A senior policy analyst with the Independent Women’s Forum is wondering why certain energy provisions have been removed from the economic “stimulus” package.
Amy Watson of the IWF says it is hard to see if the Obama stimulus plan will create much economic growth due to all the “pork” contained in the bill. She also states that the Obama administration is stifling job growth by restricting gas and oil exploration on federal lands and indicating that it will review off-shore drilling policies.
“So the government wants to force wind and solar energy on us,” she deduces — then explains some negatives associated with the two technologies.
“The frightening thing is these are two energy sources that have not proven themselves to be efficient or reliable — and the people who are going to pay for this is the American public,” says Watson. “Especially if President Obama is able to bankrupt the coal industry, as he has indicated during the election that he would like to do.”
Amy Watson (Independent Women’s Forum)Watson is also perplexed by the removal of any stimulus for the nuclear energy sector.
“If you take into consideration the countries in Europe and the success that they’ve had with, for example, nuclear energy — or the success they haven’t had with wind and solar energy — it’s pretty clear that if [Washington is] serious about emissions-free energy in this country, they have to be willing to adopt nuclear energy,” argues the IWF policy analyst. “And even during the campaign [Obama] seemed very resistant to the idea of expanding nuclear energy in the United States.”
With nuclear energy, Watson says one does not have to worry about cloudy days or days with little to no wind — as one obviously would have to with solar or wind energy.