Sunday, September 07, 2008
Opinion

Palin’s foreign policy experience

She understands energy policy far better than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama...

By Stephanie Ramage

Energy policy is the foreign policy of our time.

With the acceleration of economic development around the world, more people than ever are using more energy than ever, and the crunch is intensifying every day. That means competition for energy resources will determine the geopolitical balance.

GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin gets that. She understands energy policy far better than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and exponentially better than his VP pick, Sen. Joe Biden. Biden knows bupkus about energy, so all the talk about his vast foreign policy knowledge is worthless. He’s a legacy of the Carter Administration. Jimmy Carter now credits himself with "the largest-ever reduction in American's oil consumption." He's talking about OPEC’s oil embargo. That’s like calling forced starvation a “diet.”

Today, foreign policy must take into account the fear that our European allies have of Russia cutting off the gas they use for heating, as well as Iran’s ability to disrupt oil shipments. Palin gets that.

“With Russia wanting to control a vital pipeline in the Caucasus, and to divide and intimidate our European allies by using energy as a weapon, we cannot leave ourselves at the mercy of foreign suppliers,” she said at the Republican National Convention, referring to Russia menacingly shutting down a natural gas pipeline—one that provides energy to Western Europe—for one day last week under the guise of “regular maintenance.”

Palin continued: “To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies ... or that terrorists might strike again at the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia ... or that Venezuela might shut off its oil deliveries ... we Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas.”

We also need to reduce consumption of fossil fuel, and we need to do it sooner rather than later. But Palin gets that, too.

“Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems—as if we all didn't know that already,” she said. “But the fact that drilling won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all. Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines ... build more nuclear plants ... create jobs with clean coal ... and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources.”
   
She voiced her support for expanding drilling on Alaska’s North Slope, although she did not mention drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, something GOP presidential nominee John McCain opposes.

In taking on the oil companies during her two years as governor, Palin has already done more than most of the veteran politicians in Washington.

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that Palin has “tripled production taxes on oil and seized control of a proposed $30-billion natural gas pipeline from the traditional oil giants.”

That tax revenue is the money that Palin took from the oil companies and gave back to the citizens of Alaska. The pipeline is part of a plan to give the U.S. more energy independence and to possibly make it a bigger player in the natural gas market. As of 2006, according to the Energy Information Administration, our biggest natural gas provider is Canada. Additionally, we get liquid natural gas from Trinidad and Tobago, Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria. We export liquid natural gas only to Japan and Mexico. 

At least 40 Republican legislators were opposed to Palin’s oil production tax increase, so she cut a deal with Democrats. One of them, Mike Doogan, told the L.A. Times: “She has been more adversarial with the [oil] producers than any previous governor.”

Already, Palin has proven that she can put aside party politics to bring about sound energy/foreign policy. Maybe she should be running for president. SP