Elect Karlock to House District 45

Energy Cost

"Access to affordable and reliable energy is not a convenience to Americans," Innis told a meeting of the MidContinent Oil and Gas Association. "It is a fundamental civil right. Without access to affordable energy, Americans on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder cannot afford to climb that ladder to success. They cannot afford to enjoy the fundamental civil rights that organizations like mine helped to win for them."  
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"In spite of this, there are politicians who say that we must stop drilling, stop building baseload power plants, stop building transmission lines and new pipelines, and rely solely on less reliable and more expensive forms of energy," he said. "That is a recipe for economic disaster, especially for the tens of millions of American families now struggling to make ends meet each month."
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Innis said that "extremist environmental groups" are leading efforts to stop virtually any new energy sources. "They seem to think that allowing America's lights to go off is an acceptable outcome. I cannot for the life of me imagine how some of these people can sleep at night given that they are driving America right to edge of disaster with our energy policies."   Niger Innis, CORE

We need political leaders who can disengage and protect our folk from the economic terrorism that is being waged against them by those who want to punish the American people with higher energy prices and a lower standard of living." ...   We should be concerned as a nation on the economic devastation caused to today’s poor, not the theoretic harm predicted by a few computer models trying to tells us what the weather is going to be like 100 years from now."   Niger Innis, CORE

"Why do I say that these policies disproportionately impact the poor? Consider these simple facts. (1) the average medium income family in America devotes about a nickel on the dollar to energy costs; (2) the average low-income family must devote 20 cents on the dollar to energy; (3) truly poor families must spend up to 50 cents on the dollar; and (4) here in Alaska, because of the need to use diesel in many rural areas, families undoubtedly spend even more!

"This means that higher energy prices truly hurt the poor the most. And it means that those who force energy prices higher, by constricting the supply of energy, are guilty of waging a de facto War on the Poor.

"These extreme environmentalists don’t complain about higher prices. They like higher prices. They know that price pain makes folks turn down their thermostat and drive their car less. They call this “energy conservation.” I call it economic enslavement. Higher energy prices keep the poor from rising to the middle class, and the middle class from climbing the ladder of success as well.

"You see, energy is the master resource of modern society. It makes possible our ability to enjoy all civil rights With abundant, reliable, affordable energy, much is possible. Without it, hope, opportunity and progress are hobbled.  (Roy Innis, Chair, Congress of Racial Equality)