The national Intelligence Estimate 7/07 -Infrastructure Targets & Economic Aftershocks

The National Intelligence Estimate for July of 2007 titled The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland (declassified version) anticipates that attacks on US soil by al-Qa’ida’ are likely “… to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets with the goal of producing mass casualties,visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the US population." http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/07/17/nie.terrorist.threat.pdf

A December 2004 al-Qaeda fatwa states:“We call on the mujahideen in the Arabian Peninsula to unify their ranks and target the the oil supplies that do not serve the Islamic nation but the enemies of this nation.” Worldwide, terrorist attacks on oil pipelines are on the increase.

http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2006/CopulosTestimony060330.pdf

Domestically, America’s oil refineries are attractive targets for al queda. No new refinery has been built since 1976, and under the best of conditions, our refineries just barely are able to meet demand. The post Katrina jump in gasoline prices made plain the economic implications of damage to our energy infrastructure.

America needs a comprehensive national policy which recognizes that
we MUST bring on line, as rapidly as possible, EVERY source of clean, renewable domestic energy available to us.

To do this, America has to play catch up ball. According to a July 9th, 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal, "The U.S. lags other countries in wind-turbine capacity, and government support has been inconsistent." Across the US, wind-power projects from Virginia to California are stalled because of a lack of parts. In Europe, where wind power has been in use for over two decades, renewable-energy companies anticipated a shortage of turbines and have locked in orders with the makers of wind turbine parts.

http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/alternative-energy-hurt-by-a-windmill/n20070709133009990006

In May of 2000, 18 months before 911, The US Department of Energy release a report which stated: “Oil dependence remains a potentially serious economic and strategic problem for the United States…. Estimates of the costs to the U.S. economy of the oil market upheavals of the last 30 years are in the vicinity of $7 trillion, present value 1998 dollars, about as large as the sum total of payments on the national debt over the same period...These cost estimates do not include military, strategic or political costs associated with U.S. and world dependence on oil imports.”

http://www.ornl.gov/~webworks/cpr/v823/rpt/107319.pdf

The military, strategic or political costs to the United States of not becoming much more energy efficient and bringing on line, as rapidly as possible, EVERY source of clean, renewable domestic energy available to us are incalculably larger today.