Leadership and Crisis

by Bobby Jindal

  Technological innovation will make these technologies more efficient, affordable, and marketable. But it’s going to take time. The notion that green energy can quickly replace our dependence on fossil fuels is a myth perpetuated by folks who refuse to face reality or who don’t care about our prosperity, or both.

  Along with solar and wind power, we need to continue research on biomass, geothermal, hydrogen, hydrokinetics, harnessing CO2 for enhanced oil recovery, converting methane emissions from landfills into energy, clean coal, and other alternative energies. This doesn’t mean, however, the government should dictate which sources are developed. Government can help by offering targeted tax credits for a wide range of potential energy sources, but in general the government should let the market decide which of these technologies will succeed and in what form. The market will tell us if solar is best on farms for large-scale generation or on rooftops for use in individual homes or on traffic signals to assist our transportation system. Government bureaucrats should not be picking winners and losers, and should not favor with benefits one technology over another. That inevitably politicizes the process, with the winner being whatever industry has the best lobbyists.

  One green technology largely ignored by the Left is nuclear power. You heard me right, nuclear energy is in fact a green technology, and it’s one of the best options we have to simultaneously make our country’s economy grow and protect our environment. Nuclear power is safe, reliable, emission free, and can create a steady supply of energy. One reactor can produce on average as much power as thousands of wind turbines at a fraction of the cost—and it doesn’t threaten birds, as the blades of some windmills do.8

  The main impediment to expanding nuclear power is what you might call the Three Mile Island Effect. Promoted for thirty years by environmentalists, the Effect cites the 1979 nuclear accident at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant as proof that nuclear power is unsafe. Of course, public safety has to be paramount in the nuclear industry, as it should be in every energy industry. But the implications of the accident have been grossly overstated for political ends.9 And don’t forget, technology has improved remarkably in the last three decades. Yet, thanks to the myth, no new nuclear reactors have been built in America for thirty years. President Obama’s declared support for developing two new reactors is a step forward.10 But instead of two, we should build a hundred.

  There is no excuse for us to be lagging behind many other countries in nuclear power. Today we get about 20 percent of our electricity from America’s 104 nuclear power plants. But France gets 79 percent, Sweden 45 percent, South Korea 38 percent, and Belgium 56 percent of their electricity from nuclear reactors.11 My mom came to America in 1971 to study nuclear physics because we were the worldwide leader in nuclear energy technology at the time. She left the field in the late 1970s because the Carter administration effectively ended the industry’s growth.

  While conservatives need to embrace the possibilities of green energy, liberals need to recognize that fossil fuels, particularly those developed in the United States, will dominate our energy supply for the foreseeable future. The Left has to understand that the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, is not a four-letter word—okay, bad example, because that acronym is four letters. But the bottom line is this: scaling back domestic drilling, and preventing drilling in ANWR, won’t cut our use of oil and natural gas. It just means even more of our supply will come from foreign countries.

  Today, liberal opposition to the development and use of fossil fuels stems largely from their fears of apocalyptic global warming, or what they now call climate change. (This new phraseology is convenient, of course, since the climate is always changing.) Al Gore has been warning for twenty years that we are on the verge of ecological calamity if we don’t dramatically cut our carbon emissions. Back in 1992, in his book Earth in the Balance, Gore claimed cars are “posing a mortal threat to the security of every nation that is more deadly than that of any military enemy we are ever again likely to confront.”12 And to think this guy almost became president.

  Global warming alarmists claim the science of global warming is settled, though that’s far from the truth. We now know, through the leak of thousands of emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the source for much of the information that the United Nations uses for its alarmist climate change reports, that some of the top scientists behind the global warming panic have been suppressing information and trying to blacklist dissenting scientists. Their collusion and suppression of data violated core tenets of the scientific method, which demands open scrutiny and the testing of hypotheses. When someone won’t share data, you can only assume they have something to hide. Instead of circling their wagons and attacking their critics, climate researchers should publicize their data. Global warming should not be a faith-based theory.

  The science on global warming is far from settled, and we need to continue to debate, measure, and discuss our impact on the environment. But even the true believer in apocalyptic global warming needs to face the fact that we will rely on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. Hot air from hysterical activists won’t heat a single home.

  I acknowledge that global warming may in fact be a significant problem for mankind. I certainly believe our economic activities should be balanced by environmental concerns, and that we should harness science and technology to raise efficiency, increase conservation, and reduce our emissions. But, overall these doomsday scenarios are not fact, they’re conjecture presented with a bizarre religious fervor. Skeptics of the scenarios are shrilly denounced as modern-day heretics. I for one am not going to be intimidated by this.

  Global warming alarmism is often used to further extremist political agendas that are opposed to capitalism, in favor of population control, and even represent a sort of anti-technology Luddism. What all these agendas have in common is an effort to increase government control over the individual. How big your car is, where you live, how much you heat or cool your house, even how many kids you have—these are all areas that should be guarded from government intrusion.

  To embrace the current global warming doctrine you need to accept five things:1. The planet is warming significantly and abnormally.

  2. The problem is man-made.

  3. Its effects will be catastrophic.

  4. The problem can only be solved with massive government intervention.

  5. Al Gore tells the truth.

  Based on what we know right now in the scientific realm, this requires a modicum of faith.

  The liberal attack on fossils fuels doesn’t even make sense in the context of global warming—destroying our domestic energy production and manufacturing base and exporting our jobs abroad won’t cut the world’s carbon emissions. In fact, these jobs will go to countries like Mexico, China, and India, while more of our oil and natural gas will come from countries like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Russia—all of which have much weaker environmental laws than we do. Do you really think a smokestack in Tijuana will produce fewer emissions than one in San Diego?

  Keep that in mind next time you hear the Democrats’ proposals for a “cap and trade” scheme. In addition to increasing the utility costs of homeowners in America, charging our own companies for releasing carbon will provoke a lot of them simply to relocate to countries that don’t charge these fees. Still, at least the Democrats’ rhetoric is honest on this issue. Cap and trade is a jobs bill—for other countries. It is a win/win—for the rest of the world.

  The Left, it seems, often opposes fossil fuels purely out of ideology. Take natural gas. Although it’s often decried by liberals as a dirty fossil fuel, natural gas in fact is a cleaner-burning energy source. New technologies have allowed us to find more natural gas reserves that could rapidly expand our energy base.13 We’re doing our part in Louisiana, where the Haynesville shale formation was recently discovered. This is one of the largest shale formations in the world, holding up to 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
And we’ll develop it, creating jobs for Louisianians and fuel for millions of Americans.

  The Left’s opposition to natural gas, however, pales in comparison to their seething hatred of oil companies. Environmentalists and even some members of Congress portray oil company CEOs as Darth Vader steering the Death Star, with former Vice President Dick Cheney playing the role of the evil Emperor. Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP, played to this stereotype. Although in my experience he seemed far more aloof and less competent than Darth Vader.

  Yes, oil companies do try to make a profit; that’s what companies do. News flash: solar and wind companies are hoping to make money, too! What critics of the petroleum industry don’t seem to understand is that producing energy requires huge investments for locating, drilling, and transporting oil. The average net profit margin for the energy sector, according to Thomson Baseline’s examination of the S&P energy companies, was 9.7 percent, compared to 8.5 percent for the entire Standard and Poor’s 500. Google has reported net profit margins of 25 percent in some quarters.14 Does that mean Google is a greedy corporation earning “excess profits”? No, like the oil companies, Google is simply providing a product or service that people want. The only difference is that our entire economy would grind to a halt without oil. These sorts of attacks are useful in raising money for certain politicians and interest groups, but they do nothing to help America’s energy future.

  Some in Washington want to punish oil companies through so-called “windfall taxes.” They forget their history. Jimmy Carter tried a similar approach back in the 1970s, with the predictable result that domestic production fell and our reliance on foreign oil grew. For a lot of reasons, American oil production has already declined from 9.2 million barrels a day in 1973 to 5 million barrels a day in 2007.15 A basic rule of economics is that if you want less of something, just tax it more.

  This self-defeating habit of punishing our own oil companies drives up the price of oil, enriching every oil producing country whether we import from them or not. Russia, with its vast energy wealth, has nearly quadrupled its military spending over the past six years.16 Iran is putting large chunks of its oil wealth into developing its nuclear capabilities and supporting terrorist groups. In our own hemisphere, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is using that country’s energy wealth to fund his anti-democratic allies throughout Latin America. Even President Obama’s six month temporary moratorium in the Gulf has led to rigs being relocated to the Congo and Egypt.

  It doesn’t have to be this way. America has tremendous energy resources, but a lot of them sit under federal land. And 94 percent of federal land has been put off-limits to energy development.17 We have more coal than any other country, but we’re prevented from accessing a lot of it. We find a similar situation with Congress’s ban on oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. In Alaska’s vast and frozen ANWR, we could produce an estimated 15 billion gallons of oil annually from an area roughly the size of an airport.18 Within ANWR, that’s the equivalent of drilling on an area the size of a postage stamp placed on a football field. That Congress chooses not to ease our reliance on foreign oil by opening up ANWR to drilling is inexplicable—a textbook case of political correctness run amok.

  The United States already imports around 62 percent of its oil—and under our current energy policy, this figure will keep rising. While we need to explore all forms of energy production, it will be impossible to improve this situation without more drilling.

  We also need to access our offshore oil reserves that are currently blocked by the federal government. The Interior Department estimates the U.S. continental shelf contains 115 billion barrels of oil and 633 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That’s enough oil to fuel our country for sixteen years and enough natural gas for twenty-five years.19

  I’m not talking about putting oil rigs on Miami Beach—I’m simply calling for balance. Many people will point to the recent oil spill of the Deepwater Horizon rig off Louisiana as a reason to halt new offshore drilling. As one of the governors who has to deal with this mess, I’m not going to sugarcoat it—the oil spill was a tragedy, costing eleven people their lives. Thousands of square miles of ocean have been contaminated, hundreds of species may be affected, and countless fishermen have been cut off from their livelihoods. We will need to focus state and federal agencies to clean it up and make sure those responsible ultimately pay the bill.

  However, we shouldn’t overreact to the spill with a knee-jerk move to ban new offshore drilling. Creating a “Three Mile Island” Effect from this spill could encumber our oil production for decades, just like the Three Mile Island myth did for nuclear power. As I said before, clamping down on our own drilling will simply make us more dependent on oil from foreign countries with lax environmental standards. It will mean importing more oil, which comes with its own risks—for example, tanker spills like the Exxon Valdez disaster. The wise course is to carefully study the cause of the spill and devise strong safeguards to prevent it from happening again.

  Without a doubt, the Deepwater Horizon spill shows we need to be more vigilant about drilling safety. Louisiana is the Sportsman’s Paradise and home to some of America’s most vibrant wetlands. People in my state rely on a healthy ecosystem for their livelihood and a great quality of life. Negligence can put that at risk.

  Environmental groups will undoubtedly try to exploit this spill to pressure Congress into banning drilling from more of our coastal areas. Although this decades-long ban, along with a separate presidential ban, was lifted during the oil price spike of 2008, the Obama administration only allowed initial steps toward new drilling in the southern Atlantic coast and in small parts of the Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan coast. Meanwhile, drilling effectively remains banned along the north Atlantic coast, nearly the entire Pacific coast, parts of Alaska, and most of the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

  Canada is drilling off the coasts of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. And the Cuban government has contracted with foreign companies to drill close to the Florida coast. A wide array of countries are drilling for oil off their shores, including Australia, Great Britain, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Brazil, Russia, Singapore, and China—and they’re going to continue drilling whether we do or not. A report issued by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners estimates that restrictions on onshore and offshore drilling will increase consumer energy costs and cut our gross domestic product (GDP) by $2.36 trillion over the next twenty years.20

  I say let the people of each state choose whether they want offshore drilling, and let them share in the royalties if they do. We’ve been drilling off the Louisiana coast since 1947 and now produce 91 percent of the oil and 72 percent of the natural gas that comes from the Gulf of Mexico. Offshore drilling has its risks, as we’ve seen firsthand in my state. But for Louisiana it’s meant thousands of jobs and billions in revenue to help fund schools and to improve our residents’ lives in many other ways. And it’s meant more domestically produced energy for all of America.

  If we want to keep America strong and prosperous, we need a policy that aims for energy independence. Forget the self-serving cries from interest groups that want to favor one energy source over the other. The smart thing is to pursue them all.

  CHAPTER 13

  OF LIFE AND LOGIC

  I had been governor of Louisiana for less than a year before the hurricanes came—first Gustav, then Ike. On the heels of Katrina I was determined that we be ready for the next storms, so we went to inordinate lengths. I personally took a special interest in making sure we were prepared and in understanding every detail. I met with everyone: emergency planners and officials from the National Guard, FEMA, state police, fire and rescue officials, anyone and everyone involved. We went over evacuation plans, conducted drill after drill, and made sure we had adequate supplies. My staff thought I was obsessed—and they were right. When more storms arrived, they inflicted billions of dollars in damage—there was nothing we could do to stop that. But through the heroic
efforts of our rescue workers, countless lives were spared.

  I’m always in awe of the brave men and women who rescue people in trouble. I remember witnessing the efforts of rescue workers pouring into New Orleans after Katrina to pull people from rooftops. First responders sawed holes in roofs to rescue people who were trapped in their attics as the water level rose. I had a similar sense of awe watching American rescuers and others save people from certain death after the Haitian earthquake of January 2010. They spent days pulling injured children from collapsed buildings and removing the elderly from piles of debris.

  There is just something about a rescue that touches us deeply inside. Rescues are great signs of the human spirit, great testaments to the brotherhood of all mankind. When a person takes risks to rescue another person it makes us all stop and think. You ask yourself, “Why do people do this? Why do people risk their very lives for perfect strangers? Why did firemen run into burning and collapsing buildings on 9/11? Was it because it was their job?” Many firefighters gave that answer after 9/11—“Just doin’ my job.” And while that is a tremendously humble and gracious answer, we all know there’s more to it than that.

  People risk all to save others because of the tremendous value we place on human life. One thing we never see in these circumstances is rescue workers walking around and deciding, “That person is not worth rescuing.” No one walks around with a clipboard, asking people how old or how injured they are in order to make a cost-benefit calculation. Rescue workers help the young and old, the rich and poor, the Ph.D. and the college dropout. A life is a life. Yound and old, black and white, all are precious in His sight.