Who needs energy independence? ~ By John Stossel

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By John Stossel Posted: January 20, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2010 When you gas up your car, do you think that you're doing something evil? After all, I'm told that burning gasoline helps "murder the Earth," not to mention fills the coffers of terrorists and despots. So we must move away from oil. Al Gore says, "The future of human civilization is at stake." But I need the gas. I need to drive. I need electricity to light my home. What can I do? Is there an alternative? There is, I'm told. "What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don't cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at home? We have such fuels," Gore says. "In fact, we can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal power to make electricity for our homes and businesses." In 10 years, he says, we can get all our electricity from these carbon-free sources. Global-warming hysteria is just one reason Gore and others push for alternative fuels. We're also told that America's goal should be energy independence. Today, we do buy oil from some very nasty people: dictators in Venezuela and the Middle East. What if they cut us off? That fear is one reason almost every president and presidential candidate – from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama – promised to end our "intolerable" reliance on oil imports. When Nixon was president, we imported 25 percent of our oil. Since then, our "leaders" have wasted billions on subsidies for alternative energy. The result? Today we import nearly 70 percent of our oil. Terrible as that sounds, I say, "So what?" Interdependence is just fine! And journalist Robert Bryce, author of "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusion of Energy Independence," agrees. He'll be my guest on "Stossel" tomorrow night (Fox Business Network, 8 p.m. Eastern, and again Friday at 10). Bryce points out that while Saudi Arabia and Iran are oil exporters, they are gasoline importers. "If even Saudi Arabia and Iran are energy interdependent, why wouldn't we be?" he says. "Energy interdependence" is just a way of saying "division of labor" and "comparative advantage." READ FULL STORY >