Sunday, July 6, 2008

Cheney's Energy Task Force: a nostalgic look back

I hate to repeat myself, but in this case I can't resist reaching into the wayback file for a column I wrote for The Colorado Springs Gazette in September 2005. It still stands as a potent critique of the politicians and interest groups that peremptorily (and gleefully) hammered nails in the coffin of Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force recommendations back in 2001. Politics, and nothing but politics, prevented these remarkably sensible proposals from seeing the light of day. Had Cheney been granted a fair hearing, and had his quite balanced and forward-thinking recommendations been implemented then, we might be in far less trouble today.

But will there be a public reckoning for, or apology from, the short-sighted obstructionists who, by summarily trashing the task force's work, helped create the crisis we're in today? Not as long as we remain The United States of Amnesia.

Here's the 2005 column.

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