Skip to main content

New York Times

Today's New York Times (Jan. 2, 2012) editorial criticized Republicans for including the Keystone Pipeline in the legislation extending the payroll tax cut. In the Times' view, it isn't environmentally responsible, won't create the estimated number of jobs and delays the move to green energy sources. The urge more time for studying the potential environmental impact.


Balderdash.

First, who knows if the number of jobs to be created is exaggerated or not? It doesn't matter - we know that a number of jobs will; they are high-paying jobs, and we need all the jobs we can get. Second, this project has been studied to death. "Study" in this case means "stall" until the proponents give up. But most importantly, their argument employs a false choice. It isn't a choice between a pipeline and anything. We need all the energy we can get to become energy independent. And, if one believes in the electric car, as I do (qualification: like the Tesla; not the boring Volt or the insipid Leaf) then we are going to need a lot more electricity.

Come on NYT: we need that pipeline with its jobs and fuel.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: What Matters Now by Gary Hamel

Interview of Eric Schmidt by Gary Hamel at the MLab dinner tonight. Google's Marissa Mayer and Hal Varian also joined the open dialog about Google's culture and management style, from chaos to arrogance. The video just went up on YouTube. It's quite entertaining. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Cover of The Future of Management My list of must-read business writers continues to expand.   Gary Hamel , however, author of What Matters Now , with the very long subtitle of How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation , has been on the list for quite some time.   Continuing his thesis on the need for a new approach to management introduced in his prior book The Future of Management , Hamel calls for a complete rethinking of how enterprises are run. Fundamental to his recommendation is that the practice of management is ossified in a command and control system that is now generations old and needs to be replaced with somethi...
1 comment
Read more

Stimulus Plan

Mr. President: The House stimulus bill is awful. Dangerous. Counter-productive. It has a very high probability of making things worse!. Your man Rahm Emanuel is supposed to be a tough guy: turn him loose on the House Dems - they are selling you down the river. Some simple tests: the spending will improve long-term productivity; the spending will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and the spending will happen fast; very, very fast. There may need to be some legislation to enable spending without years of environmental review. For example, spending on wind farms would improve long-run productivity and reduce dependence on foreign oil. But let's say the wind farm is a couple of miles offshore. You can't have environmental groups stopping the development to see if some fish will be harmed. This spending has to happen now. And, no tax cuts with the possible exception of AMT. People aren't going to spend any tax savings; they are going to pay their credit card bills or r...
10 comments
Read more

Romney/Thompson dream ticket?

The role of Fred Thompson in yesterday's SC primary is as murky as his next step. Did he divide the religious vote and thereby hand Huckabee a loss? Or would those votes, had he not been there, have gone elsewhere? My instinct is that more of those votes would have gone to Romney or McCain than to Huckabee. Fred comes across to me as the thinking person's conservative: thoughtful on positions, a sense of history, a Federalist, serious about the war on terror and prepared to take the long view on it. His addresses have content, not sound bites - which may, unfortunately, be a drawback in 2008. Mitt is quickly seizing the stage as the most knowledgeable in the field on economics, growth and job creation. With a war still consuming dozens of billions, it isn't clear that the race will be won on voters' views of candidates job creation prowess. However, he gives off as much energy as Fred seems to absorb - Mitt's electron shell could power Fred. So, Mitt may be drawi...
5 comments
Read more