Backcountry Notes

Great post!
You hit all the points.
But what chance is there of the Leftists in Congress changing?
Only one solution, the People of this Great Country must kick the bums out and replace them with those who would put our Country First instead of their own greedy interests.
Keep up the good work!
Ed

I think Jay has a major element of the problem identified, but the two remaining elements are nearly overwhelming. I have been active in legislative government for 35 years, and was a government employee for 21 years with some overlapping service. I know the ways of government and the corporations that are wealthy and strong enough to subvert governmental process and enforcement of regulations for extra benefits above their competitors. If problems remaining cannot be controlled, also, all of Jay’s and others' well-identified measures will never have adequate success at achieving energy independence.

The oil drillers, refiners and the transporting-distribution businesses must not be permitted the advantages of exploitive pricing behavior or of short-cutting regulations to the point of damaging other resources. These are a major part of the set of responsible entities that will influence the success of any venture into new energy supply, and they must be players with a will to solve the problems of the people who constitute their market, as well as their own.

The primary reason for their difficulties with gaining permission to drill in Alaska, now, rise from their sordid past of operating fast and dirty, violating regulations and destroying any other resources that happen to get in their way, or would cost them the price of caring for them.

If the drillers are permitted to drill anywhere, they must be pointed toward the few existing good examples of how a few responsible drilling and transporting companies have delivered oil to their market without ignoring the regulations formulated to reduce damage to other resources in their working area. They must be held to whatever safety and resource protection policies may apply to their operations. The days for corporations to get a pass because they are producing necessary commodities, as with the air and water quality violations of the coal fired electric power generators, should be behind us. The stakes are too high, now, for chicanery to be permitted.

I submit that price and performance are equally vital to the nation's future, and that it is the duty of government to cause good performance, and if it allows the corporations exploit the situation of need to escape the costs of compliance, as they are now prone to do, there must be total accountability for both elected and appointed people in the governing of the oil corporations.

Only if government and the corporate community both do their jobs responsibly will any new intitiative reach its potential. I acknowledge that many other resources, companies and governmental operations are part of the ultimate solutions that we all need, but the topic of this expression is the oil business and its governance.

As for the other energy providers and potential providers, the same values apply. The time should be long past for get-rich-quick schemes being funded by the taxpayers. Ethanol from corn is an example of how quickly new exploiters run in from the wings and take center stage. Why should it be tolerated for corn to be removed from the food supply to make ethanol at a deficit, when less fertile land will grow switchgrass that is ten times more efficient in ethanol output per acre cultivated? We abound in underdeveloped ways that in some combination could make the nation energy efficient to the possible extent of becoming an energy exporter.

I know very well the striving of one industry or even one company to gain a profit edge over its peers. That is a quality of free enterprise that makes the US a world leader, but subsidies, favoritism in permits to operate, and a multitude of other advantages handed out by government to the companies that spend the most on lobbyists' activities, must be controlled. Support from the taxpayers must be awarded as stimulus to fill actual needs rather than as a reason for rewards to Congressmen who need another $90,000 to put in their freezers in return for service that was not necessary to the wellbeing of the taxpayers from whose pockets this graft was ultimately plucked.

The bottom line is that the U S government first, and the energy producing corporations as a close second, need to change their spots and become more responsible elements of solid solutions instead of remaining as a major element in extending and increasing the problems.

I think that Alaskan and off-shore drilling as well as drilling in other resource sensitive areas can be done safely and without damage to the other resources in the area around their operation. The Alaska pipeline was a step in proving that technology can prevent bad effects of misapplied technology. This project was done under threat of termination, punishment of deviations from specified actions and standards of care, and it has done a remarkable job since its completion. Its few mishaps have done relatively minor damage. The same or greater care can be taken in developing other resources if government and corporations remain honest and willing to innovate in techniques as well as corrections of mistakes and mishaps.

A more recent example, if memory serves me, is a Shell project in Indonesia that was approved in a national park and wildlife preserve, under the most stringent regulations ever. The company observed the regulations, and speedily learned to live with them and remain profitable. They found thatdread of proper regulation was their problem, not actual and willing compliance. A writer who is not well respected in some circles such as the scoff-laws that populate the extraction industries has pointed out one way that seems to have worked. See Jared Diamond; COLLAPSE; Viking, The Penguin Group; 2005; Chapter 15.

The job starts in the Congress, that seat of our national control as well as that nest of national corruption. What it has to do, now, is make up its joint mind to do the job right, and proceed with it in the knowledge that after the experience of $4.00 and $5.00 per gallon motor fuel, and all of its many bad ripple effects, the voters and the taxpayers will probably not tolerate much more of the old style of congressional, or corporate, business as usual.

TOM