Touting a jointly introduced bill called the No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009, U.S. Senator David Vitter held a public forum in Lake Charles on Tuesday on energy issues.
The focus of the bill, which is being introduced by Congressman John Fleming and two other Representatives in the House and Vitter and his allies in the Senate, is a repudiation of the Obama administration's stimulus package, proposes deregulation of energy producers, as well as opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, alongside offshore efforts.
"I'm very concerned about the 'either/or' debate in Washington," Vitter said. "Either it's oil and gas, or its renewable energy. To me, it can't be 'either/or,' it has to be all of the above."
At the podium with Vitter were two experts: senior policy analyst Ben Lieberman with the Heritage Foundation's Roe Institute for Economic Policy (a conservative think-tank), and Dr. Mark Zappi, a researcher currently working at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a respected expert on alternative and renewable energy sources. Both Lieberman and Zappi reiterated Vitter's position.
The state of Louisiana is heading in a good direction regarding the current state of the oil and gas industry, Lieberman said, and the rest of the nation needs to follow it's lead. He contends that the federal government has a questionable policy in place, which is keeping the United States from fully exploiting its massive energy resources.
"The federal government has often stood in the way. No other oil and gas producing nation has placed as much of its domestic potential off-limits as the United states," Lieberman said.
"No other nation on Earth has as much legal and regulatory red tape that can block energy production as the United States," he added.
Lieberman voiced opposition to the current administration's energy policy.
"I'm a tough critic of the energy policy, or rather the anti-energy policy, of the Obama administration and many in Congress," he stated.
During the gas crisis last summer, legislators in Congress, along with the Bush administration, repealed laws limiting oil and gas exploration off the North American coast. Lieberman said this was a turning point for energy policy in the U.S., if only the Obama administration doesn't gum up the works.
"At a time when we should be encouraging domestic oil and gas production to get us out of this recession, they're trying to punish it with higher taxes on exploration in the budget," Lieberman said.
