Issue Position: Energy Security

Issue Position

America's dependence on foreign oil hurts our economy and endangers our troops. It distorts our foreign policy and forces us to do business with some of the world's worst tyrants.

We must do better. An America with abundant energy will make the whole world more secure while it creates good jobs here at home.

I support a diverse energy policy to develop a broad range of energy sources fuels provided that it can be done in ways that safeguard the environment, and that they are driven by consumer choice, not by government bureaucrats choosing winners and losers.

Maria Cantwell takes a different view. She is an environmental extremist. Cantwell opposes sensible, job-creating initiatives like the Keystone pipeline. She opposes increasing natural gas development in America and she fights the clean, zero-emission hydropower that has helped build Washington State.

When Cantwell does this, she is both hurting jobs in America, and making us less safe and more dependent on countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Her idea of an energy plan is the failed "stimulus' that borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from China to put into politically-connected companies like Solyndra, which was an outright failure. All she did is send jobs overseas, and create debt here at home.

Since Cantwell has been in office the price of gasoline has close to doubled. There are a variety of reasons for that, but Cantwell's opposition to increasing production here at home has played a significant part. In fact, Cantwell even voted for an Energy Secretary who said he hopes the price of gasoline increases to $10 a gallon! That hurts working families who are already struggling.

I'm the son of a Forest Scientist and someone who has worked on environmental science research teams. I love our great outdoors - it's one of the best parts of living in Washington State. But I know that it's possible to both develop more natural resources and jobs here at home, and safeguard the environment.

Through my economic development career I've spent a lot of time in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and I also know firsthand the impact of America's dependence on foreign oil and the impact of Cantwell's votes to send our troops to fight in the Middle East.

We shouldn't have dictators and despots controlling our prosperity here in America. Cantwell has shown over her 12 years in DC that she lacks the understanding and capability to change that.

Washington State can be a model. We have some of the cleanest and greenest energy in the world -- almost all of our power comes from renewable hydroelectric, wind, and solar, along with nuclear.

We have just one coal plant and that's scheduled to be closed down soon. I know because I was one of the bipartisan groups of legislators who supported the negotiations to bring its operations to an end, because our state has so much energy available from other sources.

Now, it's time to help our economy by putting American ingenuity to work. There are thousands of good blue collar jobs just waiting to be created by increasing the use of our natural resources here in America.

With her extremist policies Cantwell can't do that. But using a balanced, common-sense approach, you and I will.

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