The American Spectator

If you thought that the death of cap-and-trade — acknowledged to be real (until 2013) by President Obama ,and reflected in the collapse of a key boondoggle set up to play bookie selling energy-use ration coupons — meant that it’s time to savor victory, guess again.

Cap-and-trade was a symptom. Not the disease. The disease is an anti-energy obsession among the left-wing in American politics, aiding and aided by a coalition of anti-American interests and trade competitors either floundering in their own Kyoto-style morass or simply drooling over the prospect of us doing this to ourselves.

So. Who are the Democrats on course to elevate to the ranking spot on the House Resources Committee? Urban liberal Kyoto-crusader Ed Markey, moving over from his disastrous chairmanship of the firs House Special Committee on Global Warming. See his district? Many resources there? Or mostly typical urbanite Massachusetts liberals?

His competition is Raul Grijalva, at least from Arizona but about whose candidacy “Greenwire” reports:

Grijalva, a four-term incumbent and chairman of the committee’s public lands panel, told Greenwire yesterday he could provide the continuity needed to push back on the Republicans’ attempts to strip environmental safeguards from fossil fuel development.

… He crowed last month after The Washington Post reported that he had been considered to be the Obama administration’s Interior secretary but was passed over because of his opposition to offshore drilling.

Of course, he means not stripping environmental protection but simply allowing fossil fuel development. But, too anti-drilling for the “Moratorium-at any-cost” administration that rushed into power by locking up millions of acres of land from resource development and cancelled completed lease sales? Wow. [UPDATE: Land Line hails him today as a “Wilderness Warrior”. Mmmm. A good mix with Resources authority].

Not much resource development in mind on that side of the aisle. A bit of a change from outgoing Chairman Nick Rahall of West Virginia, who had his own faults as I detail in Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America.

And that title sets forth the problem we continue to face. It’s not just production, it is energy use and even availability they are targeting (see: cap-and-trade). Energy scarcity is actually a key agenda item for the Left. The more freedom you have, the less the state does. And vice versa. Consider the book’s content:

Chapter 1 - How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom & Bankrupt America

Chapter 2 - Renewable Fools

Chapter 3 - Van Jones Was No Accident - The Obama Administration’s Radical Green Activists

Chapter 4 - Obama’s Global Warming Power Grab - Taxing & Stealing Your Liberties

Chapter 5 - Picking Your Pockets For Political Payola

Chapter 6 - Green Eggs & Scam - The Wholesale Fraud of Green Jobs

Chapter 7 - Obama’s Baptists & Bootleggers - Unions & Greens Selling Out America

Chapter 8 - Domestic Disturbance - Locking Up Our Resources & Shutting Down The Economy

Chapter 9 - Insecurity Complex

Chapter 10 - Lights Out - Our Dim Bulbs Guarantee Blackouts

As Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal wrote on the book’s jacket:

“Power Grab exposes the incestuous relationships between the Obama administration and the piles of taxpayer money it wants to pipeline to the Big Green juggernaut consisting of Big Business and Big Labor. Horner shows that the green agenda isn’t so much about a clean environment as it is about redistributing income from us to them.”

Yeah, that’s a book plug. But mostly a reminder. That’s what we face. Don’t get distracted. They aren’t.