I've got to hand it to the republicans for trying their usual tactics, of environment versus jobs.
Sure, the republicans oppose environmental regulations as they claim these will hurt the oil and gas company's jobs. But, then it's kind of hard to hold down a job if the air is burning your lungs or the ground water is making you sick. We should always err on the side of jobs, just so long as we don't create another Cuyahoga River.
The announcement (pdf) from the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission includes these new rules.
•Establish protection zones around streams that serve public drinking water supplies.
•Require companies to keep track of and disclose to state and emergency responders chemicals they use in drilling operations.
•Reduce odors where oil and gas development is occurring near homes and schools in northwestern Colorado.
•Manage erosion and reduce water pollution around oil and gas operators during storms and snow run-off seasons.
•Allow the state health department and state wildlife agency to consult and offer recommendations on oil and gas development to protect public health, the environment and wildlife.
•Provide notice to nearby landowners and public comment periods for development proposals.
Yes, those are surely going to hurt jobs. Mmmm-Hmmm.
Rep.-elect Laura Bradford, R-Collbran, said she is most concerned with proposals to put areas off-limits for oil rigs for three months during the breeding seasons of certain species. That ban essentially becomes five months because it takes an extra month to move rigs in and out, and animals don't migrate along the same straight lines every year anyway, Bradford said.
I'm glad to see they're using a freshman for this. What she's leaving out is that rule only goes into effect if the developer does not come up with a plan to show how they won't be impacting wildlife. But, you know, that might be hard work. Heck, the developer might have to hire some folks to generate that report.
BTW, the industry guys are just fine with these rules as the vote was unanimous, 8-0. This looks like nothing more than the same old republicans up to their same tactics that do nothing for the general population of Colorado. Keep it up guys. This is why you keep losing elections.
Scissor Sisters - Ooh
The Boomtown Rats - Lookin' after No. 1
Snowden - Filler is Wasted
Beastie Boys - Sabrosa
The Velvet Underground - I'm Set Free
Ministry - Waiting
Wynton Marsalis - From the Plantation to the Penitentiary
REM - Tongue
Sex Pistols - Anarchy in Denver the U.K. - just kidding
The Velvet Underground - The Murder Mystery
And some Cheers and Jeers for you (apologies to Bill in Portland Maine)
In raising money Wednesday for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, Vice President Dick Cheney lent a hand to one the most reliable supporters for the Bush administration and other Republican leaders, a new study shows.
Since taking office in 2003, Musgrave has voted in accordance with White House wishes 84 percent of the time, compared to an average of 80 percent for all House Republicans during the Bush presidency that began in 2001, according to a study released last week by Congressional Quarterly.
After they wrote a nice article about SquareState, Jeers to the Gazette for writing about the immigration forum Udall and Schaffer will be doing in your town tomorrow. There was not one mention of Bob Schaffer's love of the Marianas Islands immigration policy.
Jeers to Greg Schnacke of Americans who Drink up MilkShakes with Long Straws for pulling a schnacke on Coloradans. One of the main guys who predicted $2 Billion in gas leases on the Roan plateau, is whining that a bunch of protesters caused the leases to only amount to $114 Million. Yes, Greg, it's all the liberal's fault, just like how we lost the Vietnam war.
Perry has just plowed a whopping $400,000 into the coffers of the Club for Growth, the big right-wing group that advocates for conservative economic policies, the latest FEC records show.
Club For Growth, in turn, is now spending about $227,000 of that money to air an attack ad in Colorado against Mark Udall, who is the presumptive Dem nominee is going up against scandal-plagued GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer. The battle is playing out in a state where Dems have made strong gains after many years of Republican dominance.
BTW, been doing some work on that calendar. As you hear of events, I'd prefer to let us share the work and give permissions to people to add to the calendar themselves.
Apparently Bob Schaffer, John McCain, and George Bush think the solution to gas prices is more drilling. Why, polls even say Coloradans like the idea of drilling off our coasts. How nice thats a favorable solution in a land-locked state. I didn't know we were such a bunch of nimby selfish morons.
How nice that now people are screaming about gas prices, suddenly they have a solution. What the hell were they and their oil executive enablers doing in the last eight years as gas prices were rising from $1.30 a gallon? Oh, that's right, Bob Schaffer was voting to give those oil companies even more tax cuts. If that was supposed to allow them to invest in more exploration and drilling, which should increase supply, we'd see oil prices drop. Gee, that didn't happen did it?
If Schaffer and Wadhams want to highlight his energy industry experience as a positive for this state, let them go ahead and do that.
More drilling isn't the answer and never will. There just aren't enough milkshakes to go around. We're drinking it up faster than we can put straws in each cup we find.
In short, the system has reached its limit. Today's oil use outpaces new oil discoveries, with the world using about 12 billion more barrels per year than it finds.8 The growing imbalance between supply and demand means record high crude prices and the threat of more skyrocketing costs caused by even mild supply disruptions.
On the flip is the answer that goes on the offensive.
[update] Currently this poll on Ritter is being hammered by wing-nuts.
[update2] If you want proof their drill more has nothing to do with lowering gas prices just look at how they voted to open the strategic oil reserve:
Oil prices reversed course and moved higher Thursday in U.S. trading after a move in Congress to tap into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve was defeated. ... At a press conference before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, pointed out that previous releases from the oil reserve had knocked down prices, sometimes significantly: 33 percent in 1991, 19 percent in 2000 and nine percent in 2005.
Big oil is apparently willing to spend big money to call the shots. According to a financial statement filed by the Colorado Secretary of State, Chevron Corporation, EnCana Oil and Gas Inc., and Williams Cos. each gave $1 million last Thursday to fight a proposed ballot measure that would increase state tax revenues on the oil and gas industry.
Under the proposed ballot measure, the state would do away with a completely outdated tax credit that saves the oil and gas industry $200 - $300 million a year of severance taxes. Instead, it would make smarter investments in education and clean energy.
Convinced that the initiative poses a threat to oil profits, a handful of major oil companies acted swiftly to kill the measure with millions of dollars in donations.
But Colorado is in the middle of the largest oil and gas boom in history - and in reality, the initiative is hardly a threat at all. Since 1990, drilling throughout the state has increased by 500%, producing skyrocketing profits for oil and gas companies. In fact, executives of major companies are known to receive million-dollar salaries. Yet, the oil and gas industry continues to receive gratuitous subsidies from the state of Colorado - approximately three times as much as neighboring Western states.
The need to end the oil subsidy is clear. But with millions of oil dollars lined up against the proposed ballot measure, the end may be slipping out of sight...
By this point, President Bush's announcement that he wants the oil shale development moratorium repealed, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off-shore drilling opened up for oil and gas drilling should be well known. But is it well known for the correct reasons? Is the media focused on the true aspects of this issue or are they caught up once again in ridiculous tiff reporting?
Allow me to provide a short answer to the second question: the media has reported on the "he-said, she-said" side of the issue more than the details of it. No one should be surprised. After all, the AP seems to be more worried about how much quoting of one of their articles by blogs constitutes fair-use, even though it's not in their purview to decide such things. Perhaps if they spent more time on actually reporting, bloggers wouldn't have to quote the one or two salient facts they actually managed to write down and then do the hard work of providing the context the corporate media decided wasn't sexy enough to include in the first place.
A longer answer to the questions raised above can be found below the fold.
Join the book club for David Sirota's upcoming book, The Uprising, due out on 5/27.
As promised late last week, the New York Times magazine published an article of mine that explores a little-noticed populist uprising here in the Mountain West - one around the oil and gas drilling boom. The article touches on a region and an issue - environmentalism - that is a major part of my upcoming book, The Uprising (due out on 5/27 and available for pre-order now).
During the conservative uprising of the 1980s, Republicans exploited environmental issues and Land Politics to create a wedge between those who want the planet protected and those who are employed in the natural resource industry. Call it the spotted owl-versus-jobs wedge. Conrad Burns, for instance, was originally elected to the U.S. Senate from Montana on a right-wing populist campaign that railed on environmentalists who supposedly wanted to eliminate logging and mining jobs. But now the pendulum has swung in the other direction, with Democrats using their pro-environment positions to wedge apart a national Republican Party that has put itself in direct conflict with its local grassroots base.
Don't miss the Aaron Harber Show with Vice Chairman of Chevron Corp., Peter Robertson, this Tuesday, September 18 th on KBDI channel 12 at 8:00 p.m. and Wednesday at 5:00 p.m.
Some of the issues which will be discussed are national energy policy, environmental issues, various sources of energy and countries in which Chevron operates.
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