I know I'm dense, but can someone please explain to me why a market-favoring conservative would want complete North American energy independence? This is like saying I want food independence for my neighborhood. Sure, it reduces reliance on food from those other evil suburbs around Columbus, but it also makes my food more expensive, reduces my choices--where am I going to get my unsustainable seafood if I can't import from the Chesapeake Bay region--and makes me generally worse off.Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will lay out policies on Thursday aimed at achieving North American energy independence by 2020 by pursuing a sharp increase in production of oil and natural gas on federal lands and off the U.S. coast.
Romney is to predict that a full-blown energy plan will create 3 million jobs in energy sectors and other areas, part of an ambitious effort to create 12 million jobs during a Romney presidency.
"I want every American who wants a good job to be able to have one," Romney told Republicans at a fund-raising event in Little Rock on Wednesday.
Aha! It's the old jobs thing. Last time I checked, job creation is a cost of a policy, not a benefit.
