Barack Obama:
“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” (January 2008)
By Noel Bagwell
May 22, 2009
Image courtesy of FoxNews.com
Friday, May 22, 2009
By William La Jeunesse
ABOARD THE NOBLE PAUL ROMANO — Almost 140 miles off the Louisiana coast, aboard the drill ship Noble Paul Romano, workers punch an 8-inch steel pipe four miles under the ocean in search of America’s next barrel of oil.
“If we don’t increase our own oil production in the U.S., our dependence on foreign oil won’t go down,” said Marathon Oil executive Woody Pace.
The drill ship is the size of a football field. Twelve anchors the size of an average living room hold the rig in place while a synthetic-diamond cutting blade bores deep into sand and rock.
Like other oil explorers, Marathon is being forced farther and farther out into the Gulf to find oil. Deeper water means more expensive oil.
“We may spend anywhere from $100 to $200 million just to find out if we have commercial hydrocarbons,” Marathon Vice President Annell Bay told FOX News.
Marathon is a Houston-based oil company than not only explores for oil and natural gas, but refines oil as well.
Marathon dumped $230 million into developing the Droshky oil field, which it acquired in 2007, but expects to spend more than $1.3 billion when it begins pumping next year, about the time the economy is expected to recover.
And while every drop counts, many fear it won’t be enough.
“We all have hope for green energy, but it is going to take time — and in the meantime, oil and natural gas will have to be the bridge to the energy future,” says Cathy Landry, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute.
Congress lifted its 27-year moratorium on drilling off Florida and the East and West Coast last year, but billions of barrels of that oil remains untouched and off-limits because the Obama administration has postponed development there.
The Obama administration favors green energy and provides generous tax subsidies to wind and solar. By contrast, this week the oil industry complained that Obama proposed hiking their taxes by $70 billion over 5 years, including a $122 million on leases the administration considers non-producing.
“If you penalize oil and gas, and add taxes, it is going to make it much more difficult and more expensive. That means U.S. jobs are exported and we won’t get the revenues from royalties,” said Landry.
Oil executives fear the lesson of $5-a-gallon gasoline is lost, and that American consumers will pay the price, vulnerable to shortages in the short term and a continued dependence on foreign oil for decades to come.
By Noel Bagwell
Mar 21, 2009
California’s economy is in shambles, and “nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on a parcel of 500,000 desert acres,” which would potentially bring millions if not billions of dollars in revenue to the beleaguered state’s economy, “but Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Friday such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public.”1
One is given to wonder why the liberal Senator from California would intentionally block efforts to bring so much revenue to her state, when it is in dire need of such funds. Solar energy panels can be installed with very little negative impact to the local environment, and while supporting infrastructure might be less aesthetically pleasing than undeveloped wasteland, the needs of people should – within reason – outweigh the needs of the Mojave Desert’s tortoise population.
“‘It would destroy the entire Mojave Desert ecosystem,’ said David Myers, executive director of The Wildlands Conservancy.
Feinstein said the lands in question were donated or purchased with the intent that they would be protected forever. But the Bureau of Land Management considers the land now open to all types of development, except mining. That policy led the state to consider large swaths of the land for future renewable energy production.
‘This is unacceptable,’ Feinstein said in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. ‘I urge you to direct the BLM to suspend any further consideration of leases to develop former railroad lands for renewable energy or for any other purpose.’
In a speech last year, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger complained about environmental concerns slowing down the approval of solar plants in California.
‘If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave desert, I don’t know where the hell we can put it,” Schwarzenegger said at Yale University.’”2
Feinstein has, of course, put forth counter-proposals that have created all kinds of beaurocratic processes that no-doubt have created all sorts of work for people like Karen Douglas, chairman of the California Energy Commission and David Myers, executive director of The Wildlands Conservancy.
Feinstein’s proposals will, however, cost enormous amounts of taxpayer money and will delay actual progress for years. Meanwhile, the state’s revenues continue to plummet as state spending spirals out of control without the tax revenues to support it, and California teeters on the edge of bankruptcy.
So, why the stalling? Is it really about conservation? Is it really about the Mojave desert’s tortoise population. One would be remiss to neglect the possibility that a career politician who spends most of her time in Washington D.C. would have, as a major point of concern, the tortoise population of the Mojave desert. Perhaps I’m just being cynical.
Feinstein is “rated 79% by the LCV, indicating pro-environment votes. The LCV is the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is the political voice of the national environmental movement and the only organization devoted full-time to shaping a pro-environment Congress and White House.”3 The LCV was founded by David Brower who (infamously) said, “All technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent.” The green movement has a lot of political clout, and the LCV is connected to the Sierra Club and the Earth Island Institute by virtue of them all being founded by Brower, a liberal secular-progressive guy and apparent Luddite.
Feinstein would do well to distance herself from such extreme points of view. She is a noted partisan politician, having voted with the Democratic Party approximately 94.1% of the time (out of her 320 votes to date). The progressive / liberal agenda and partisan politics in which Feinstein participates is at odds with her stated committment to the so-called “New Democrat ‘Third Way’ of doing politics, instead of left-right debate.”
I believe ideology is part of what is driving Feinstein’s committment to her opposition to alternative energy infrastructure in the Mojave desert. She voted against drilling in ANWR, voted NO on prohibiting eminent domain for use as parks or grazing land, voted YES on disallowing an oil leasing program in Alaska’s ANWR and voted YES on factoring “global warming” into federal project planning, despite reports on the dubious nature of “global warming” studies that drive alarmist “green” policy concerns (all according to www.ontheissues.org).
For the most part, however, I feel like it all comes down to money. According to OpenSecrets.org:
Environmentalists also seem to have strong allies in Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both from California—a state that has led the way in environmentally friendly standards—and Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, among others. All three are among the 20 senators who received the most campaign money from environmental groups in 2006. Boxer introduced her own bill months ago to expand the renewable fuels mandate, and together Snowe and Feinstein have introduced an amendment to the comprehensive energy bill to increase fuel efficiency standards for SUVs and Jeeps.
Enviro-friendly positions on the bill have sparked a David and Goliath-type fight. The electric utilities and oil and gas industries ranked among the top 20 industries to spend money on lobbying in 2006. Together the two industries spent $178 million on lobbying efforts last year, about 22 times more than environmentalist groups, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. This vast difference is also evident in campaign contributions. Together oil and electric utilities gave federal candidates about $34.9 million in the 2006 election cycle, with each industry heavily favoring the Republicans. Environmental groups gave only $1.2 million, 86 percent of which went to Democrats.
There may not be as much money in supporting environmental groups as there is in supporting oil and electric utilities, but coupled with Feinstein’s partisan political and ideological inclinations, the environmental groups lobbying money is certainly a nice additional incentive.
In summary, it comes down to partisan politics (power), ideology (restructuring the fabric of our society to fit their liberal, secular-progressive view of how our country should be) and money. So, all you naïve idealists out there who vote “green” and/or Democrat because you think you’re making the world a better place, it’s time to wake up and smell the B.S. There’s a reason Feinstein and her fellow Democrats in control of Congress voted NO on establishing the Senate Office of Public Integrity in March of 2006. Transparency doesn’t really do them any favors.
In the words of Maury Amsterdam, “Our Congressmen are the finest body of men money can buy.”
AP
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said development of solar and wind facilities in California’s Mojave Desert would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public
WASHINGTON — California’s Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy.
Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on a parcel of 500,000 desert acres, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Friday such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public.
Feinstein said Friday she intends to push legislation that would turn the land into a national monument, which would allow for existing uses to continue while preventing future development.
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