Blog: Insanity
Statement
"We are going to do what it takes to make this right."
Who said that?
If you guessed the CEO of BP, you're half right. That's what the CEO of energy company Enbridge Inc. said about over 800,000 gallons of oil spilled into Michigan's waters this week.
We've been here before folks:
Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge Inc.'s affiliate Enbridge Energy Partners LP of Houston estimated about 819,000 gallons of oil spilled into Talmadge Creek before the company stopped the flow. Enbridge crews and contractors deployed oil skimmers and absorbent booms to minimize its environmental impact.
"We are going to do what it takes to make this right," president and CEO Patrick D. Daniel said during a news conference in Battle Creek. [...]
As of Tuesday afternoon, oil was reported in about 16 miles of the Kalamazoo River downstream of the spill, said Mary Dettloff, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment. She said state officials were told during a company briefing that an estimated 877,000 gallons spilled -- a figure more than 50,000 gallons higher than the company's public estimate.
As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. There are no illusions here -- as long as we rely on oil, our coastlines and communities will be threatened by oil spill disasters.
Respirators, increased regulation, and stricter standards are all critical and necessary. But they're just a temporary patch. We need real solutions to permanently shift our nation away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy.
I've said it before and I'll say it again -- I believe that America's energy independence doesn't run through the Gulf of Mexico. It runs right here through the prairies of Illinois. Here, in the heartland, we have the resources and the will to transform our energy framework. From a moral, national security and economic standpoint, it's insane that we are living in the 21st century yet we rely on 19th and 20th century technologies to power our homes, fuel our cars and conduct our nation's business.
For the sake of our children and our planet, we must do better. And we must act now.
We need leaders in Congress who aren't afraid to envision an oil-free America powered by geothermal, wind, solar and other alternative energy sources. We need leaders who don't take energy company money and who won't vote their way.
The goal for Congress should be simple: no more oil. The task for Congress is how to get there as responsibly, safely and quickly as possible.
We need a monumental shift in our national perspective, one based on a rational realization that our continued dependence on oil is threatening our economy, our national security, and our environment.
That's why I put together a comprehensive plan to help reach this goal. You can read it here.
From 2001 to 2009 the five largest oil companies made $867 billion in profits and yet they receive tax breaks worth billions of dollars annually. We need to end unnecessary subsidies to big oil companies. Eliminating these unneeded tax deductions, preferences and credits would save the federal government $45 billion over the next 10 years.
We also need to dramatically increase fuel efficiency standards to help reduce dependence on oil. And as new cleaner sources of energy are brought to scale, we must consider a per barrel fee on imported oil to help reduce foreign oil use. A fee of less than 4 percent would raise nearly $10 billion annually to invest in clean energy technology and pay down our debt.
We can restore sanity to situation. We can have an America built upon a solid economic foundation of clean energy jobs that can't be outsourced. We can have the prairies of the Midwest filled with wind farms and solar panels and we can eliminate - - not just reduce - - our dependence on oil.
But it means we need your help today. We need you to get involved, from calling on the Senate to act today to helping to elect the forward-thinking Senators of tomorrow.
Thanks for listening.
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