President Obama has big plans to continue pushing his far left green agenda in his second term. As Politico recently reported, Carol Browner, Obama's former global warming czar and now chief campaign advocate, recently promised the radical environmental left they needn't worry: "I can tell you, having spent two years in the White House with the president, that this is not a fad. The president believes deeply in these issues. At every turn he has looked at what are the tools available to him to really help build a clean energy future for this country and has been committed throughout his first four years in office, and there's no doubt in my mind this will be a big part of his to-do list and he will remain committed in the next four years."
Carol Browner is referring to a slew of enormous job-killing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that the Obama EPA has put on hold until after the election. As the economy has continued to falter over the past four years, team Obama has been delaying rule after rule that will eliminate American jobs, drive up the price of gas at the pump even more, impose construction bans on local communities, and essentially shut down American oil and natural gas production. They don't want this economic pain to hit American families just before the election because it would cost President Obama votes. So they have simply decided to punt, intending to move full speed ahead if they gain a second term.
The radical environmental left may not need to be in fear, but what about American families who are working hard in a tough economic times, trying to make ends meet? As the nation struggles to recover from a lagging economy in the coming year, they could also be hit hard by a second-term Obama EPA regulatory onslaught that will cause them severe harm.
While President Obama certainly punted on an enormous amount of his agenda, he still has plenty of green 'accomplishments' to tout: he successfully moved backdoor global warming cap-and-trade regulations through the EPA to fulfill his campaign promise that energy prices would "necessarily skyrocket;" he rejected the Keystone pipeline to give the far left what one of his supporters called the biggest global warming "victory" in years; he finalized the most expensive EPA rule in history to ensure that if anyone wants to build a coal fired plant, it will "bankrupt them;" and he threw hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars out the window on companies like Solyndra, which he said would lead us to a "brighter and more prosperous future." His administration also implemented policies designed to "crucify" American energy producers, creating such a firestorm that even the left leaning Washington Post said that the Obama-EPA is earning "a reputation for abuse."
There's no question that President Obama's disastrous energy policies are at the heart of why job creation has slowed and our economy has weakened – and nowhere is this more apparent than in coal country, where miners in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia have recently been handed pink slips. Natural gas producers too, have been feeling the brunt of an EPA that is determined to "crucify them." Through it all, gas prices have continued to skyrocket to the point that even the Democratic Governor of California is asking the Obama EPA to relax regulations for now.
The good news is that it doesn't have to be this way: there is a better path forward, one that is already underway in many parts of the country, despite the policies of this administration. Just take a look at Oklahoma. Because we develop our own immense resources, Oklahoma has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country and is currently number two in the nation for job creation. President Obama wants to impose more federal control over energy production in states like Oklahoma so he can slow and eventually stop this development, so we need to ensure that states are empowered because they are far better qualified to protect their lands and citizens while taking advantage of their resources and the jobs that come with it. Oklahoma is a model to follow. If America focuses on developing our vast resources and welcomes the enormous potential of our energy boom, our nation could once again be a world energy leader and we could achieve total North American independence from the Middle East.
That's why this election is so important – this is the one chance to stop President Obama's extreme, far-left, green agenda and instead embrace a brighter economic and energy future.
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