What's more insane? The fact that Sharron Angle, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Nevada, is once again proposing to deregulate the oil industry or that she did so in an interview with the revolution-minded website ResistNet.com? Think Progress:
ANGLE: I was just saying we are over regulating some of our industries and of course the oil and petroleum industry is one of those we’ve been over regulating and that has what has been dependent on foreign oil. And of course that dependence gets us into big troubles overseas. And, we need to not have the dependence, we need to come back and explore our domestic resources and take the regulation off. If we would take the regulation off, we could explore in ANWR, and also some of the other places we have oil reserves that we’re not doing that right now.
Let me give Angle just a smidge of credit: she is absolutely right that our dependence on foreign oil causes us tremendous problems overseas. But the idea that the reason we are dependent on foreign oil is government over-regulation of the oil industry is stupid beyond belief. Even if you set aside the tremendous risks involved with domestic production, there just isn't enough oil in the United States to provide the sort of energy security that we need.
Our problem is that we're addicted to oil and the only viable solution is to transition off of it. Certainly, domestic sources of oil will be a part of that transition, but that doesn't mean they should be deregulated. What we really need is a new national energy policy to end our energy addiction. And that's the last thing we'll get if we adopt the policies of teabaggers like Angle.