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“We can’t have an energy strategy that traps us in the past,” President Obama proclaimed in March 2012. “We need an energy strategy for the future – an all-of-the-above strategy for the Twenty-First Century that develops every source of American-made energy.”

At first blush, this sounds like common sense. The US economy and lifestyle “depend on inexpensive and plentiful energy,” the Congressional Research Service noted in a 2005 report, but people tend to forget this until world events cause gasoline prices to spike. Then Washington reacts, CRS continued – passing the Energy Policy Acts of 1992, 2005 and 2007. However, the US still does not have a “comprehensive long-term energy policy” that balances increasing supply with conservation and defines the proper interplay between government and market forces.

Forty years ago, President Nixon announced “Project Independence,” in response to the 1973 oil cutoff by Middle East and other OPEC nations, with the goal of ensuring that “Americans will not have to rely on any source of energy beyond our own.”  His broad-based strategy begat the trans-Alaska pipeline (to get North Slope oil to Lower 48 markets), expanded onshore and offshore oil drilling, an all-of-the-above strategy for electric power generation that brought lignite mining and natural gas into prominence, and a host of conservation measures, including 55-mph speed limits.

President Carter brought very different thinking to Washington – policies that many believe led to declining US oil and gas production and economic “malaise.” President Reagan reversed Carter, but his successors, Congress, courts, environmental activists, regulatory agencies and disparate corporate interests launched American energy policies on a roller coaster ride. This history helps explain why comprehensive long-term energy policies and strategies are less logical and desirable than at first blush.

The term itself suggests policies devised and dictated by Washington, DC politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists and pressure groups – many of whom have no real knowledge of or hands-on experience with energy, economics, science, technology, business or job creation.

In too many cases, the policies, strategies, laws, programs and regulations are crafted to promote specific ideologies, benefit companies and organizations with the best lobbyists, and secure tax breaks, subsidies and preferential treatment for political cronies, campaign contributors and politically correct ideas.

“All of the above” too often means all of the above ground and little or nothing below the Earth’s surface: wind, solar, biofuels and wood, for example – but little or no oil, gas, coal or uranium. In fact, more than any other in history, the Obama administration is using its executive powers to delay, obstruct, hyper-regulate, penalize and bankrupt the proven energy that is the foundation of modern living standards.

Similarly, the notion that proven energy strategies “trap us in the past” fails to recognize that “past” energy technologies (oil, gas, coal, nuclear and hydroelectric) actually provide 94% of the energy that powers America today; are abundant, reliable and affordable; and represent a monumental improvement over the wind, solar, wood, dung and water wheel power that feebly energized mankind for millennia.

Suggesting that we can abandon these vital 94% energy sources – in favor of new variations on antique technologies that Mr. Obama promotes as energy of “the future” – ignores the fact that these politically correct sources are expensive, intermittent, heavily subsidized and wholly dependent on fossil fuels. Moreover, any honest and meaningful cradle-to-grave analysis of wind, solar and biofuel energy reveals that these PC sources are land- and resource-intensive, environmentally damaging, and unsustainable.

The “comprehensive long-term energy policies and strategies” slogan also ignores where the real progress of recent years has been made: in the private sector, especially the petroleum industry, where revolutionary horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies have unlocked centuries of oil and natural gas worldwide. In fact, “fracking” on state and private lands has sent US petroleum production to new heights – even as Washington politics and policies have ensured that production from federally owned and controlled onshore and offshore lands continues to decline.

Hydrocarbon, hydroelectric and nuclear have undeniable problems: oil spills, air and water pollution, radiation and accidents. But laws, regulations, technologies and greater corporate responsibility have greatly reduced their frequency and severity – and errors are quickly and severely punished.

By contrast, human health and environmental impacts associated with wind, solar and biofuel energy are routinely and systematically ignored, and almost never punished. The slaughter of millions of birds and bats annually by US wind turbines is a case in point, and when the impacts are considered in the context of the minimal energy produced via these “renewable” technologies, the damage is especially egregious.

These “alternative” technologies ALSO require perpetual subsidies, taken from hardworking taxpayers and productive sectors of our economy, and given to crony corporatists whose schemes slide repeatedly into bankruptcy. They employ rare earth metals and other raw materials that require vast amounts of fossil fuels, monumental earth removal and widespread land degradation – to build and operate facilities whose energy is so expensive it kills 2-4 jobs for every “green” job created, drives families deeper into poverty, and impairs human health and welfare.

Forty years ago, President Nixon actually sought to develop and utilize “all of the above” energy – every practical source on every list. Today, amid an anemic economy and joblessness far worse than official government figures admit, President Obama balks at approving the Keystone XL pipeline, cancels leasing and drilling on federal lands, tells our budget-sequestered military to buy $26 to $67-per-gallon ship and jet fuel, punishes refineries for not buying cellulosic ethanol that doesn’t exist, and happily lets EPA shut down coal-fired power plants and kill countless thousands of mining, utility and other jobs.

Thoughtful Americans find little comfort in these policies. Twelve million still cannot find work in this moribund, DC-dictated economy. Red-state Democrats like Joe Manchin (D-WV), Mark Begich (D-AK) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) tremble at the prospect of facing voters in 2014. And outrage is properly growing over the massive failures of wind, solar and biofuel startups whose executives (mostly Obama and Democrat campaign angels) skimmed millions of tax dollars for themselves but let their companies go bankrupt and their employees go on unemployment and welfare rolls.

And still President Obama and his minions push for punitive carbon dioxide regulations and carbon taxes, while the European carbon market collapses, EU jobs head to China and India, and thousands die of hypothermia in England. The European emissions trading system is “below junk status,” according to The Economist, and the collapse has been felt as far away as Australia, whose political leaders prepare to reap the whirlwind of carbon taxes that are now 5.5 times higher than in Europe. Is this America’s “future”?

Will ideology continue to trump sanity in the Obama energy and climate policy arenas? The President is putting all his eggs in the basket of “hope” that Democrats will “change” the House leadership and extend their Senate majority in 2014. He has shown little desire to compromise on energy and climate change.

America does not need “comprehensive” energy policies devised and dictated by Washington. It needs policies that unlock our creative genius and allow free enterprise and private sector innovators to operate on a level playing field – one that applies the same reasonable, responsible environmental, endangered species, tax, subsidy and other laws and standards to all companies, investors and energy technologies.

We need simple laws and policies that let our ultimate energy resource (our creative intellect) work – without ideologues, pressure groups and regulators promoting failed, subsidized energy schemes, while continuing to block affordable, dependable energy that actually creates jobs and generates revenues.

David Rothbard is co-founder and President of CFACT. Craig Rucker is the executive director and co-founder of CFACT.

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Americans concerned about gasoline prices were encouraged by the Pew Research Center’s new poll, whose headline blared, “Keystone XL Pipeline draws broad support.” A score box showed 63% supporting and only 23% opposing the pipeline that would transport oil from Canada’s vast Alberta oil sands deposits through the Plains states to Texas refineries.

“Every one-cent increase at the pump steals about $1 billion from the larger economy that consumers would have otherwise saved or spent on something else,” the Wall Street Journal has pointed out. High gasoline prices thus translate into lost jobs, lost tax revenues and lower living standards. Americans are beginning to understand that, as the Obama “recovery” gives them real-world economic lessons.

Unfortunately, the Pew report quickly deflated optimism over this support, when it tersely identified who the minority is: “liberals” – stanchions of Big Green’s circus tent. We have seen time and again that the liberal 23% can be a “majority” to President Obama, who wields executive orders to bypass the people.

As his administration approaches a decision, lame-duck politics says he could go either way – even with his own State Department’s second favorable environmental impact report on the KXL’s construction permit. Even with Alberta Premier Alison Redford saying that an Obama rejection would damage U.S.-Canada relations. “Canada relies on the U.S. for 97% of its energy exports,” Redford said, and “sees the new pipeline as critical to its economic well-being.” And even with ten governors and 22 lieutenant governors sending letters to the President, urging pipeline approval.

What is Obama likely to do? Some 82% of Republicans favor the pipeline, so revenge is not an unthinkable motive for a possible rejection. However, 70% of independents and 54% of Democrats also favor the KXL. Fogging the crystal ball is the ideological split among Democrats: 60% of the party’s conservatives and moderates support building the pipeline, compared to just 42% of liberal Democrats. That considerably flattens Obama’s upward slope toward a potential rejection, but doesn’t level it.

Obama’s decision may hinge on pleasing his base of global-warming advocates. This whole Keystone XL controversy was carefully conceived and organized as a “globally significant response” to global warming. Shutting down Alberta’s oil sands – by blocking both the US-bound Keystone XL pipeline and any other Alberta oil conduit, particularly a proposed link to Vancouver, British Columbia harbors and oil tankers bound for Asia – would supposedly reduce global warming. That’s propaganda, not reality.

As Environment Canada has observed, oil sands production contributes a mere 0.14% of global greenhouse gases, notes, and would add an undetectable 0.00001 degrees C per year to global warming, even if carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases really do drive climate change.

The anti-oil sands campaign – activists call them “tar sands” to evoke ugly images – was devised by the New York City-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund, using earmarked grants to recruit “a network of leading US and Canadian NGOs” and establish a “coordinated campaign structure” to act as its public face, according to a leaked PowerPoint presentation.

The first slide says, “The Tar Sands Campaign, Michael Northrop, Program Officer, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, July 2008.” Seven slides drive home the message that Rockefeller wants its paid campaigners to emphasize: Oil sands and Keystone represent “a globally significant threat” – with “Global Warming,” and “Oil Addiction” as the two “thought leader slogans” in the parade of old shibboleths that trigger brain freeze in Big Green followers. The rest was a coldly calculated, very practical plan to destroy Canada’s single most important export, with Rockefeller giving $7 million per year to activist groups to do the job.

Thinking people understand that being “addicted to oil” is like being addicted to breathing, better living standards, improved health and life itself. Just try getting along without it in a world where fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) contributed 82% of US energy use in 2012. The “green alternative” (wind and solar) provided a mere 3.3% of our overall needs in 2012; the rest was nuclear, hydroelectric and biomass (mostly wood). Relying on the “green alternative” is like trying to inhale only 3.3% as much as you usually do. There’s an energy gap there we need to account for.

Canadian researcher Vivian Krause exposed the Rockefeller funding for campaigns against Canadian energy exports in her October 2010 Financial Post story, “US foundations against the oil sands.” Five US foundations, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, funneled vast sums of money through the Tides Foundation’s Canadian organization, Tides Canada. The Tides family of operations is a notorious California-based funder of left-wing activists.

Krause wrote, “A large part of Tides Canada’s funding comes from the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. These are The Big Five. They give away about US$1.2-billion every year.” In a chilling reminder, she concluded, “If these foundations decide to undermine a foreign industry, they probably can.”

Later that fall, Krause testified before a Canadian House of Commons committee, prompting an audit of the Canadian arm of the Tides Foundation by the Canada Revenue Agency (Canada’s equivalent to the IRS). By Krause’s calculations, Tides, a co-funder of the Rockefeller oil sands campaign, has distributed $19 million to anti-Keystone groups since 2008.

Krause explains that the campaign strategy is intended to foster renewable energy by shifting investment capital away from so-called “dirty oil” and toward so-called “clean energy.” To this end, she said, “they ‘educate’ media, consumers and voters. They stigmatize fossil fuels as bad, thereby facilitating the positioning of renewables as good. It’s basic product positioning and ‘depositioning’ the competitor.”

Not surprisingly, the “education” is slanted. “We get only bad news about fossil fuels and good news about solar and wind,” Krause observes. “We don’t get the whole story.” What gets left out are the advantages of fossil fuels – and the limitations and harmful effects of renewables, like the tiny amount of energy they provide, and the terrible impacts they have on birds, bats and wildlife habitats. “Furthermore, some of the information that is perpetuated is out-dated, and some is plainly false.”

I asked Krause why the Rockefeller presence behind the anti-XL propaganda campaign was virtually invisible. She told me that it has been done quietly but not secretly. “The grants have been disclosed in online databases for years,” she said. “But nobody bothered to add them up and connect the dots.” Krause connected the dots to the networks of foundations that work together on targeted projects.

She directed me to a revealing but obscure source, “Design to Win: Philanthropy’s Role in the Fight Against Global Warming,” which was sponsored by six of “the usual suspects” I have learned to expect to find behind any global warming campaign: the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Energy Foundation, Joyce Foundation, Oak Foundation, and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Another source was, “A Strategy Planning Tool for Western Conservation,” prepared for the Hewlett Foundation by the Redstone Strategy Group, a brain pool of Ivy League hotshots not to be trifled with. Their strategy is to create eight massive national parks, each the size of Switzerland, as a way to stop the development of fossil fuels. Just fence industry out with parks – or Antiquities Act designations.

Anyone who thinks their local grassroots green group just pops up spontaneously in occasional protests needs to read either of these documents. They will find that the “roots” under the environmentalist “grass” are fertilized with bales of hundred-dollar bills. Rockefeller’s actions are quite open, if quiet. Krause said, “The strategy is articulated in discussion papers, but who reads them?”

Nobody except Vivian Krause, evidently. Her Twitter account, @FairQuestions, says, “I follow the money & the science behind enviro campaigns.” Her research and writing are impressive. Her blog profile states, “I work from my dining room table, using Google, on my own nickel. Not part of any political party, any industry, or any campaign.” Her work deserves more attention in the United States.

Krause’s discovery and exposé of the Rockefeller millions behind the anti-Keystone XL campaign could become a factor in Obama’s pipeline construction decision. It has already created Canadian suspicion of environmental groups dancing on the strings of US foundation money.

It’s not the money itself Canadians fear. It’s the way bales of US foundation cash can buy pressure by proxy, to impose undue foreign influence over Canada’s national energy policy and sovereignty.

One must hope Mr. Obama does not wish to be suspected of dancing on the same Rockefeller policy puppet strings as the Big Green bigwigs who were recently arrested protesting at his front door.

__________

Columnist Ron Arnold is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Portions of this report appeared originally in the Washington Examiner and are used by permission.

Irving Stone’s famous book, They Also Ran, chronicles men defeated for the presidency while analyzing those races to see if the people chose wisely.

Just as readers are left pondering how history may have been altered, the opposite also holds true: what if the winner had not been victorious.

With the passing of England’s Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, it’s obvious the Brits chose wisely. And the world owes them a debt of gratitude, for it is far safer because of Maggie.

With Ronald Reagan and Thatcher now gone, the pangs of sadness resonate with the ending of a golden era. For those who lived through superpower showdowns and nuclear war games, it is impossible not to give Thatcher a special place in your heart. As America’s greatest Cold War ally, she never wavered in looking the Evil Empire square in the eye, saying, “Give me your best shot — I can take it.”

*****

Every generation has a tendency to view the past through rose-colored glasses.

However, rainbows and lollypop reminiscing aside, the 1980’s truly were remarkable. America and Britain were unified countries, evidenced by substantial electoral victories by Reagan and Thatcher, leading to an era marked by monumental events thought unthinkable just a decade prior.

The malaise of the 70’s had eroded people’s faith in their leaders and themselves.  Optimism hit a brick wall, for good reason: runaway inflation; 20 percent interest rates; rationed gas; an aggressive Soviet Union; and the 444-day Iranian hostage crisis. The pinnacle of failure came during the calamitous rescue attempt, which, in addition to the gut-wrenching loss of life, was an embarrassment of epic proportions.

This widespread self-doubt led to the elections of Reagan and Thatcher. They took the helm of a West in search of its identity, carrying with them the dreams of billions. In charting a new course, they once again lit the beacons of hope, resurrecting that shining City Upon A Hill.

They succeeded.

Hostages were freed, militaries beefed up, and economies roared back to life.  With work came prosperity — hopes and dreams were not just restored, but realized. Peace through strength was wildly effective (it eventually destroyed the Soviet Union, freeing hundreds of millions), but it was not without its tests.

Who could forget Thatcher’s decisiveness in reclaiming the Falklands? That Argentinian act of war, by the way, was calculated on the belief that Britain had neither the resources nor the stomach to wage a conflict half-a-world away. Wrong.

Ships of the British Line steamed 8,000 miles in the mold of Nelson and Hornblower, freeing its people and routing the Argentinians. Most significant, Thatcher’s bold action put an exclamation point on something undeniable: British Pride was back.

Years later, Thatcher took considerable heat (but never faltered) for allowing American bombers in Britain to attack Libya after Gaddafi’s terrorism. And of course, her chiding of George H.W. Bush as he wavered about helping Kuwait will forever define her testicular fortitude: “Remember George, this is no time to go wobbly!”  Classic Thatcher.

Back home, she embarked on the Herculean task of reviving the sluggish, bureaucrat-laden economy, succeeding by instituting labor reforms and free-market initiatives. Like Reagan, she endured tough days before things turned around, but held fast, declaring to doubters in her own Party, “You turn if you want to…this Lady’s not for turning.”

Turn she did not. And was reelected twice.

Effective as Thatcher was, her biggest negative was the handling of Northern Ireland. Declaring “crime is crime is crime; it is not political,” she let Bobby Sands and nine other Irish prisoners die from their hunger strike. A strong-willed leader, she should have done more for peace.  Too many on both sides died during Maggie’s reign.

The British left most places it occupied better off than when they found it.  Not so with Northern Ireland, and the troubles there remain a black mark for Thatcher on what is otherwise a legacy for the record books.

*****

The 80’s saw Americans and Brits far more unified in their respective countries. Sure, there were political disagreements, but not nearly as uncivil as today. Thatcher and Reagan could have a knock-down fight with an opponent during the day and share a beer (and a laugh) that evening.

Maybe that was because we weren’t the only superpower back then. We knew the sobering capabilities of our enemy — and the consequences of failure in meeting its challenges. Maybe it was because the Cold War kept us sharply focused, a people bound together facing the ultimate threat.

But even more, it was because we had bold leaders, visionaries who believed in more than themselves and their next election. Great communicators, Reagan and Thatcher were principled, God-fearing stalwarts who made us once again believe in something that had been lost: ourselves.

Gipper, your best friend is with you again. Iron Lady, thank you. Rest in Peace.

Chris Freind is an independent commentator who operates FreindlyFireZone.com. He can be reached at CF@FreindlyFireZone.com