Ted Poe: “Across the globe, Iran continues its saber rattling. The little fella from the desert, Ahmadinejad, threatens to block…”

“Across the globe, Iran continues its saber rattling. The little fella from the desert, Ahmadinejad, threatens to block the Strait of Hormuz and all the oil shipments going through it. This worries Americans who can't afford for the price of gasoline to go up. What if we made unstable Middle Eastern countries irrelevant to our energy security? Imagine a place where the United States actually controlled its own energy destiny. There are two different paths to that world. The administration and environmental obstructionists will tell you the only way to energy independence is through so-called ``clean and green'' energy projects funded at taxpayer expense. This may sound good in a sound bite, but these projects are expensive, unreliable, and in many cases they continue to fail. Cases in point, three companies: Solyndra, Ener1, and Beacon Power. In each of these cases, the Federal Government has taken taxpayer money and gambled it on risky projects. With Solyndra, half a billion taxpayer dollars were poured into a company that was doomed to fail. The result: Solyndra went belly up, 1,000 people lost their jobs, and the American people will never see a refund on their money. Clean energy may be a noble goal, but we're just not there yet. The second path to controlling our energy destiny is an all-of-the- above approach: solar, wind, nuclear, clean coal, natural gas, and yes, oil. For now, oil is the most reliable and cost-effective source of energy we have.…”