Put a Major Oil Company Out Of Business Alec Baldwin

ALEC BALDWIN: Put a Major Oil Company Out Of Business
Alec Baldwin , January 12, 2010 | 8:45:39 PM (EST)
I am disappointed that the Obama administration, and this government in general, has chosen to push so hard on the current health care plan. I'm in favor of much of the proposal in general and favor a public option, but not now. There is no health insurance plan, government funded or otherwise, that will help us if we don't address other more pressing issues first. The most important of those is energy.

What do Americans believe will have to happen before we become more long-term in our policy making? Do you really want to keep fighting wars for oil when an Apollo-like project in alternative energy would likely reduce US energy consumption by at least ten percent in the next ten to fifteen years? It might reduce our consumption by twenty percent in twenty to twenty-five years.

Don't Americans want that? And all of the economic benefits that would come with that?

The goal of this country's energy policy, long-term, should be to trigger a series of events that would lead to one clear measurement of our progress. That is the collapse of a major oil company. If a major oil company went out of business, we would be on the right track.

Do you honestly think that oil executives get together and talk about what a great product they are providing for America and how proud they are of the great services they provide?

Do you think oil executives want Americans to drive fuel efficient cars, burn less heating oil, and want to switch our economy to renewables anytime soon?

My father told me when I was a child that the major oil companies would one day introduce (and ultimately control the market for) renewable energy the moment they pumped the last drop of oil out of the ground.

Are you in the market for a new car? Is it an American car? Are you buying it from a car company that has taken billions from tax payers? Do you think it helps or hurts our economy for any of us to continue to buy cars that are inferior (and I do not suggest that American means inferior) just out of sentiment?

Energy policy is the lynch pin of nearly all of our other economic problems. And our dependence on oil is the tragic path that we are are still on, two wars in the Middle East in twenty years later, in order to deliver oil. Oil that costs so much more than what you read at the pump. You factor in both of those wars, the deaths of our brave soldiers, and the looming bill that our society will have to pay for our lack of maturity, foresight and courage on this front, the costs are incalculable.

Putting a major oil company out of business. That's a war worth fighting.




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