Once again we enter a winter season looking forward to high prices for oil and gas and a limited supply of natural gas. You can almost predict what the impact will be.
Both parties are fighting for a New National Energy Plan with the consumer the victim in he final outcome. Will we continue the status quo and thus depend on other countries while our economy, health and jobs suffer. The Apollo Alliance (www.apolloalliance.org) has predicted over 3 million jobs by converting our energy policy to use renewable sources.
Jobs will be generated by a new automobile industry based on electric that would reduce the pollution from smog and associated health problems.
While our current energy plan commits billions to corporations, some of which businesses are only profit driven at the cost to consumers,
I am for the environment but I don’t see a problem with drilling in Alaska.
"We import 57% of the energy we consume every day from
foreign sources that fix the price and that do not have our country’s best
interests at heart. How can anyone be comfortable with this situation? As
Senator John Breaux has pointed out, if we imported that much of the food we
eat, people would be marching on Washington yelling that it is unacceptable
because food is essential to our lives and to our national security." Senator
Zell Miller, (D-Georgia)
"The stability of some of
the nations principally responsible for supplying oil to the United States can
no longer be taken for granted." Senator Ted Stevens, R-Alaska
"Unfortunately,
unbelievably, the majority of our oil resources are off limits, due to
unbending pressure from environmental extremists and their allies in the
Congress, bureaucracies and courts – even in this time of war. The public’s
right to know what’s actually in each withdrawn area, and our right to find and
produce it to meet pressing needs, continue to get brushed aside in favor of
bogus claims about environmental risks, conservation or alternative
technologies." Paul
Driessen, Defending and Rebuilding America
"There is no doubt that the
future of our natural gas supply is under federal lands or offshore. About 47%
of our gas resource base is under federal lands. We are talking about public
lands that are supposed to be available for multiple use. And I would point out
that the environmental record of the natural gas industry on federal lands is
superb, and new technology allows us to find and produce the gas we need with
less and less temporary impact on the land." William F. Whitsett,
President, Domestic Petroleum Council
"Alaskans understand better
than most Americans the necessity of maintaining the health of our land. At the
same time, we do not fear extracting the resources found within it." Alaska
Governor Tony Knowles, in letter to members of the U.S. Senate, March 21, 2001
"They [the caribou] do not
all of a sudden organize themselves like a labor union and decide to go to
Arctic Village. They’re scattered all over the damn place. This is all a new
thing, this ‘people of the caribou’ thing. This was invented for this
purpose." Karl Francis, Economic and Political Advisor to Native North
Americans
"…the biggest potential
upset our country is likely to face in the next few years is a disruption in
oil supplies from the Middle East." Former Senator Bill Bradley, D-New
Jersey
"The Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge has practically no exceptional or unique natural values in its
northern foothills and narrow coastal plain sections." Dr. Tom Cade,
Ornithologist, in testimony compiled and presented by The Wilderness Society,
The Environmental Defense Fund, Inc., and Friends of the Earth, supporting an
oil pipeline across the coastal plain in 1972. (The trans-Alaska route was
ultimately chosen.)
"Why on Earth should we
have to continually account for our knowledge and they never have to account
for their ignorance?" BP geologist Geoff Larminie, 1970, referring to a
large body of scientific data and professional studies amassed by the oil
industry but largely ignored by the media, while unfounded allegations of green
activists were treated as gospel
"Drilling in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge isn’t environmental rape. It doesn’t even constitute
an indiscrete glance at Mother Nature." Don Feder, The Idiot’s Guide to
Energy, Creators Syndicate
"If extremists keep their
undue influence, problems for industry and the U.S. economy won’t stop at ANWR.
When extremists can block leasing of an arctic swamp whose principal value is
mineral potential, they can stop activity on federal land everywhere. They can
persuade lawmakers to treat drilling and production waste as hazardous
substances. They can turn oil field accidents into federal crimes. They can
force refineries out of business with excessive regulation." Oil &
Gas Journal editorial, Voice of the Times, 12/2/92
"Oil is a high-demand
product; companies that produce it, like any other, are trying to meet that
demand and make a profit. The real image of big oil includes the mom commuting
30 miles one way to work, then running the kids all over town after school; the
pioneers’ home resident, her room heated by an oil-fired boiler; the plastic
equipment that delivers medicines to a body warmed by a synthetic blanket; that
couple who wrote their check to the anti-oil lobby, then climbed aboard a 747
to Hawaii. If you drive, heat a home, buy anything, or take a trip, then you
are a component of ‘Big Oil.’ Let’s point the finger in the right direction: at
each and every one of us. We are ‘Big Oil.’" Roy Thomas, Kodiak, Letter
to the Editor, Anchorage Daily News
"When the choice is between
warm and cuddly animals and greedy, big oil companies, the animals are going to
win every time," Bob Lichter, media analyst, Center for Media and
Public Affairs.
"The Bush energy program
must be taken seriously. Its goal is to relieve the strain on infrastructure,
eliminate the current supply bottlenecks, and avoid California-style price
spikes. We gamble with all our futures if we become do-nothings, pitting energy
against the environment and accepting the paralysis ordained by environmental
theology." Mortimer B. Zuckerman, U.S. News and World Report, 6/18/01
"But in the end, drilling
ANWR remains a no-brainer, bipartisan issue. Alaskan oil wells are so
productive that it takes 150-200 wells in the Lower 48 states to match the
output of one North Slope well. Which is environmentally preferable—one well or
two hundred?" Roger Herrera, Arctic Power D.C. Coordinator
"Inupiat Eskimos have lived
with Arctic oil development for 30 years. No one is in a better position to
determine if the social and economic benefits outweigh the costs. That is why
we issue this challenge to opponents of developing ANWR’s oil. Put your lives,
fortunes and sacred honor where your mouths are. Have your kids volunteer to
serve in the military on the Cole or in Saudi Arabia. Post a billion-dollar
bond for the Kaktovik natives and other Alaskans who will be most damaged by
your extreme views. And sign a pledge, committing yourselves to be dead last in
line for gasoline and electricity during the next crisis. Then, and only then,
will you earn the right to be taken seriously on this issue." Paul
Driessen, policy analyst
Favorite Eskimo ANWR joke:
Environmentalist flew in to inspect the coastal plain. "Just what I
thought," the environmentalist growled. "Damned oil companies have
cut down all the trees!" From John McCaughey’s Energy, 11/9/95
"America cannot continue
its apathetic response to the relentless attack on the use of fossil fuels.
Abundant, affordable energy is the basis of our health, wealth and prosperity,
and the hope of the rest of the world. We cannot allow misguided environmental
extremists to deny society the use of this energy." Henry Lamb,
Environmental Conservation Organization
"Pushing production out of
America to nations without our environmental standards increases global
environmental risks." Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska)
"Here in Kaktovik, the
Inupiat Eskimo community at the center of the debate about ANWR oil and gas
development, we note with grave concern the bill you have introduced,
designating as wilderness the homelands of the Kaktovikmiut. It is quite
evident that you have acted from only the extreme environmentalists’ point of
view. We consider this action to be extremely dangerous to the continued
survival of our people." Lon Sonsalla, Mayor, City of Kaktovik, letter
to Senator Joseph Lieberman, 3/4/01
SHORTS:
Aid for Coast Goes Down With
Energy Bill
Times
Picayune, LA November 28,
2003
New Library Showcases Geothermal
Energy System
Cleveland
Plain Dealer, OH November
28, 2003
Plainville Farms Switches to
Wind Energy
News 10
Now, United States November
27, 2003