Romney’s Energy Plan: Fantastical and Extreme

By ROBERT B. SEMPLE JR., NYT

Ridiculing a campaign document is like shooting unusually large fish in a barrel, but Mitt Romney's new energy "plan" is so fantastical and extreme that I feel compelled to fire away.

Let's start first with the premise of the plan, which is also its promise: that energy independence is an achievable goal for America by 2020. Presidents have been talking about energy independence since Richard Nixon and haven't come close. The simple truth, as President Obama has recognized, is that a country that holds less than 3 percent of the world's reserves but consumes more than 20 percent of the world's supply cannot drill its way to energy independence. More production will help, but true independence from foreign imports - not to mention fewer greenhouses gases and a safer climate, a subject Mr. Romney never touches upon - will depend on developing alternative fuels and more efficient vehicles.

Mr. Romney's position paper says that independence can be achieved if we "partner closely with Canada and Mexico. " But that wouldn't do the job either, even if Mexico and Canada sent every single barrel they produce to the United States-highly unlikely since they might want to use some of it for themselves.

Mr. Romney further suggests that oil production in the United States would magically increase if the states were allowed "to oversee the development and production of all forms of energy on public lands within their borders." An act of Congress would be required to transfer to the states hundreds of millions of acres now managed by the Interior Department and the Forest Service. But, setting that aside, Mr. Romney's federalist plan echoes an election year perennial, the idea (dating all the way back to the Sagebrush Rebellion a generation ago, and fostered by the oil and gas and timber interests) that all will be well if we allow the states to reclaim public land originally ceded as a condition of statehood, or acquired by act of Congress.

(More here.)