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July 2, 2005
 
RAHALL REPORT: A Dependent Independence Day

From the desk of U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV)
Representing West Virginia's 3rd District
 
Washington, D.C. (HNN) — This week, we celebrate our national independence. It has been 229 long years since we declared our independence, but it is clear that today we as a nation are dependent on the decisions of other nations. I am reminded of the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt: "True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence." While, President Roosevelt was speaking of individual freedoms of the unemployed and poor, his statement translates easily to reference a nation.
 
Today, as our gas prices are at an alarmingly high price, as the price of a barrel of oil continues to rise and reach record heights, and as a major provider of oil may be bought by China, we are most certainly not independent. We are remarkably dependent on the actions of other nations who own the oil we use to drive our cars, and it seems that even more of the oil will be out of our hands and in the hands of China with the possible purchase of Unocal. The price of oil in the hands of a few affects the very fabric of our National economic health and wealth.
 
Sadly, our national dependence on crude has been generations in the making. Through Democratic and Republican Administrations and Congresses, America's dependence on foreign Oil imports has only marginally ebbed and flowed.
 
And as we read in David McCullough's new work, 1776, just as a forlorn weary army led by a tenaciously dogged General, named Washington, who with shear grit and determination fought and won a war against the greatest military power the World had known to that date, so too must we now declare anew our national attention, dedication, and sacrifice to march boldly toward energy independence.
 
American memory is full of examples of the extraordinary powerful force of the genius of our people. Energy independence need not reside at the end of the blade of war. No, the revolution lies in the hearts and minds of our scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, not in the war rooms of the Pentagon, but in the laboratories of our universities, not in the battlefields, but certainly and in large part in our coalfields.
 
We in the Congress and the President need to rethink the current energy legislation moving at a snail's pace through our government today. As author and columnist, Thomas Friedman suggests, our government needs to create a national science project to insure our energy independence. We can not simply tinker with yesterday's institutions. To address the dynamic tectonic changes we face in today's energy economy and technology; we must revise laws and many of our traditional industries and institutions.
 
Just as the words of our Declaration of Independence ring true for Americans and for untold millions around the World, its author Thomas Jefferson also wrote:

"...laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the same coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

And as Thomas Paine reminded us: "we hold it in our power to begin the world anew." Let us on this National holiday come together in celebration and resolve to begin America's energy independence anew.
 
Contact information for Congressman Rahall:

On the web at: http://www.rahall.house.gov/