America’s primary goal for this part of the 21st century should be to make the United States fully energy independent. God has blessed us with having, within our geographical borders, all which is necessary to do that. Now is the time for the President and the U.S. Congress to make it happen.

Since before men walked the earth, there has been global warming and cooling. If every man and every man-made thing were to disappear from the earth today, these cycles would continue. Nothing man does or can do will prevent them from occurring. But that does not mean national policies should ignore, exacerbate or negatively impact global weather patterns and conditions, just the opposite. Insofar as we are able, we should all be good and diligent stewards of the earth and its environment.  

It is understood that environmental protection will come at a financial cost. All the environmental, energy, and job loss choices facing the American people should be laid on the table and there should be a national debate. The American people are not stupid. If they are given honest, unvarnished facts they will come to right conclusions and make right choices. So let’s get the views of the American people on the record before irrevocable environmental and energy decisions are made. Let the people themselves choose which programs the nation adopts.  

For example, the citizens of Oklahoma City have chosen to allow oil rigs to pump oil in the middle of their delightful city. And the local newspapers and magazines and TV news shows aren’t full of stories about how offended Oklahoma’s citizens are by their presence in the middle of the city. One might therefore wonder why so many political, academic and news media elites are whining about the esthetic sensitivities of moose and caribou being offended by the sight of oil rigs pumping oil in ANWR Alaska.

We can produce from existing and unexploited domestic energy sources all the oil America needs to power its fuel and transportation requirements for years to come. Unexplored and untapped sources of oil off shore and in places like ANWR are sufficient to supply most of our energy needs for the rest of the century.

America’s other energy requirements can be met by clean coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. Currently half of the country’s electricity is provided by coal, yet the capacity is there to supply all our electrical power needs. New clean burning coal-fired plants can bring in billions of dollars to states in investments and at the same time provide thousands of new jobs. It should be a decision of each state whether to welcome the construction of clean coal fired plants within its borders.

As in the case of many modern countries nuclear energy should also be a major supplier of our electrical power needs. The safety and security of each facility, of course, should be paramount.

The Three Mile Island calamity proved that nuclear energy plants are safe and in a disaster do exactly what they are designed to do. When the emergency occurred the Three Mile Island reactor involved shut itself down with no damage to the local community and no loss of life. Because nuclear technology has proven itself to be so safe, 80% of France’s electricity needs and 50% of Sweden’s are met by nuclear production.

Gas and oil cost nearly three times as much as nuclear to produce the same amount of electricity. Wind costs up to five times and solar ten times as much. Wind and solar are energy boutique industries which will never supply the vast majority of the nation’s energy needs, and windmill blades will continue to be injurious to the health of eagles and other birds.  

This brings us to the question of the cost and advisability of converting food into fuel. Oil and food costs are closely connected and galloping toward being out of control. If these costs are not soon contained, the world will degenerate into crises the global magnitude of which have never been experienced.

Oil prices are only partly set by supply and demand. They are also arbitrarily established by oil cartels and corporate greed and manipulation. With the destabilizing price of oil rocketing through the ozone layer and with food shortages causing unrest around the world, all countries and international organizations should be working toward reducing the costs of both oil and food.

Many countries are now threatened by crises or riots induced by rapidly rising food prices and unsustainable food shortages. Profits aside, with the people of over 30 nations facing hunger, does it make sense to divert desperately needed food stocks into the arbitrary production of ethanol and other biofuels?

While exorbitantly high oil prices are causing the U.S. economic pain, our economy is still the largest in the world and it will recover and rebound—provided we take the rights steps to stabilize our approach to the provision of food and fuel. However, the fragile economies of countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, Pakistan and India may collapse and disintegrate under irrational food, fuel and environmental policies and pressures.

These countries should, like us, be truly interested in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but realistically, their primary goal has to be providing their people with sufficient food, fuel and energy necessary to sustain life and promote prosperity.  

The environment was created to serve man. Man was not created to serve the environment. America’s primary goal for the next half century should not be a crash program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even though that is very important and worthy of our attention.  

America’s primary goal should be to make itself energy independent. The sooner we address this goal, the sooner we can also address our food production and environmental goals.