Green fleet nonsense 'defended'

Houston Chronicle:

As the Navy ran exercises with biofuel-powered planes and vessels near Hawaii on Wednesday and Thursday, top Obama administration officials hit back against earlier criticism that the endeavor was a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said the "Great Green Fleet" test exercises for the first time proved that aircraft carriers, FA-18 jets and other equipment can run on advanced biofuels without any modifications - a major milestone in his quest to find an alternative to fuels derived from foreign oil.

"It was worthwhile to show that biofuels can compete and can be used in every single thing that we do in the Navy," Mabus said in a conference call with reporters Thursday.

Critics have blasted the exercises as too costly, especially as the Defense Department heads toward congressionally mandated budget cuts. In preparation for this week's exercise, the Navy spent $12 million buying 450,000 gallons of alternative fuels, which works out to just under $27 per gallon. Once blended 50-50 with petroleum fuel, the final cost settled around $15 per gallon.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has accused the Obama administration of trying to foist a "green agenda" on the Pentagon.

Noting the budget cuts ahead, Inhofe said the Defense Department "can't afford business as usual, yet they are being coerced into spending $27 a gallon."

And last week, Thomas Pyle, the president of the oil industry-funded Institute for Energy Research, asked congressional leaders to investigate a Navy exercise he said made no sense "with huge reductions in resources for national defense already under way."

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The only reason we will be buying foreign sourced oil and gas is because of the bad policies of the Obama administration which is still trying to strangle the domestic production of oil and gas on federal controlled sites.  They are still blocking drilling on 87 percent of offshore areas while they helped to finance offshore drilling off the coast of Brazil.

We have a much better chance of becoming energy independent through drilling than we ever will through expensive biofuels.  Why would you pay $27 a gallon for fuel when you can produce it for a fraction of that from domestic resources?  It only makes sense if you continue to buy into the outsourcing of our energy security by this administration.  

Mabus and others in this administration act like the shale revolution never happened.  Is that because they plan to kill it if Obama is reelected?  There is just no rational explanation for the policy they are pushing on green energy or their blocking of drilling on federal controlled sites.

And, no Mabus it is not worthwhile to show you can use biofuel.  If we are ever down to that alternative it will demonstrate we have lost the war and our senses.