Our Congress is trying to intervene against the Pentagon to prevent the military, which wants to go green, from doing it.  Both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House pushing measure prohibiting the military from investing in, or buying, alternate energy if traditional sources like coal and oil are cheaper.  Bob Deans from the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund, and author of Reckless: The Political Assault on the American Environment, joins Dylan to talk about Congress’ steps to prevent the military from going green.

Bearing in mind that our government subsidizes those forms of energy that the measures would protect, it begs the question: who is responsible for intervening in this logical, seeming natural process of going green?

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is the point man for trying to intervene on the effort to make our military more energy efficient, and the number one contributor to his campaign are oil and gas companies.  The audacity to intervene in this natural process is something that should shame our politicians in such a blatant attempt to utilize their position of power to prevent something that is essential to the modernization of our armed forces.

The military wants to do this; they are the ones that have been in the field of battle and have an understanding of our energy policy and how it can impact our ability to function abroad.  Now we have an oil and gas industry-backed Senator trying to intervene in the interest of maintaining his political contributions.

“The Pentagon uses $19 billion of energy every year,” Deans explained.  They are trying to become more efficient, and they are doing it for three reasons.  They want to make our forces stronger, they want to control costs, and they want to deny our enemies around the world the resources they need to come after our men and women.”

The people at the Pentagon understand that if we are able to get more out of our fuel, and that we aren’t reliant on imported oil, than we will be able to strengthen our troops and put them less at risk.  How can this be lost on a Senator on the Armed Services Committee?

“The oil  and gas industry spends over $100 million dollars a year lobbying our elected officials with regard to energy policy,” Deans answered.  “We have to be forward learning, and the Pentagon knows this.  We need to continue to invest in efficiency and in renewables.  That’s how we make our economy stronger.”

It is an outrage that our own troops, who come back with all sorts of injuries, damage, and investment in the mission for tolerance and sustainability, are not supported by the elected politicians that send them to war.

For the full video see below:

Bob Deans is author of Reckless: The Political Assault on the American Environment and from the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund.