The president is a Democrat. The mayor of Washington, D.C.
is a Democrat. The governor of Maryland is a Democrat.
Ergo, the storm-produced power outage in the mid-Atlantic
region is not such a big deal.
If George Bush were in charge, the press would have fanned
out over the afflicted area, reporting breathlessly about the people who are
suffering and dying from the heat.
After all, 22 people have died. 4.3 million are without
power.
Since Barack Obama is in charge, you hear nothing about responsibility.
This morning on Instapundit
Glenn Reynolds explained it all in a few short sentences.
If you want to ensure that the power does not go out in a
storm, you need to bury the power lines.
If you want to bury the power lines, you need to make some
infrastructure investment.
If you want to invest in the power grid, you should not be
funneling massive sums of money to alternative energy projects run by your
political supporters.
Now, who bears responsibility for this environmental
catastrophe?
Of course, if you read the press you would think that the
fault lay with global warming. God is punishing us for our profligate use of
fossil fuels.
Those who believe in global warming will use this “black swan”
event to promote the same bad policies that created the mess in
the first place.
Local distribution lines, though, are owned by the utility companies, not by the government. Is this really something that the government should be funding, and if so, how would we avoid the usual crony-capitalism tactic of deciding to prioritize the projects in politically-correct cities (and for power companies that support the right candidates) over the other places & companies?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification. Of course, if the government can loan money to solar companies at favorable rates it can also loan money to utilities that want to bury their electric lines.
ReplyDeleteAs it happens places that are susceptible to hurricane damage know about the problem. I have heard in Southern Florida that some buildings have buried cables, while others do not.
I'm thinking that if it was a priority they would be able to find a way. Ironically, the places around DC that are suffering now are politically correct.
I see this as something of a black swan, because no one really imagined it happening and no one was prepared.
Practicable or not the Obama administration has been consistent in its willingness to support anything that looks environmentally friendly and in its will to punish companies that produce coal and other sources of energy.
With that kind of mindset no one is going to imagine modernizing the power grid... they will be too distracted by windmills and solar panels.