"On the topic of fossil fuel, OPEC oil topped $70/barrel this week, though it costs the money-grubbing cartel a mere $4/barrel to produce. (If memory serves, we liberated this region from tyranny twice in recent history, yet no offer of reduced oil prices to help alleviate our refining crisis has been forthcoming.) President Bush will surely be blamed for our high gas prices and our limited refining capabilities—but those casting the blame are the same folks who have blocked construction of a single U.S. refinement facility since 1976."

---The Federalist

Also from The Federalist:
"From the Leftjudiciary, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken has effectively blocked new oil drilling off the Left Coast for the time being, ordering further studies of the "environmental risks" —a process that will take years. At issue is the federal government's request to extend leases on 36 offshore tracts between San Luis Obispo and Oxnard counties in order for oil companies to use them for new drilling. Entangled by much legal wrangling, the tracts have been unused since the leases were taken between 1968 and 1984. The oil companies have now filed suit in order either to use the tracts or to force the federal government to buy back the leases, originally bought at $1.25 billion. Some 512 million barrels of oil sits under the ocean floor, waiting to give us some relief from rising gas prices, but no, the Left doesn't want you to be driving that SUV anyway! They need that gas for their private jets..."

And finally this:
"The American Left has generally devolved into thumb-sucking mode over all the things they are against. No new ideas, no optimism—only screaming "Not in our Name" or "Not in my back yard" and other high chair banging. A prime example is the proposed 130-turbine wind farm off Cape Cod that would produce three-quarters of local power, reducing their dependence on nasty electric plants. While it's clear that Sen. Ted Kennedy opposes the wind farm—his view of the sound might be slightly affected (if, indeed, he can see between five and thirteen miles offshore)—even GOP senators John Warner and Lamar Alexander are balking at the idea. Of course, it has nothing to do with their property in the area. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., even held a fundraiser against the project. Leave it to the hypocritical Left to want other people's money to oppose alternative energy sources! All in all, The Providence Journal said it best: "[T]here are two sets of environmental policies in the United States today: one for the very rich and one for the yahoos."