David Harsanyi on Envirocrat energy obstructionism:

Don’t worry, though, congressional Democrats have a bold plan. Hold on for 10 or 15 years and they’ll have a bounty of energy options. They promise. But no oil shale. No clean coal. No nuclear power. And definitely no more oil.

They will not enable your revolting, inefficient lifestyle. In the short-term, offshore drilling, especially, is a pie-in-the-sky fairy tale. Unlike, say, pond scum and hydrogen fuel packs.

On the bright side, it seems that reality is beginning to overtake fantasy. This week, Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future group delivered 1.3 million signatures to Congress, demanding that Washington allow more drilling. A recent Zogby International polls shows 74 percent of likely voters support offshore drilling in U.S. coastal waters, and 59 percent favor drilling for oil in the tundra of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

There are few issues in America that offer this kind of impressive “unity.” But apparently when unity doesn’t align with left-wing orthodoxy, we need more “leadership” to explain why we’re wrong.

But of course. They’re smarterer than us, see.

(Via Malkin)

Update! Dianne Feinstein: eat cake, prole losers!

There is no quick fix to $4.50-a-gallon gas, no way to provide instant relief to consumers we know are hurting. Yet President Bush and others continue to push the false promise of offshore oil drilling.

Just this week, the president lifted the executive order banning drilling that George H.W. Bush put in place in 1990. And he’s asked Congress to lift its own moratorium on oil exploration on the outer continental shelf — which includes coastal waters as close as three miles from shore.

This would be a terrible mistake. It would put our nation’s precious coastlines in jeopardy and wouldn’t begin to fix the underlying energy-supply problem. And it surely wouldn’t ease gas prices any time in the near future.

Uh-huh. So what does this lying liberal weasel think will do the trick?

We need to forge a long-term energy strategy that takes these factors into account, moves our nation away from fossil fuels and invests in renewable energy resources. We need to promote conservation and develop clean technologies and clean fuels — like cellulosic ethanol. We need to continue to raise fuel economy standards for vehicles and improve the energy efficiency of our buildings by 50%.

It’s also time to crack down on excessive speculation in critical energy markets. In May, Congress took a first step by closing the “Enron loophole,” which brought more energy trading under federal oversight. Congress now needs to eliminate other loopholes and to get serious with large institutional investors who are trading energy futures with no speculation limits.

Give up on oil, idly fantasize about decades-off new technologies and alternative fuels, mandate higher fuel-efficiency standards beyond any realistic expectation of attainment, and — above all — punish the evil capitalists by any and all means at the federal G’s disposal — the Democrat “solution” to damned near everything.

Which has been proved by recent events not to work. Which has never produced one drop of oil, never lowered gas prices, and never will. Which is an unyieldingly reactionary prescription for more of the same do-nothingism that is directly responsible for the untenable situation we now find ourselves in. But hey, Democrat “solutions” certainly do get results, of a particular sort:

Tar. Feathers. Rails. Torches.

Updated update! Via Glenn, alternate-energy ruminations from…Steven Den Beste!

The problems facing “alternate energy” are fundamental, deep, and are show-stoppers. They are not things that will be surmounted by one lone incremental improvement in one small area, announced breathlessly by a startup which is trying to drum up funding.

The way you can tell that a fan of “alternate energy” is a religious cultist is to ask them this question: If your preferred alternate source of energy is practical, why isn’t it already in use?

Why not? Because of The Conspiracy™. The big oil companies don’t want it to happen, and have been suppressing all this live-saving green people’s energy all this time for their own nefarious purposes.

As soon as you hear any reference to The Conspiracy™, you know you’re talking to someone who is living in a morality play.

Y’know, I do miss the ol’ USS Clueless. Nice to see Steven revisiting this topic.