Palin - who needs innovation - just "drill baby drill"

Sarah Palin was on Fox News last night repeating her favorite theme; 'drill baby drill', repeating the idea that opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling is the solution to all our energy problems.  She dismissed opposition as “extreme politicians over on the left who want to buy into” arguments against drilling from “extreme environmentalists.”

Even the most optimistic estimates of the total oil in ANWR will cover 2 years worth of domestic consumption. It's not entirely insignificant but is nothing more than a band aid.

What is becoming more and more evident is that Republicans reject green innovations, especially if the government is involved in any way. The ridiculous light bulb 'controversy' is enough evidence of that.

Later on Fox News Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) spelled the real issue out clearly.

INSLEE: The fact of the matter is, if we’re going to grow our economy, if we are going to seize the jobs of the next century, we have to get busy focusing our national debate and our national investment on the new clean energy technologies, or China is going to eat our lunch.

China right now is preparing to roll out electric cars, lithium ion batteries, solar cells, cellulosic ethanol. This is where the future of energy is. We’ve a finite resource in oil, just like we had a finite resource in whale oil, and we made a transition. And we have to really focus our national energies in a bipartisan way, I would hope, on finding our way to compete with China to really build new energy sources of the future.

In 2009 China spent $35 billion on 'green energy' while the U.S. spent $18 billion. China is already the largest manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels. They missed out on the computer revolution but are determined to make up for it in the energy revolution.

By 2020 clean energy is expected to be one of the biggest industries in the worldwide economy, totaling an estimated $2.3 trillion. What are the GOP's policies to compete in this arena? More oil drilling, kill Cap and Trade, neuter the EPA and conduct investigations into climate the claims and methodology of climate scientists.

There are no elected Republican officials at the Federal level any longer who believe in even the possibility that human actions are influencing climate change. When the leading candidate for the House energy committee believes that there is nothing to worry about because God promised he was done messing with the world after Noah's flood you know that we're screwed.