Krauthammer MOCKS Obama’s Algae Energy Plan

BAIER: Charles, on the increase in production at home, Republicans counter that the drilling, the new drilling is largely because of deals struck in the Bush administration and that this administration has really not done all it could to expand energy, resource development here at home. 

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: That is absolutely right. And the other reason we have had this explosion of production has to do with the new technology, the horizontal drilling, again, something about which the administration has nothing to do. 

But I was impressed by the president's analysis of this situation where we have no control over the global price of oil. We're depending on oil from unfriendlies. And he says, as we heard, drilling for oil to relieve our dependency is not a solution or a plan. He said we have to go to clean energy. He talks about something really revolutionary today, algae, a $14 million grant for the development of algae. 

So it's not oil. His solution is algae. And because we know the secretary of energy is physicist who won the Nobel Prize, the president, knowing all this stuff, said one reason we should do this is because we can grow algae here in the United States. It happens that algae will grow anywhere on earth. I looked it up while I was away for those three days. 

(LAUGHTER) 

I did research. It grows in oceans, in lakes and ponds, you're your swimming pool when the pool man is on vacation, on turtle, sloths, the bark of trees, and rocks. Why are we drilling for oil? We are the Saudi Arabia of rocks. We have a mountain range called the Rockies, and we are allowing ourselves to be dominated by the oil producers. I think he is on to something here that is truly revolutionary. Why build a keystone pipeline with real oil from Canada to put in real refineries and put in real existing cars when you can do algae? I think he is on to something. And I think this shows the vision, the hope and change he promised in 2008.