Physiatry Practice Management Resources

Recent polls show the citizens of California and Florida, where opening the Outer Continental Shelf to offshore oil and natural gas exploration has historically been controversial, have changed their minds and now support natural resource recovery.

Concern over how America will meet its future energy needs is causing the power industry, politicians and even some environmentalists ask whether new nuclear power plants should be part of the nation’s energy mix. Increasingly, they are answering in the affirmative.

Images of people being forced to flee their homes before walls of flame near Los Angeles and San Diego have once again thrust the risk of wildfires into the public view. Truth is, the fire season never went away.

Energy is essential in America, and 40% of what we use comes from oil and 23% from natural gas. That comes to about 21 million barrels of oil and 64 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. Domestic oil production is declining—down nearly half since 1970—so imports are up, from one-third of what we needed in 1970 to just under 60% today. So we need to discover and access more of our own energy resources.

When education is the topic, two issues are constantly at the forefront: Student performance and funding. And every few years some half-baked idea comes along concerning how to improve one or the other that sounds good in theory, but when tested, gets a failing grade.

In early summer, the U.S. Senate considered legislation introduced by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., that would have established a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 44% in an effort to prevent global warming.

How many persons does it take to change a light bulb? Four hundred, if the people in question are members of the United States Congress.

Energy fuels our economy and prosperity, but bad public policies have made it increasingly more difficult to develop our own vast resources. Americans are in danger of falling irreversibly into a dysfunctional culture and fading into the dust of history.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have each released new reports showing global warming legislation would inflict serious economic punishment on American consumers.

The Deniers, a riveting book by Canadian environmental journalist Lawrence Solomon, should be read by anyone who wants to understand where and why substantive debate remains concerning climate change.