usually you hear about NIMBY when it comes to things like prisons, manufacturing plants, or waste disposal sites.  But now we have an interesting twist on the NIMBY phenomenon… California Senator Diane Feinstein wants to prevent solar power generators from being built in the Mojave desert.  Kind of strange because it is a vast desert, solar power generates no pollution, and nobody really lives there.  Senator Feinstein also is against oil exploration and drilling off of the California coast.  So how does she expect the United States to generate electricity?

Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on a parcel of 500,000 desert acres, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Friday such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public.

“This is unacceptable,” Feinstein said in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. “I urge you to direct the BLM to suspend any further consideration of leases to develop former railroad lands for renewable energy or for any other purpose.”

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was blunt about his reaction to this proposal:

“If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave desert, I don’t know where the hell we can put it,” Schwarzenegger said at Yale University.

Indeed.  Democrats are really big about talking about the need to “save the planet” and to develop “alternative energy” sources but it seems when push comes to shove they find ways to get out of such talk.  Another such example is that of wind farms, Ted Kennedy, and Nantucket.  When wind farms were to be built 54 miles off shore Kennedy balked and opposed the measure.

The towers would be at least five miles out and barely visible from shore on the clearest day, but the summer plutocrats resent any intrusion on their waterfront vistas — and, equally, any challenge to the notion that they control everything.

“But don’t you realize — that’s where I sail!” may stand as Kennedy’s most self-incriminating quote.

What kind of crazy energy policy are we running in this country?  Democrats are on the record for opposing offshore drilling (not even letting the people of those states decide for themselves) yet they constantly talk about weaning this country off of foreign oil imports.  Democrats will not approve a nuclear power plant and no new gasoline or diesel refinery has been built in over 35 years.  But when gas prices approached $4.00 per gallon in 2008 who got the blame?  Republican President George W. Bush.

Too polluting or an eyesore for Sen. Feinstein?

Meanwhile President Obama is planning to tax the remaining energy producers in this country through the roof because they are not “green.”

President Obama’s climate plan could cost industry close to $2 trillion, nearly three times the White House’s initial estimate of the so-called “cap-and-trade” legislation, according to Senate staffers who were briefed by the White House.

All of these new taxes will, ironically, hit the traditional Democratic voter the hardest because they live in coal producing states that will see taxes raised, layoffs put in place, and meanwhile the Obama Administration will spend all of that money on non-environmentally related things like healthcare.  Sounds like a plan, eh?

In the end, Americans will end up paying way more for the energy they use in their homes, businesses, cars, and for manufacturing.  All so we can “save the planet.”  Unless, that is, you want to build solar plants in the desert or a wind farm off Nantucket.

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