NOTE: this post has been updated HERE.
Terri Lynn Land’s website has a page titled “Energy Policy”. On that page, she talks about how things used to be so wonderful in the USA because we had stable energy sources but now those days are behind us. She lists three “Solutions” to this problem. The first one is “Respect the Environment.”
“Michigan’s environment is important and we need to protect our state’s resources,” Land says on her website.
On the same page is a picture of “Terri’s Truck”, also called “Big Blue”. Terri’s truck is an International CXT. The “CXT” stands for “Commercial Extreme Truck” and extreme they are. Weighing in at 14,500 pounds, these behemoths are twice as big as a Hummmer H1. They get an embarrassing 8-10 miles per gallon and cost between $93,000 to $115,000.
Land is touring the state with this gas guzzling example of waste and excess simply to display a sign that is mounted in the truck’s bed (and occasionally a giant American flag.) She’s also got a huge RV that goes travels with “Big Blue”, another vehicle that costs nearly $100,000 and gets less than 10 miles per gallon.
Here’s a shot of them from her campaign website:
Land’s decision to travel around the state in two vehicles that are so fuel inefficient is a perfect metaphor for her entire campaign. They are for show only and serve no real purpose other than to attract attention. Like the Americans for Prosperity buses that toured the country a few years back to demonize the Affordable Care Act on behalf of the Koch brothers, Land’s bus is also covered in huge, garish graphics, asking people to “Sign the Pledge to Put Michigan First”. It’s an empty, meaningless statement, designed to do nothing more than evoke feelings of Michigan patriotism without actually saying anything.
Bragging about this truck on her “Energy Policy” page is the height of hypocrisy that mirrors Land’s misguided support for the Keystone XL pipeline. She tells us all that the will create 42,000 “shovel ready jobs” and must be built “so our country has access to oil from North America, rather than the Middle East.” That jobs claim has been debunked many times and the reality is that it will create very few jobs, even temporary construction jobs:
The State Department, based on TransCanada’s own numbers, shows that at the most 3,900 construction jobs will be created in building the pipeline with only 10 percent of the total workforce hired locally. Only 35 permanent jobs will be created by the pipeline.
It’s also a complete lie to say that the Keystone XL pipeline will give us access to Canadian oil. The fact is that the pipeline is intended simply to transport crude oil from Canada to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico so that it can be processed and sold on the world market. The only real beneficiaries are the Big Oil companies and those involved in Big Oil like — you guessed it — Terri Lynn Land’s benefactors the Koch brothers. The fact is, Michiganders will likely pay MORE for the oil transported through the Keystone XL pipeline because it will divert crude already flowing through the Midwest:
Rather than providing the US with more Canadian oil, Keystone XL will simply shift oil from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, where much of it can be exported to international buyers – decreasing US energy supply and increasing the cost of oil in the American Midwest,” concludes a new study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York-based environmental advocacy non-profit group, citing numerous TransCanada studies and the transcripts of Canadian federal hearings.
I suppose that’s Land’s version of “Putting Michigan First.”
On top of that, one of the little-known facts about the Keystone XL pipeline is that it will be nothing more than a tax-free conduit through the United States to let Canadian oil producers get their crude oil to the export market in the Gulf of Mexico less expensively and without having to bear the environmental risks in their own country. In other words that oil isn’t for US, it’s for the global market. It will be refined in Port Arthur and shipped elsewhere at great (tax-free) profit. You can read more about that HERE.
Terri Lynn Land is all show and no substance, just like her ostentatious campaign truck and RV. They are a big flash to distract you from the fact that she has no real plans, no real ideas, and is little more than a puppet of wealthy corporatists looking for someone to enact policies that will enrich them and their business associates.
Fortunately all of the most recently polling shows that Michigan voters are not fooled by her sideshow antics no matter how big her campaign vehicles are.
[Caricature by DonkeyHotey for Eclectablog. Adapted from: Wikipedia – State of MI / Flickr – Logan C]
