Obama's Dangerous Game With Energy Policy

By contrast, the U.S. is engaging in unilateral economic disarmament by shutting off access to the nation's most abundant and reliable sources of energy. Congress and the Obama administration refuse to lift moratoriums on drilling for oil and natural gas on the outer continental shelf, or to open up a tiny speck of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve for oil and gas exploration.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has put on hold plans to develop huge oil shale reserves in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. In April 2009, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated Colorado's Piceance Basin alone contains 1.53 trillion barrels of oil.

In the name of combating "global warming," Washington is force-feeding Americans a low-energy diet of renewable fuels, including notoriously unreliable and inefficient wind and solar power. In doing so, it will create a severe energy shortage, to the detriment of our prosperity and national security.

The United States is the only major world power that refuses to develop its own energy resources. In so doing, it is playing Russian roulette - solitaire-style. Sooner or later, it will prove fatal.

Bonner R. Cohen is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research ( www.ncppr.org) a conservative, nonpartisan think tank on a Capitol Hill. This article was distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service.