Energy Tour Makes Visit to Craig Colorado
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Energy activists in Billings, Mont., sign the Energy for America tour bus during a rally. (Photo: American Energy Alliance)
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Jobs, jobs and jobs.
That’s the motivation behind a seven state, 7,000-mile bus tour aimed at defeating rising unemployment rates through domestic energy resource development.
“The United States has the largest energy reserves on Earth,” said Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance based in Washington, D.C., in a news release. “Our supplies of natural gas, oil, coal and hydropower can supply this nation with all the energy we need for hundreds of years.
“Unfortunately, anti-energy activists, both inside and outside the government, want to make energy scarce and more expensive by limiting our access, increasing energy taxes and regulating America’s energy producers.”
The Energy for America initiative is taking its message on the road in an effort to foster grassroots support for responsible energy development at home from local activists who demand access to affordable and reliable energy sources and the well-paying jobs that come with it.
“When citizens are allowed to explore for and produce the energy resources that they own, and when consumers are allowed to select the most affordable and reliable energy sources, we grow the economy,” Pyle said in the release. “It’s that simple.”
The Energy for America initiative is sponsored by the AEA and the Institute for Energy Research and Americans for Prosperity.
The bus tour kicked off Oct. 18 in Lincoln, Neb. and rolled through Craig on Tuesday.
Jeffrey Hubbard, media director for the AEA, said Craig is a key stop on the bus tour because of the local coal industry.
“We wanted to come to Craig because it is a huge coal resource base for the country,” Hubbard said. “We want to inform the locals of new rules currently being drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency to retire 10 percent of the nation’s coal-fired power plants.”
In addition, residents were invited to sign the tour bus, which will serve as a rolling symbol of American support of domestic energy production, as well as standard petitions that will be delivered to Washington, D.C., during the Defending the American Dream summit Nov. 5 and 6.
Residents had the opportunity to record a 30 to 60 second video spot to tell legislators why they attended the rally, what affordable energy means to the community and policy recommendations.
“We’re really proud of that part of the tour,” Hubbard said.
Hubbard said few people realize that the U.S. is home to the largest coal reserves in the world, is the third largest oil-producing nation and is number one in natural gas development.
“This whole bus tour is designed to remind people that we are a resource rich nation,” Hubbard said. “If we had access to these natural resources, we could create good-paying jobs and with those good-paying jobs we could have economic growth.
“The only obstacle standing in our way is Congress and unelected bureaucrats at the EPA.”
For more information on the Energy for America bus tour, CLICK HERE
— By Joe Moylan, Craig Daily Press
To watch videos of what people are saying along the tour, CLICK HERE
