Republicans Oppose Obama on Energy Security, Introduce Alternative Bill, Posted by Meosha Eaton

By Williams Ekanem

Barely 24 hours after President Barack Obama announced plans to reducing United States oil imports by one-third by 2025, congressmen from the rival Republican Party has condemned his proposals and introduced a bicameral bill.

Coined as the 3-D Act, sponsors say the legislation would take immediate steps to address the urgent need for greater domestic energy production, job creation and deficit reduction.

Sponsored by Congressman Rob Bishop R-UT, Senator David Vitter R-LA the bill is tagged, the domestic jobs, domestic energy and deficit reduction Act 2011 is expected by the sponsors to create two million jobs, $10 trillion in economic activity and $2 trillion in federal tax receipts in 30 years.
Addressing Congressional Correspondents on Thursday, Senator Vitter said that the President in his speech on energy the previous night “offered some vague platitudes, but no concrete plans to rein in the rising gas prices, even as they climb toward $4 per gallon.

Worried by this development informed why “we are laying out a far different path by introducing our legislation. The 3-D Act would unleash our vast domestic energy potential to create American jobs, help free us from our reliance on foreign oil and bring to reduce our $14 trillion national debt,” Senator Vitter stated.

The 3-D Act, he indicated is co-sponsored by 25 original House members and 30 Senators and has garnered support from organizations such as Americas for Limited Government, Western Roundtable, Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for Prosperity etc.

Also speaking, Senator John Barrassso said, “instead of announcing bold steps to fully develop America’s energy, President Obama set a long range energy goal without a realistic way to get there. A great goal without a great strategy will be a failure and Republicans have a better way forward that will ease the pain at the pump. Our bill will help America develop all of the above energy, create jobs and lower the deficit.”

Only the previous evening, the president called for the US to cut oil imports by one-third by 2025. He also reiterated a goal made in his State of the Union speech to generate 80 percent of the nation’s electricity from “clean energy” sources by 2035.

According to the President, “over the next two years, we’ll help entrepreneurs break ground for four next-generation biorefineries -– each with a capacity of more than 20 million gallons per year. And going forward, we should look for ways to reform biofuels incentives to make sure that they’re meeting today’s challenges and that they’re also saving taxpayers money.

So as we replace oil with fuels like natural gas and biofuels, we can also reduce our dependence by making cars and trucks that use less oil in the first place. Seventy percent of our petroleum consumption goes to transportation -- 70 percent. And by the way, so does the second biggest chunk of most families’ budgets goes into transportation. And that’s why one of the best ways to make our economy less dependent on oil and save folks more money is to make our transportation sector more efficient.”