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"Today’s restrictive energy policies are a modern version of Jim Crow laws. They effectively prevent minorities from actually realizing the rights that are now guaranteed by our Constitution. These minorities have the rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness on paper. But when soaring energy prices and restrictions on economic growth prevent them from having jobs, buying homes or enjoying improved health and living standards, the paper rights are never translated into reality. Instead, poor and minority Americans are denied a seat at the economic lunch counter, and sent to the back of the economic bus."
Roy Innis. "Drill Now for Energy in America [1]," Townhall.com, June 12, 2008.
"Climate Protection: Equity and Opportunity Talking Points [2]," Green for All.
Equating laws that protect the environment and encourage a shift away from fossil fuels with the brutal segregation laws of the old South is offensive beyond belief. Yes, people of color are hit disproportionately hard by high gas prices, but they have also been hit disproportionately hard by decades of carbon-based pollution in cities, and will bear the brunt of adverse effects on the climate if America's energy consumption patterns don't change. What would really transform the lives of people of color now living in poor communities is massive investment in a green-collar economy, which would produce millions of jobs in urban areas that would not be created through more oil drilling, and would prevent worsening global warming. Besides, a new federal report [3] says that if we opened up the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve to oil drilling today, we wouldn't start getting the gasoline in our tanks until 2018, and it would reduce the price of oil (now over $130 a barrel) by, at the most, $1.40 a barrel — in 2025. We can't wait that long, and through conservation and by deploying existing green technologies and researching new ones, we don't have to.
Roy Innis, a civil rights activist turned archconservative, argues that the best way to promote economic equality for minorities is to encourage more drilling for oil. But there is a much better way to secure a brighter energy future for everyone.
1825 K Street, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20006
202-955-5665 (tel) | 202-955-5606 (fax) | www.ourfuture.org
Links:
[1] http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RoyInnis/2008/06/12/drill_now_for_energy_in_america?page=1
[2] http://www.greenforall.org/resources/talking-about-climate-change-policy-talking-points/download
[3] http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/introduction.html