EPA & CO2 Part 2 and Alaska Drilling News

An article in yesterday’s Denver Post inspired me to write a follow-up to my diary about the EPA identifying 6 greenhouse gases as agents that “endanger public health and welfare” under the Clean Air Act.

We didn’t have to wait long for the response from the fossil fuel industry, which provided this choice quote:

“The proposed endangerment finding poses an endangerment to the American economy and every American family,” said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute.

No Jack, it doesn’t. Your industry’s lack of foresight and greed-driven actions have endangered the American economy and every American family. Your industry decided not to build refining capacity, ensuring that Americans would suffer under horrendous price spikes, as we saw last year.

We’ve known for 30 years the potential dangers of allowing GHG pollutants to continue to be spewed into the atmosphere, but your industry ensured that little meaningful action be taken during that time to do anything about it. Now, tipping points are being crossed. Widespread, intense droughts are afflicting millions of acres of land worldwide. The globe’s average temperature continues to warm decade after decade. And still your industry is falsely arguing that no action should be taken, lest your members’ shareholders receive less than record profits quarter after quarter.

Sec. Salazar, Rep. Lamborn & Drilling

Two stories caught my eye today in the Denver Post. johne wrote a little something up about the first one – Half of state’s drill rigs idled. The other one is right next to the CO rig article in the paper version of the paper today.

“GOP Tries To Draw A Bead on Salazar“, or perhaps it should have been titled, “GOP Throws Another Dart At Wall In Search For Relevancy”. Having lost the White House last November in addition to being relegated to a smaller minority in Congress, the Cons are clearly desperate to bring any topic to the fore that has the least amount of traction in the public. Don’t tell them I said so, but I doubt it will be this topic.

One of our newest favorite Cons, Rep. Dougie Lamborn, along with some of his friends, have been trying to take Sec. of the Interior Ken Salazar to task over decisions surrounding drilling. In the first couple weeks in his new position, Sec. Salazar issued decisions to overturn some of the worst last-minute decisions the Bush “administration” put through. The overturned decisions include oil and gas leases in Utah, outer continental shelf leasing, and oil-shale development and leases in Colorado.

It turns out that Dougie & Co. don’t understand that winning elections has consequences. It also turns out they don’t understand how the executive branch works – at least not when one of their own isn’t in office. Take this silly quote as an example:

“I just don’t know who is in charge,” Lamborn said.

Lamborn is whining that Salazar might actually be operating under the direction of the President and not his own discretion. Oh noes!!! I seem to remember that Cabinet members serve at the pleasure of the President. That’s why Sen. Gregg made a fool of himself by accepting, then turning down the offer to be President Obama’s Commerce Secretary. He wasn’t going to be allowed to run it like the Con he is – Obama wanted his policies enacted. Funny how that works, eh?

President Obama clearly outlined his plans to move this country’s energy policy forward. He was overwhelmingly elected President to do so. If Lamborn doesn’t like it, maybe he and the rest of the Cons should come up with a better energy policy than “Drill, drill, drill”. It won’t solve our energy problems. The American electorate figured that out and voted accordingly.

If Lamborn, who I’m sure received plenty of fossil fuel campaign money, wants more drilling, he need only go to his corporate benefactors and demand they drill where they already hold leases. Opening up new lands to corporations that won’t drill isn’t in the public’s best interest.

The lease openings weren’t handled correctly or ethically by the Bush “administration”. Sec. Salazar hasn’t stamped them out, as Lamborn is trying to convince us. He is re-opening comment periods and allowing the appropriate agencies to examine the science involved to provide balanced opinions on where drilling should occur. Imagine that – a pro-science President and Cabinet. Will the horrors never cease, Dougie?

Cross-posted at SquareState.

Ozone Pollution and Fossil Fuel Drilling

One more reason to stop burning fossil fuels has come out after recent observations of low-level ozone levels were found throughout the inter-mountain (and over-drilled) Western U.S.  Wintertime ozone pollution is quickly becoming as much a problem as summertime ozone pollution.  What amazes me is not what amazes the industry, of course.  Somehow, the last decades’ worth of fossil fuel drilling operations explosion hasn’t factored into anybody’s mind now that the problem has been detected.

The article says that high levels of ozone haven’t been detected yet in Colorado, while Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah have been positively identified as problematic.  I think that’s simply a matter of Colorado being undersampled or sampled incorrectly.  There isn’t anything intrinsically wrong about that, but given the levels of ozone found in neighboring states, I would hope that organizations in Colorado become more aggressive about testing fossil fuel drilling operations next winter.  Some already are:

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is drafting a new ozone- sampling plan that “may require more monitors and in some areas year- round testing,” said agency spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn.

I’ll take this opportunity to point out that this is what the EPA was designed to do.  The Bush “administration’s” mis-use of the EPA frustrated a lot of important efforts, ozone detection among them.

Then there’s this:

Still, the oil and gas industry is already moving to cut emissions, and in the Pinedale area, more than $100 million has been invested to cut emissions, according to a NOAA estimate.

Interesting.  Normally the industry fights and whines about the “enormous” costs associated with mitigating their pollution.  That isn’t evident in this article.

Despite that, this is one more reason to not drill oil and gas in the first place.  What pollution does solar (photovoltaic or thermal) produce when absorbing the sun’s energy?  What pollution do turbines produce when absorbing the wind’s energy?  None.  Now, there is likely to be some pollution generated when the solar and wind infrastructure components are originally constructed.  The same can be said for fossil fuel infrastructure, though.  Overall, solar and wind are far less polluting energy sources than are fossil fuels.  Greenhouse gas and ozone pollution can and should be completely removed from our energy production.  After all, there is more than enough (see here and here – 4th link from the top) renewable energy available for our society’s needs.

Cross-posted at SquareState.