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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (69307)	2/6/2009 5:16:12 AM
From: Sully-	1 Recommendation Respond to of 90947

War On Fossil Fuels By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Thursday, February 05, 2009 4:20 PM PT Energy: The new administration has wasted no time in reversing a decision by the Bush White House that let gas and oil companies explore for new resources. Keep this in mind the next time pump prices take off. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has canceled leases for energy exploration on 77 parcels of federal land in Utah, confirming that this White House is indeed a Small Oil administration. The previous administration, which was not beholden to environmental special interests and seemed to understand the importance of energy, had released 130,000 acres of largely uninhabited — and uninhabitable — land for oil and gas exploration. Some of the parcels are in or near the Green River Formation, an oil-rich region in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming that has the largest known oil shale deposits in the world, holding from 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels of crude. The entire reservoir can't be emptied overnight and injected into our energy-dependent economy tomorrow. But it is more readily available than the environmental groups want to admit. "Even a moderate estimate," says the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory, indicates 800 billion barrels are recoverable. That amount alone makes the Green River Formation stock "three times greater than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia." The now-off-limits parcels not in the Green River Formation also hold "vast amounts of domestic, clean energy," according to the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States. Democrats and Republicans both talk about energy independence, but one seems to do all it can to make sure the U.S. doesn't achieve it. That party lectures a lot about renewable and alternative energy but is hostile to cheap and readily available fossil fuels. The justification is always environmental, which has an emotional appeal. But the green movement and its political allies have no sense of proportion. In the case of the 77 parcels pulled back by the administration, the pieces involved are minuscule specks of land. While some aesthetic value might be spoiled, the impact would be limited, about the same as tossing a few grains of sand on a clean rug in the middle of a large living room. Environmentalists like to say these sites belong to all Americans and should remain undeveloped. But if these lands truly belong to everyone, then they also belong to those who know that we will one day need the energy they hold. Salazar acknowledges "we need to responsibly develop oil and gas supply to protect us from our dependence on foreign oil, but we need to do so in a thoughtful and respectful way." In all due respect to our new energy secretary, he'll be foremost in our thoughts when America faces the next oil crisis. ibdeditorials.com