About 30 years ago the US stopped building nuclear power plants because protesters from the left were so vocal and agressive that politicians and businessmen gave up trying to build them.  Now we want to build them again because we need power from non fossil fuel sources and besides the French have been doing it so it must be ok.

About 20 years ago Congressman Henry Waxman got federal legislation passed to ban the construction of a subway line to Santa Monica, CA.  At the time many of the rich people in his liberal West Los Angeles district opposed the subway and he gave them what they wanted.  Last year Waxman changed his mind and now that traffic congestion and high gasoline prices have happened just as they were predicted 20 years ago he wants to build the subway.  He never did admit he was wrong he just changed his mind.

Twenty five years ago, after the Santa Barbara oil spill we also stopped drilling for oil on the continental shelf of the US.  There is no question that if we had drilled then; today the supply of oil would be greater and the price would be lower.

Fast forward to the current political debate about drilling for oil offshore and in Alaska.  Now I don’t know what the correct course of action is.  But I do know that the people who oppose drilling now are the same ones who opposed building nuclear plants, who opposed building subways  and who opposed drilling 20 years ago.  They were wrong on every one of these issues in the past and I suspect that they are wrong on this one.

Drilling for more oil is not the only answer to getting enough energy to keep our standard of living improving.  There are lots of things we should do but pumping more oil is an important part of the medium term solution.  Henry Waxman and the limousine liberals he represents should not be allowed to make another political policy mistake.  They were wrong then and they are wrong now.