Jefferson Reporter

AL.com has published a column by U.S. Senator Katie Britt and Danielle B. Franz, CEO of the American Conservation Coalition, discussing American energy dominance and conservative conservation leadership. The authors argue that left-wing climate activists misrepresent environmental issues and their policy agenda's consequences.

Senator Britt and Franz claim that these activists seek to trade economic prosperity and national security for big-government environmental policies, despite the fact that these two are not mutually exclusive.

The column includes several key points:

"Activists misrepresenting environmental and energy issues to promote their false narrative that tackling our largest environmental problems require giving away what makes America powerful and strong. The ‘solutions’ . . . would not only be ineffective in tackling the environmental challenges we face but would disadvantage American energy on the world stage, which in the long-run would have devastating economic and national security implications."

"Conservatives should feel empowered when faced with adversarial questions from the left – because our solutions work. American energy is clean energy, and we need more of it to meet the world’s demand. There’s a reason the United States has led the world in improving air and water quality while simultaneously producing energy to power a 21st-century economy."

"As a nation, we can and we should have an all-of-the-above approach to energy because we are not just capable of producing it—we are better at producing it."

"American-produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) is significantly cleaner than LNG produced by our competitors . . . This year, the clean nuclear energy renaissance was revitalized with the completion of two new nuclear reactors – the first new American nuclear reactors in more than three decades. Alabama is part of that success as the fifth-largest producer in the country for nuclear energy. Hydropower, natural gas, coal, wind, and solar are also reliable, affordable sources of energy in our state that should be included in an all-of-the-above approach."

"American energy leadership is nothing new, and neither is the conservation spirit of conservatism proven by Alabama’s farmers and cattlemen each day as they steward their land for future generations. Unfortunately, farmers and cattlemen are often wrongfully shunned just like oil and gas producers by mainstream environmental conversations especially by extremists."

"While it may seem easy to make American energy the bogeyman, we must instead embrace our leadership role in securing energy dominance – in Alabama and across our nation. To conserve is conservative, and to lead the world is American."