The assault we are seeing from Congress on energy producers, by promoting the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill, is an assault on
the very support that helps preserve our nation’s greatness.

Congress’ zeal to punish energy providers causes massive economic collateral damage to the most vulnerable in our country.

According to the first comprehensive economic impact study of Waxman-Markey by the federal government’s Energy Information Agency (EIA), this bill will lead to fewer jobs and higher energy prices by 2030. The EIA report says the average cost to a household by 2020 would be US $114, though those costs would more than double to $288 by 2030 as the rules on energy providers tighten. When stricter rules go into effect in 2025, “The rapid increase in energy prices will cause the economy to contract,” the EIA said.

When energy prices go up — who gets hurt? When the domino effect of high energy prices impact the cost of food, transportation, housing, and healthcare, who gets hurt disproportionately? All working class Americans of every color are forced to bear the burden of the desire of the environmental elite to radically change the country.

War is being waged by a very well funded, aggressive, and systematic campaign to stop — not slow down — reliable energy production. This war to shut down fossil fuel production will force poor and working class Americans into economic serfdom and dependence on government energy subsidies.

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and its members do not want energy welfare. Government run energy programs often fail, and the poor will stay mired in poverty as a result. Americans do not want the necessities of life and economic progress to be held hostage to the whims and priorities of politicians. Americans need abundant supplies of affordable energy from coast to coast.

CORE’s national energy campaign “Stop the War on the Poor,” launched in 2008, has promoted this message in over three dozen states across America, Canada, and Brazil. The crusade has been joined by the High Impact Leadership Coalition of churches, 60 Plus (Pat Boone’s senior citizens advocacy group), and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (a network of 25,000 member churches).

But this struggle is akin to a David vs. Goliath like battle. Our free-market coalition cannot rely on the billions of dollars from foundations that fuel the elite “Green Mafia.” What this coalition has is a very powerful and unique message. And it has the moral high ground.

CORE and its supporters have the ability to tap into the independent spirit of the American People, revealed by the nationwide Tea Parties. The organization has the ability to galvanize hundreds of thousands of people of color and working class Americans to push back against the Green Mafia. The
effectiveness of this type of strategy was recently demonstrated in the brush-up between Senator Barbara Boxer and Harry Alford (President
of the National Black Chamber of Commerce), a coalition ally.

It is one thing for the Green Mafia to pursue this radical agenda while combating the energy industry or Rush Limbaugh; it is quite different for them to be confronted by a multiracial working class network of churches and community satellites all across this country.

The salient theme of CORE Chairman Roy Innis’ best selling book, Energy Keepers, Energy Killers, is that energy is the “master resource” — that which makes virtually all other human activity in our modern society possible.

What our nation needs is a comprehensive domestic energy policy that includes more of everything: renewable fuels, fossil fuels, increased conservation, and efficiency. It needs not only a reduction in dependence on foreign oil sources, but a dramatic re-alignment of those foreign sources.

Canada has massive energy reserves. The Washington Times reported in July that Brazil’s recent oil discoveries (Tupi and Iara fields) give it the potential to make it the Saudi Arabia of our hemisphere. What is needed is a new Energy Monroe Doctrine, a doctrine that creates a Western Hemispheric economic interdependence that preserves a secure supply of energy resources, while reinforcing our democratic, free-market values.

This is the struggle that CORE has engaged in with the support of several organizations and thousands of Americans. These unorthodox and grassroots efforts nationwide need the support of patriotic Americans from all walks of life.

This struggle brings to mind a famous statement by Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

ninnis@congressofracialequality.org