As far as environmental policy goes, I'm not entirely sure which parts are being distorted for reasons other than the environment and which are actually sound ideas. Another complicating factor which clouds this issue is "at what cost". What would we sacrifice for an endangered species? Environmental policy is a doomed idea because it costs everyone money and thats what everyone cares about the most.
Which brings us to the next issue, energy policy. Unfortunately this issue is just as complex as the former but at least it stands to save the US consumer some money. Most people when talking about energy policy focus on becoming less dependent on forigen oil. I am a huge supporter of this idea for two reasons. One being that there are better forms of energy that can be acsessed other than oil and secondly if we do not need oil, we will not need to play such a huge role in international relations as we do currently. If we localize our production of energy we would create jobs, spend less on defense, and potentially do less harm to the environment depending on what source of energy we pursue. For example if we invest in wind and nuclear energy to convert our main source of transportation energy from oil to electricity then not only would we spend way less on energy, we would also reduce our pollution from coal and fossil fuels. When energy costs go down, everyone wins. the cost of producing every product goes down which increases the supply of products to the american people. Also known as standards of living went up just because we domesticated our source of energy. This to me should be one of the most clear cut decisions our leaders in Washington should make. There are literally no downsides to producing our own energy other than the short term loses energy companies, which operate globally anyway, would incur. Besides, at this rate, they are cutting the whole world short of cheap energy for their own economic profit which are some of the highest out of all the companies in the world.
As far as the current oil spill goes, the company responsible, BP, is an international company which is using the resources in the united states for its global enterprise profit. Not only that, they are putting the environment of the united states at risk with which are now obvious cracks in quality control operations. If you care about the wars, the environmental damage, the unnecessary cost, and the corruption generated by foreign fossil fuels, support domestication of renewable energy.
