In another clip from the same January 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in which Barack Obama promised to bankrupt anyone foolish enough to build coal-burning power plants, he also made an interesting admission about his entire energy plan. Obama told the editors that his policies would make energy prices “skyrocket” as the energy industry passed along the exorbitant costs of his cap-and-trade policy:
Energy prices skyrocketing will leave the economy in tatters, as we saw earlier this year. While no one doubts the need to start transitioning to better sources of energy, the manner in which that gets done means the difference of whether it gets done at all. A stagnant or receding economy does not produce scientific breakthroughs, especially when government both increases taxes and imposes steep cost burdens on energy. That cuts into both manufacturing and R&D, because as profits fall, fewer dollars go into research — which means that all of these wonderful developments would get delayed, or go unrealized altogether.
We need to plan for the transition better than what Obama proposes. We need to use our own reserves of oil, natural gas, coal, and shale to cushion the economy while we develop the alternatives and build the infrastructure to deliver it. That’s what John McCain proposed in his Lexington Project.
Price shocks on energy is the last thing this economy needs. It would be worse than the taxes Obama promises to impose on investment, and would have the same depressive effect. It’s an utter disaster.
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/02/obama-ill-make-energy-prices-skyrocket/