This is a smart idea for California revenues and American energy jobs. I envision the same benefits for Virginia if we are allowed to safely explore for energy in deep water off our coast. -George Allen

Offshore drilling deal benefits law enforcement
By Ron Cottingham
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Ventura County Star

California faces severe budget cuts to vital public services, including law enforcement, putting communities throughout the state in jeopardy. This fiscal crisis does not afford us the luxury of turning down innovative approaches to generating new revenue that helps to ensure the safety and welfare of all Californians.

This is why the Peace Officers Research Association of California, representing more than 62,000 peace officers, strongly supports the Tranquillon Ridge Project and urges its quick approval in Sacramento. This unique project, which has a broad range of support, allows Plains Exploration & Production (PXP), to access offshore oil and gas in state waters from an existing platform four miles off the Santa Barbara County coast. The project can begin right away since it does not require new pipeline or platform infrastructure.

Once approved, PXP will advance an immediate $100 million to the state to address urgent cash-flow needs, plus $1.8 billion in royalty revenue to the state over the next 14 years. The funds could help in many ways, including law-enforcement costs like the war on methamphetamine, vertical prosecutions (prosecution of rings that steal identities and exploit them) and grants to rural sheriffs.

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Commentary
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Virginia Must Lead the Teaching of America’s History
June 28, 2009

Editor’s note: Last week, the third-grade Standards of Learning test for history and social science survived an effort to eliminate it. We applauded the decision not to do away with the test, which followed our editorials that strongly urged its retention. Former Gov. George Allen, whose administration played the essential role in establishing the SOLs, wrote a letter in support of the history test to Mark Emblidge, president of the Virginia Board of Education. While the third-grade history test appears safe, at least for the moment, we decided to publish Allen’s June 19 letter, with his permission, because it is such an eloquent reminder of both the value of SOLs and the importance of teaching history to even — perhaps especially — the youngest Virginians. Dear Dr. Emblidge:

All Virginians owe a debt of gratitude to you and the members of the Virginia Board of Education for your caring volunteer service on behalf of public education in the commonwealth.

I particularly appreciate your commitment — like that of your predecessors on the board and the dedicated professionals at the Virginia Department of Education, past and present — to the cause of high academic standards-based education.

It is through the strong and steady support of the Standards of Learning by the board and department under administrations of both political parties that Virginia has remained a national leader in academic accountability since we launched these transformative measures during my governorship more than a decade ago. Most importantly, Virginia school children benefit from all these efforts.

As the acknowledged leader of this now-widespread movement for high academic standards and accountability, Virginia has a special opportunity and responsibility to lead by example. And this obligation is particularly pronounced in the realm of history, economics, and social sciences education.

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Note that for the American people - families, farmers, drivers and workers - the result of the Waxman-Markey Energy Tax is simple: higher prices and lost jobs.

This comes from some of our friends playing defense in Congress:

MetroNews Talkline
Washington, D.C.

CLICK HERE For Audio: Former Virginia Governor George Allen: Talkline

A vote on the massive climate change bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, could come Friday in the U.S. House of Representatives.

At this point, First District Congressman Alan Mollohan and Third District Congressman Nick Rahall are not revealing how they’ll vote. Second District Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito says she will vote against it, saying it will negatively impact coal states like West Virginia.

Former Virginia Governor George Allen agrees with Congresswoman Capito.

“It’s a draconian approach that’s going to increase our electricity prices, gasoline prices, food prices and cost us, literally, millions of jobs and it will be imposed only on the United States. India, Russia, China, they’re not going to impose this on their citizens,” Allen said on Thursday’s MetroNews Talkline.

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Below is a big picture perspective for free people to consider in analysis of the cap and tax scheme.

-George Allen

Waxman’s Economy Killer
by Steven Milloy
06/25/2009
Human Events

The House of Representatives will vote Friday on the so-called “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” — a.k.a the “Waxman-Markey” global warming bill. But whatever you want to call this legislative atrocity, if enacted into law, it will go down in history as the death knell of the American standard of living and way of life. If you hate America, this bill is for you.

After decades of fierce battling between rabid greens — that is, left-wingers masquerading as “environmentalists” — and the global warming skeptics, few Americans seem to have bought into the bill’s premise ­ that manmade emissions of carbon dioxide are causing the planet to run a fever, as Al Gore is fond of saying. Just this week, a public relations firm advising House Democrats recommended that the notion of “global warming” be dropped as a primary message since “almost no one in our focus groups expressed such concern.”

So despite all the frantic global warming alarmism and the vicious smears of skeptics by Gore and his fanatic green activists (they liken skeptics to Holocaust-deniers and many in the media repeat the smear) — the out-manned and out-gunned skeptics have largely succeeded in being heard by Americans and in changing their minds.

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This is a good victory for a sensible law passed by the Virginia legislature. It is heartening to see the 4th Circuit judges upholding the will of the people on this matter which should be the prerogative of the people in the States.

-George Allen

U.S. court revives Va. ban on late abortions
by Michael Winter
USA Today
June 24, 2009

A federal appeals court has reinstated Virginia’s ban on a type of late abortion. The 6-5 decision overturns a lower-court ruling that the ban on so-called partial-birth abortions was unconstitutional.

An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is anticipated.

“I am pleased that the Fourth Circuit has upheld the constitutionality of Virginia’s ban on partial-birth infanticide,” state Attorney General Bill Mims said in a statement. “Attorneys General Kilgore, Jagdmann, McDonnell and I have defended this statute over the last six years. This is a law that passed both houses of the General Assembly with bi-partisan support. While we anticipate that the U.S. Supreme Court may be asked to review the decision, I am confident that the Supreme Court ultimately will uphold the law.”

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Governor Allen will be on Fox Business’s “Bulls & Bears” today at 4:20 pm ET to discuss the American Energy Freedom Center and the Electricity Affordability Map, which he released today. Please tune in.

“This editorial is encouraging clear thinking and analysis from San Diego, California”

-George Allen

Slow the rush
‘Cap and trade’ scheme rife with problems
San Diego Union Times
Editorial
June 19, 2009

When it comes to the U.S. economy, history will not be kind to President George W. Bush. His administration helped inflate the housing bubble by pressuring lenders to offer risky mortgages, then did nothing as the financial industry packaged these bad loans and sold them as purportedly investment-grade securities. The eventual result was a catastrophe.

But if President Barack Obama gets his way on a sweeping federal mandate to ameliorate the effects of global warming, history is likely to be at least as harsh with him. At a time when the economy is in shambles, with 14.5 million people unemployed, the president is seeking quick approval of a bill that would take a wrecking ball to U.S. industry, especially agriculture.

The measure would require U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions be reduced by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and 83 percent by 2050. It would cap total emissions and auction off emission rights, which could be bought and sold, in theory creating free-market-type incentives to limit pollution.

But just such a “cap and trade” program has a lousy record in Europe. This has only added to long-standing fears about its being an ungainly, ineffective, overly bureaucratic approach that could be gamed by insiders.

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