Can't be both green and less Saudi-dependant

Kathleen Parker--no right winger--writes on the contradictions of cap and tax:

"A more accurate title might be: the American Clean Energy and Less Security Act.
To get to the bottom of what's wrong with the 1,400-page energy bill passed by the House of Representatives, you have to dig deeper than Canada's tar sands. And what you find there is just as sludgy -- and taxing to process.

"Crudely refined: The greener we are, the less secure we're likely to be.
Meaning, we either can be green or we can be less dependent on oil from terrorist-sponsoring states. But under the current energy bill, we can't be both.

"Put another way: The more we cap our carbon, the happier the Saudis are. That's because most Middle Eastern crude is more easily accessible and requires less processing than what we and our friendlier neighbors can produce...

"The only way to be less dependent, obviously, is to produce as much domestic oil as possible. But even if drilling were allowed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, for example, the cost of retrieving and processing the oil could be prohibitive under new cap-and-trade restrictions."

Read the whole thing: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/31/AR2009073102609.html