America For Purchase

Have you ever wondered why Republicans ALWAYS support big oil and fight against clean energy and green jobs in America?  You guessed it, money.  Republicans receive huge financial windfalls from the oil and gas industry and have sold their political souls to the devil rather than looking forward and making the best decisions for Americans in the 21^st century.  As a Texan I was amazed to find how much money Senators have received from big oil and energy companies over the past few years.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has accepted $949,489; Sen. John Cornyn has accepted a whopping $1,416,575 and Rep. Kevin Brady has accepted $241,500.In just one year Rep. Joe Barton received $204,040, Chet Edward received $91,550, Rep K. Michael Conaway received $147,800, Rep. Kay Granger received $106,150, Pete Sessions Received $72,350, Randy Neugebauer received $93,450, Mac Thornberry Received $59,125, Jeb Hensarling Received $60,400, Ralph Hall Received $79,199, Louis Gohmert Received $56,500, Michael McCall Received $63,634 and John Culberson Received $119,950, and this is just in Texas!

The following chart demonstrates the overwhelming support for big oil by Republicans:

Republicans are out of touch with the economic crisis and continue to support America’s dependence on oil.  President Obama recently said “We have to lay a new foundation for growth, a foundation that will strengthen our economy and help us compete in the 21st century.”  The President has focused on “spending to promote renewable energy technologies that will generate jobs and an effort to shift the nation to a low-carbon economy, however Republicans are fighting the ‘green’ effort by the President.  The foolishness of the GOP is demonstrated by Sen. David Vitter (the adulterer from Louisiana) who said that “271,000 oil and gas jobs would be destroyed annually by the administration’s proposed new taxes and fees on energy” and who received $328,100 from oil companies. Sen. Kit Bond from Missouri said “we must avoid green jobs proposals that result in killing millions of existing jobs to pay for new green jobs, require expensive taxpayer subsidies, or pay low wages”. He accepted $140,700 from energy companies.

Americans have witnessed over the past few years to our country without a viable energy policy; electricity and gas prices have skyrocketed, oil companies have reaped record-breaking profits, pollution has dramatically increased and the U.S. economy has been left in shambles.

According to a University of California report, “California’s energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007,” while keeping per-capita electricity demand 40 percent below the national average. 

“In reality, the Center for American Progress writes, “most green jobs are familiar jobs, repurposed and expanded through new investments in a low-carbon economy.” For instance, constructing wind farms “creates demand for steel workers and long-haul freight shipping. Energy-efficiency retrofits for buildings require roofers and insulators.” Green jobs, in short, are the “person-hours” involved in realizing the clean-energy transformation. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch responded to Bond, “Green jobs in Missouri? We’ll take ‘em.”

The Center for American Progress also offers the following:

A popular conservative myth is that energy standards, limits on pollution, and public investment in clean energy will destroy other jobs. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Fox News have cast doubt on a green economic recovery by “touting a Spanish study” from a libertarian think tank, Fundacion Juan de Mariana, showing that “for every green job created [in Spain], 2.2 jobs are lost.” The Spanish study, which examines the effect of Spain’s support for its renewable industry since 2000, has also been touted by industry front groups, conservative blogs, and right-wing think tanks. The report relies on bad numbers, grossly underestimating that Spain’s renewable program created only 50,000 jobs, when other estimates are 188,000. Indeed, the study is claiming that “government spending on renewable energy is less than half as efficient at job creation as private-sector spending,” the Wall Street Journal’s Keith Johnson explains. Critics neglect to say that “Spain’s support for renewable energy came out of existing tax revenues,” so “it’s hard to see how it could have edged out private-sector spending, especially when the Socialist government there has reduced corporate income-tax rates, most recently this past January.” The reality is that investment in renewable energy sectors creates millions more jobs than does investment in traditional energy sectors, because investment can flow into employing people instead of extracting fuel to burn. The Apollo Alliance reports that “renewable energy creates more jobs than coal: the same investment creates 50% more jobs in wind and in solar than in coal. Energy efficiency is far more labor intensive than generation, creating 21.5 jobs for every $1 million invested, compared to 11.5 jobs for new natural gas generation.” According to a Greenpeace International and European Renewable Energy Council study, building a green economy that would cut United States greenhouse emissions by 45% by 2030 would create a net 7.8 million jobs versus business as usual. replaced with fewer, lower-paying green jobs.” The reality is that the decline of American manufacturing and the loss of good-paying jobs for many Americans have happened because there hasn’t been an effort to clean up the economy.  ”We can choose to transition to a clean energy economy that secures our energy supply and combats climate change or we can continue down the same old path of uncertainty and insecurity that we’re currently in,” said Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA), now the Secretary of Labor, at the 2008 National Clean Energy Summit. “Current economic conditions, particularly for under-served, under-represented minority communities underscore the need to transition to clean energy technology.”  The government and unions should play a role in ensuring that economic rebirth comes with not just regulations for pollution but also standards for jobs. “We can build a green economy Dr. King would be proud of,” Green For All founder Van Jones testified before Congress in January. “We have an opportunity to connect the people who most need work with the work that most needs to be done, and fight pollution and poverty at the same time, and be one country about it.” Van Jones, now the White House green jobs adviser, recently told reporters, “The president doesn’t want a bunch of solar sweatshops.” In 2007, Solis and Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) wrote the Green Jobs Act to authorize “quality job training programs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency fields.” Building a green economy takes a trillion-dollar shift in resources from capital-intensive energy to labor-intensive energy — instead of McMansions heated by giant power plants financed by Bank of America, it is homes greened by insulators and solar panel installers, linked on a smart grid.

Bond argued that “passing climate-change legislation to pay for new green jobs” will mean that “good-paying manufacturing jobs are driven away by the burden of high energy taxes and

When Americans hear the continued motto of the Republican Party – fear mongering, they must remember Republicans are owned by big oil and energy companies and are only interested in protecting the campaigns funds from these companies in order to continue their pillaging of American taxpayers and the future of our children.  Do buy into their lies, do your own research.

Filed under: Republicans