Until now, the crisis has reflected a successful power grab by interest groups who pushed the previous administration to ever more stringent environmental regulations on states, industry and taxpayers with little regard for cost or consequence. Despite centuries of dire predictions that we're running out of fossil fuels, there's no shortage of energy resources. There's every indication that we can continue to meet the demand, if we simply improve our supply and remove lofty but unnecessary restrictions on industry. And that can be done without compromising the environment. So the average American can see the sense in Cheney's emphatically discounting conservation measures, even as the doomsayers swoon.
People work very hard to get where they are.
The energy policy proposal hits all the right notes. Cheney and the president both support increased domestic exploration to reduce dependence on foreign oil, and that includes environmentally sensitive drilling in a tiny portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Despite the hullabaloo, drilling would affect just 2,000 acres of the 19 million-acre refuge, Cheney points out. California could pride itself on being the fourth most energy-efficient state in the nation, but that was no consolation to those inconvenienced when the infrastructure lagged behind the growing demand. But all this will be for naught unless the new administration holds accountable the federal agencies that influence energy production accountable, too.