Americans For Jobs And Energy

Do you want lower gas prices? Want to see lower inflation and an increase in respectable jobs? Can you spare two minutes?

What YOU can do!

There is an Energy Act before lawmakers right now that can truly put us on the right path to lowering gas prices and creating new jobs. The absolute fastest route to relief is through passing the S. 2958 Energy Act.

1. Sign the S. 2958 Act petition.

2. Email this web site link to all your friends.

3. Write your Congressperson and write your Senator.
4. Recommend our site

Did you know that the U.S. Senate voted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 to block oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the offshore areas of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts? Sounds crazy doesn't it? Gas prices are approaching $4 a gallon, people are losing their jobs by the thousands and our certain members of our Government BLOCK environmentally conscious drilling on Federal land and Federally owned offshore waters (outside of State waters). A golden opportunity to increase domestic energy production, reduce fuel prices, create hundreds of thousands of new, high paying jobs while reducing our enormous deficit was defeated by anti-energy members of our Government again. Today we have another chance and YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE right now, right here!

Those of us who are struggling under the economic pressures of rising gas and food costs have little say in the decisions that can make things easier on us, or harder. Anti-energy politicians quietly vote for higher gas prices while we are occupied with work, family and trying to keep our heads above water. Why don't Americans get to vote on these important issues? We elect the Congress people and Senators and after that we stop taking part in the political process. From then on these elected officials are left to make all the decisions and sometimes, we suffer the consequences. That is going to change, and YOU can help right now.

America's once proud and mighty middle class has been under attack for the past 30 years. The transfer of wealth from America’s middle class and poor to the rich has accelerated at an alarming pace. Every year more Americans see the dream of a middle class lifestyle slip from their fingers. That once common dream has been replaced by debt, unaffordable healthcare, an ever increasing cost of living, a declining job base, stagnant wages and crippling gas prices. Let’s send Washington the message that we want better jobs, affordable fuel and energy and we want America's wealth distributed amongst the workers who create the wealth.

Sign our petition to pass The American Energy Production Act S. 2958! We are going to put together a petition signed by so many Americans that it will carry a loud voice for the working class into those votes in The Senate and The House of Congress. S. 2958 is a new bill that will provide America with exactly what it needs right now, Jobs and Energy. Lots of good, high paying jobs and lots of new domestic oil! But, it won't happen without you! Without your participation this important Act S.2958 will come and go and 98% of the population will never have even heard about S. 2958. Read over our website and I think you will agree that this Act absolutely has to be passed.

America’s political system can sometimes be excruciatingly inefficient. Every day an army of elected representatives go to work with their own idea of how best to serve their constituents (we hope). They work on their own projects or work to defeat some other politician’s project. Too often the system just ends up to creating bottlenecks and political arguments, not solutions. Right now two energy plans have been introduced, one by Republican representatives and one by Democrat representatives. Of course both parties have come up with vastly different ideas on how to address our growing energy problems. Political posturing and party loyalty will likely mean that each side will fight the other's plan, with the end result being, nothing gets passed. We need to prevent that because one of these plans is just what America needs right now!

Americans For Jobs And Energy has been working on a plan to jump start America's economy. To do that we need to create a substantial number of new, high paying jobs and provide a long term, affordable and realistic solution to America's energy needs. As luck would have it, The American Energy Production Act S. 2958 was introduced just before our plan was to be launched. S. 2958 is VERY close to the plan we were working on and getting S. 2958 passed will absolutely benefit America's working class in a huge way for decades to come. Because S. 2958 is already an Act, supporting it can help us realize many of our goals much quicker than trying to get a new Act written and introduced. This is an important first step in the effort to bring prosperity back to the working class. Its importance cannot be understated. Providing hundreds of thousands of new high paying jobs and accessing affordable domestic oil reserves is a one-two punch to halt the decades long slide America's middle class has endured.

► Read The American Energy Production Act S. 2958.

We do not support Republicans or Democrats. We support good ideas that will help America's working class and give a hand up to society's less fortunate, by building an economy that provides opportunities to help the poor, help themselves. Good ideas come from both sides. As the lines of distinction have blurred between the parties it has become even more apparent that steadfastly sticking to the ideas of one party only ties our hands, limits our options and keeps us trapped in an outdated and inefficient system. We welcome Democrat, Republicans and Libertarians alike. We will support good ideas from any party and we will support any politician from any party which supports our efforts and goals.

Development of Oil Shale is not needed because it's easy or the cheapest way to get oil. It's needed because it is the biggest source of oil in the U.S. by a factor of 80x and will provide oil for decades.

America's middle class is shrinking. Every year more Americans fall below the poverty level and every year more of America's wealth goes into the pockets of the grossly rich. Most ordinary Americans are under an increasing amount of economic distress. For the past three decades real income and wealth has flowed upward from the production of the workers into the hands of the richest 1%. The Tax Foundation states that in 2006, 91 million individuals and couples filing 43.4 million tax returns make too little to contribute income taxes. Plus an additional 15 million make too little to even file a tax return. That number has increased by 4.2 million people since 2002 alone. This places a huge burden on those who do pay taxes, to fund growing Federal and State Governments, education and social safety nets.

Personal debt and credit card bills are skyrocketing as more and more Americans are forced to turn to credit cards to cover monthly expenditures.

During March of 2008 consumer debt rose by an astonishing $15.3 billion, sending the total consumer debt load, NOT including mortgages or Home equity loans, to a stagering $2.56 TRILLION!

So if you've seen your standard of living take a nose dive, you are certainly not alone. This is a serious problem folks! Bringing back America's middle class will have a positive ripple effect throughout the economy. An absolute snowball of positive change for our great nation.

For every high paying job created by S.2958:

1) We put more dollars into the hands of consumers to spend and stimulate our economy.

2) We create another productive tax paying member of society.

3) We have one less person relying on unemployment, welfare or food stamps to survive.

Multiply those positive effect by the hundreds of thousands of good jobs The American Energy Production Act S. 2958 will generate and you can see America finally being able to pay down the National Debt, poverty being erased and futures looking brighter! Everyone wins.

► Did you know that Unocal produced 5 million barrels of oil from the Green River oil shale formation in the 1980s? The technology is here and oil shale is profitable far below today's oil prices. We need a national long term commitment to Oil Shale, not to OPEC!

Don't wait for the gas lines of the 1970s to return. Relying on an increasingly unstable world for 50% of our oil is not a good plan. Iran is a real threat to global stability and unfortunately they are also one of the worlds largest oil producers. Iran is a real problem:

similarities Iran has to Iraq:

♦ Threatening Israel.

♦ Moved its oil sales out of the U.S. dollar.

♦ Intelligence reports say they are working on WMDs.

♦ Crazy man running the place.

♦ Has lots of oil.

The sooner we can get off of Middle East oil the better off we are. Through buying oil from OPEC WE are funding terrorist states. Why not work on domestic production and gain energy independence and a bunch of good jobs as a bonus?

Simply passing S.2958 can have an immediate effect on oil and gas prices by easing speculation in the oil markets fueled by fears of future global oil shortages.

Let's get started or in another five years we will be paying $6 for gas and $6 for milk. An aggressive oil shale program could be producing high quality domestic oil by 2011!

► America's Oil Shale deposits contain an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil, which is three times greater than Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves!

"If oil shale were to provide just one quarter of America’s 20 million barrel per day needs, 800 billion barrels would last more than 400 years!"

How can we be sure this petition drive will work? Every politician knows that we need better jobs to increase the tax base that funds our Government (and their paychecks). Every politician knows we need to develop more of our domestic oil resources. Unfortunately infighting between Democrats and Republicans and a crippling need to please all of the people all of the time has rendered Government inefficient on the issue of energy. This petition can overcome those obstacles because it is bi-partisan; signers are Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians, it crosses party lines. The second big thing is a mandate of the people. After enough of us sign this petition the Government will know the will of the people and have a clear mandate to get this done, and quickly.

Sueing OPEC is a silly idea. The fundamental laws of supply and demand are at work with oil prices. By not producing oil from proven domestic sources, we are limiting supply on ourselves!

Email petitions are not very effective. That's why we are not doing one. Electronic pettions are too easily just deleted or never looked at as they sit in someones inbox along with 30,000 other Emails. That's why we are aggressively drumming up support in an effort to gather at least one million signatures. Those signatures will be directly delivered, not Emailed. The shear volume and the fact that there is a physical petition will definitely make a big impression. The internet is the absolute best way to get the word out and gather and enourmous volume of signatures, but it is not an effective way to deliver a petition, that is why we are going to deliver the petition directly!

Goals:
1) Affordable Domestic Energy
2) Good, High Paying Jobs
3) Funding for Green Energy
4) Reduce and Produce

When the Government is presented with a million petition signatures it WILL get their attention, count on it! Tell all your friends to sign the petition. The beauty of the internet is that word can spread very, very quickly. The snowball effect is refered to as "going viral". Not viral as in a computer virus, but rather an enormous snowball of momentum as each person contacts three, five or twelve friends or acquaintances. Our overwhelming voices will marginalize fringe group opposition and un-stick the wheels of progress! All you have to do is take a few moments out of your day and vote for a positive change in America. Just enter your name, address and email and we will deliver your petition letter directly to Congressional and Senate representatives. It’s easy and it WILL make a difference!

► Tell your friends: CLICK HERE

► S. 2958 promotes oil production in the Atlantic and Pacific regions of the Outer Continental Shelf in order to tap into the 14 billion barrels of known recoverable oil in this area.

► Opens ANWR providing access to over 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil while creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

► Streamlines the permitting process for building new refinery capacity.

► Establishes a program of direct loans and grants to accelerate the production of advanced batteries in the United States.

► Mandates that 6 billion gallons of coal-derived fuels be produced by 2022.

► Removes roadblocks preventing development of Oil Shale reserves.

► Accelerates permitting of new refineries and expansions to existing refineries.

And much more!

A windfall profit tax on oil companies is not the answer. Letting the oil companies use those profits to produce oil from domestic areas that we know hold billions of barrels of oil, is the answer.

Support affordable energy, support good jobs and support your fellow American's right to a better life; take The First Step, sign the S. 2958 petition.

Addressing the two main issues facing our country today (jobs and energy) can solve 80% of our problems and improve the life of every American. Energy cost are tied directly to the cost of everything in modern society. Growing food takes energy, catching fish takes energy, making clothes takes energy, sending your kids to school relies on energy. Virtually nothing is unaffected by energy prices. Jobs benefit the entire nation; specifically high paying jobs with health benefits and retirements (unlike the service industry jobs we've been stuck with). Good jobs create incomes that allow people to purchase goods and services, stimulating our economy. Good jobs bring taxes into Federal, State and Local Governments which pay for schools, fund the military and pay social security benefits. Focus on these two things and the economy will turn around in a big way and America will see a rebirth in prosperity, a massive reduction in poverty and a renewed middle class! Lucky for us supporting S.2958 will achieve that by providing lots of jobs and lots of oil, it won't cost tax payers much and will keep on giving for decades and decades!

Keep it simple. Ignoring the most basic needs of our economy (jobs and affordable energy) has gotten us $53 trillion in National Debt and future obligations, and spiraling inflation. The truth is, pushing the economy in the right direction is not rocket science. Our major needs are pretty simple really. Middle class America can flourish again. All we need are jobs, lower gas prices, affordable food, affordable housing and a solid manufacturing base. Loads of other important things can be funded from the wealth generated and the huge reduction of our trade deficit. All we have to do is look back to when America's middles class was so successful and steer the economy back in that direction.

So our plan is simple; invest our money in America and Americans, not China and OPEC. You may be surprised to learn that America has lots of oil. That’s right, tons! Problem is it takes work to get it out of the ground. Actually that is not really a problem at all, because work creates jobs and creating high paying jobs is part of the goal!

► Oil companies are making billions in profits every quarter. They want to invest in domestic oil production, it's time to let them!

We are not a pro-oil movement, we are pro-energy and pro-jobs. We receive no funding or support from oil companies and we support conservation. Certainly the U.S. needs to decrease consumption of fossil fuels. Higher mileage vehicles like those sold in Europe absolutely need to be part of the plan. We also need to respect that some Americans want large vehicles, and in a free country that's OK too! Make the energy efficient vehicles like the super efficient diesels mentioned in S. 2958 available and many people will choose them, and consumption will decrease.

Coal-to-Liquid fuel (CTL)

S. 2958 supports CTL technology that has been around since WW2. America has the world's largest reserves of coal, converting that coal into fuel we can burn in cars and trucks is a much better idea than burning food in our gas tanks. Plus, food prices can come down. Again, sometimes the best solutions are the simplest solutions. Coal is already a fossil fuel, let's turn it into gas and keep the corn for human and animal consumption.

We support green energy! One of our main goals is to encourage funding for development of greener energy sources and a hydrogen economy. S.2958 is a great way to stimulate the economy and generate funding for these expensive new technologies!

Slowly transitioning over to hydrogen or clean energy vehicles is a good idea and funding needs to be created for these worthwhile endeavors. Conserving fuel and reducing our consumption is also a high priority. Unfortunately we still need to increase our domestic oil production. Even tremendous conservation efforts in the U.S. will not stop the wave of increased demand for oil from developing nations and population growth. This increased use of oil is going to more than offset any reductions the U.S. may achieve, it's undeniable!

We are in a race to Reduce and Produce!

We need domestic production to bring energy prices down or we will be competing for the world's limited oil production with millions of new energy consumers. Simple supply and demand will further raise the cost of energy. The industrial revolutions in China and India are making cars affordable to millions of new middle class people every year. We can't wait for this to get better, because it's only going to get worse. There is nothing we can do to stop it and why would we want to keep others around the world from enjoying a higher quality of life?

Increasing our domestic energy production along with increased funding for expensive research and development of alternative fuels and alternative fuel vehicles is the only answer. We need the profits and savings brought about by greatly increased domestic energy production to fund the huge capital requirements of changing over to different fuels and energy sources. The U.S currently spends around $1.15 billion per day importing oil from other countries. That money could go a long way to funding Hydrogen fuel cell development and Bio-mass ethanol. If we do not start producing energy instead of buying it from other countries we will never be able to fund these advances.

Don't buy into simplistic solutions such as mass transit and bicycling to work. America is not set up like Europe. America was built around the automobile. You are not going to change that overnight. A very tiny portion of our population has access to efficient mass transit or are close enough to high paying job opportunities to bike to work. The entire population cannot suddenly decide to move to already overcrowded cities.

In many places that do have mass transit available taking the bus or subway are so dangerous you would never put your wife or daughter on them. You can't create a completey different society by simply wishing it so. Reduce and Produce, and we will be able to fund an economically viable transition to more energy efficient lifestyles.

Anti-energy environmental protesters try to prevent any and every attempt to produce more oil in America. They cost us billions in trade deficit spending, inflated energy costs and hundreds of thousands of good jobs. All of the oil projects in the S. 2958 are on Federal lands. Land that belongs to you and me. There is no private property issues or rights to contend with. The Oil Shale project is even on Federal land set aside specifically FOR oil production! These areas also just happen to hold America's greatest oil reserves. S. 2958 even has provisions for states to join in an put state lands to use if they choose, providing an opportunity for a huge revenue stream for states facing giant budget deficits and funding cuts. It's time to stop letting a vocal few cost America so dearly. Let's demand the energy and the jobs and we will all be better off, even the protesters will be better off.

► Did you know that drilling in the ANWR will extend the useful life of the Trans Alaskan Pipeline by up to 20 years?

No oil production is perfect. Life is messy. Many people are surprised to hear that oil naturally bubbles out of the ground in ANWR off the coast of California and in many other places all over the world, oil is a natural product of the earth. Listening to environmentalists you'd think oil was some poisonous chemical produced in a toxic Government lab. They complain about the dangers of oil production and nuclear energy all while more than 85 million barrels of oil are pumped each day worldwide without disaster and more than 400 nuclear power plants operate safely each and every day.

► What do Native Alaskans think of drilling in ANWR? Read the testimony.

► Sign The Petition: CLICK

Efforts by never give an inch environmentalists to prevent development of America's vast energy wealth is pushing more and more American's over the edge and into poverty. The ONLY person who could possibly have a right to fight energy development is a person who uses absolutely zero energy from modern sources. So, unless you live on a farm without electricity, grow your own food without machinery of any kind or modern fertilizers or insecticides, have no TV or radio and own no cars or trucks, then you really have no right to dictate how others use energy.

Conservationists, wake up every morning and use energy from morning to night, like all of us do. The argument really is about perceived quantity of energy used. They believe everyone should mold themselves to their lifestyle and use only as much energy as they do. Yes conservation is needed, but we also need to respect that others have a right to their lifestyle.

Furthermore, If you can afford gas at $4 a gallon good for you. Ignoring those who are experiencing serious hardships over skyrocketing energy costs because YOU think there is a need to protect a barren area of the Arctic (that you probably will never see), isn't very considerate.

Ethanol

Without ethanol, gas prices would be considerably higher today. During March of 2008 over 17 million barrels of ethanol were produced, reducing the need for expensive imported oil.

The Renewable Fuels Association says:

"Ethanol Lowers Gasoline Prices.
Compared to other octane components in the fuels market, ethanol is a great bargain. By adding domestic supply to the gasoline market, ethanol also helps reduce prices at the pump. Click here to learn more about how ethanol saves consumers money."

An unfortunate side affect of producing ethanol from corn is an increase in corn prices. Ethanol does not have to be produced from food grains.

S. 2958 provides funding of "an evaluation of the impacts of increased use of renewable fuels derived from food crops on the price and supply of agricultural commodities in both domestic and global markets".

Our nation has invested billions in ethanol production facilities. These facilities are driving research and development into Biomass or cellulosic, ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol including those derived from crop residue, wood waste, food waste and landfill gasses need to be an important part of utilizing the energy potential in waste.

Learn More about cellulosic (bio-mass) ethanol

Non-food crops such as Switch Grass and fast growing hybrid Poplar trees can replace corn as the main source of ethanol.

S. 2958 amends Section 211(o)(1) of the Clean Air Act supporting research and development of biomass ethanol which does not compete with food to produce fuel!

Turning corn into fuel is not the ideal solution to fuel shortages. We need to transition the ethanol industry into using Biomass for ethanol instead of food crops.