Back in his day, Caesar Rodney knew a thing or two about declarations of independence. On July 2, 1776, with the Delaware delegation deadlocked on whether to approve a resolution spurring a final vote on the famous text, Rodney saddled up his horse and rode 80 miles through a torrential downpour to cast the decisive vote in Philadelphia. Two days later, the Continental Congress formally approved the Declaration of Independence. And away we went.
More than 235 years later, Caesar’s mad dash to Philly is memorialized on the back of the Delaware quarter. And the think tank in Dover that bears his name is committed to ensuring that legacy of independence continues – coming out this morning in the pages of the Delaware News Journal with a tremendous op-ed blasting apart the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). As we’ve written here before, the LCFS is engineered to make our country more, not less, dependent on foreign, unstable sources of energy. Clearly not a plan that someone like Caesar Rodney would have ever abided.
Penned by Shaun Fink, the think tank’s executive director, the piece thoughtfully identifies the myriad ways in which an LCFS would visit harm on residents of the First State. To wit: “Since Delaware doesn’t produce crude oil and relies on petroleum products being supplied through ports in Wilmington and along the Delaware River, an LCFS could cause the First State to become an isolated fuel island — causing significant cost increases for gasoline, diesel and home heating fuels.”
Among the points Fink makes throughout the piece:
- One-fifth of Delawareans rely on home heating oil during the winter months, a supply that would be jeopardized under an LCFS
- DE required almost $19 million last year from the Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), all without an established LCFS
- With 8 percent of DE residents currently unemployed, “now is the time to make sure that energy is available, affordable and reliable”
Read the op-ed in its entirety HERE.
