Don't Let America Lose its Competitive Edge!

As expressed in earlier articles, I am incensed by the reckless cutting of renewable energy programs by our Federal Government.  Recently, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden, Colorado has been laying off scientists and engineers left and right.  They face historic budget cuts, despite being in one of the most important and innovative fields the world will see in the next 50 years.  While Western Europe, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and even Africa have dramatically increased investment in these technologies, we are starting to fall behind. 

But why would our own government let this happen?  What do they have to gain from it? More importantly, what do the American people have to gain by cutting essential programs that allow us to keep our competitive edge and reduce our depedency on imported energy sources?  How can they explain for this kind of neglect?  Is it greed?  Is it ignorance?  Whatever it is, clearly the Bush Administration and the Republican leaders in Congress are not working in the best interests of the American people.

Just imagine if they had done this in the late-1950s when the Soviet Union launched their first rocket into space.  Imagine if we had just shrugged our shoulders then, and let the rest of the world move ahead without us.  How would the American people have reacted?  Where would we be today? After all, America has been the center of innovation since its inception.  Ben Franklin invented the glasses you wear to improve your vision. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb you use to see in your house at night.  Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone you use to call your friends and family.  Henry Ford invented the car you use to go to work and pick up your children at school.  The Wright Brothers invented the airplane that allows you to travel to almost anywhere in the world within one day.  In the last fifty years, the United States became the first country to reach the Moon and developed the Internet, e-mail, and the World Wide Web. 

So shouldn't it scare us when major corporations and businesses are negotiating deals and contracts overseas to develop renewable energy technology? From General Electric to British Petroleum to Sharp Electronics to Siemens to Mitsubishi; innovative companies are seeing hundreds billions of dollars coming their way from Germany, China, India, and elsewhere.  These companies have decided that they have no choice but to invest overseas.  They can no longer rely on American markets for their survival, and they are setting up factories overseas and employing foreign workers.

And what is our government doing about it? Nothing.

In fact, the renewable energy industry has been pleading with the Bush Administration not to eliminate any more of their funding in 2007, but the Bush Administration claims that Iraq and Katrina have forced them to make cuts to all "non-essential" programs.  While this may seem fair to some of the skeptics out there, consider that the now infamous "bridge to nowhere", to serve 50 people off an Alaskan island, contained roughly the same funding as the annual budgets of NREL and the federal wind, solar, and geothermal programs put together!!!  And even though the bridge was scrapped, there are plenty of useless programs to cut before we sacrifice our future by slashing funds that support our energy independence.  In fact, when $11 billion sent to Iraq was "lost" unaccounted for, we could have invested that money and fully funded our current Federal renewable energy research and development programs for the next 40 years!!!

It takes tremendously un-American thinking to oppose innovation, but that is what our Republican leadership has stooped to in order to keep our dependency on foreign oil and imported energy, while the rest of the planet invests in their future.  The leader of our climate change negotiations has called those concerned about oil dependency and the need for clean energy to be ?converted communists?.  Our former Secretary of the Interior under President Reagan, James Watt, considered these policies that support dependency justified because he did not know "how many future generations we can count of before the Lord returns."  I guess that means that some people in the Republican Party don?t really believe there will be a future, and if they do, they certainly aren't interested in protecting that future for any of those "so-called communists" who actually care about their children's lives. 

Unfortunately, Virginia has nine of these types of un-American, anti-innovation representatives who actually believe that they represent the values our Commonwealth. But do they represent those values?  Do they represent the values of hard-working Americans who want good jobs and a strong economy?  Do they represent the values of our great leader, Thomas Jefferson, one of the original innovators helped get us to where we are today?  It sure doesn't seem like it.

Fortunately, we do have candidates out there who support innovation.  Democrats in Congress have confronted the Republican leadership time and time again, asking for a long-term extension of subsidies necessary for renewable energy industry growth in the United States.  Both Jim Moran (VA-8) and Bobby Scott (VA-3) have demanded that President Bush restore funding to our renewable energy programs.  Tim Kaine has voiced his support for renewable energy and the economic development opportunities of alternative fuel. 

Here in Virginia, we have an opportunity in 2006 to send a message that we want to innovate.  That we want a government who believes we can do better and that is bold enough to invest in our future.  That we love America, and we want to keep her strong for generations to come.  If our past has taught us anything, it is that America works best when it's moving forward.  In Virginia, we have the leaders to do that, and only the Virginia Republicans are standing in the way.

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