Remember the saying from Pogo in the early 70's? I do, and today I think it has a new meaning. We are in one heck of a mess. Oil and gas prices are shooting through the roof yet our elected representative's only reaction when talking about increased drilling and exploration is that it will do no good.
The BLM is opening 55,156 acres of the Roan Plateau to leases. "The BLM estimates the plateau about 180 miles west of Denver contains 9 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas and could generate between $428 million and $565 million in royalties and lease payments for the state".
Xcell is raising our natural gas rates by 38% this coming August. Our Senator, Ken Salazar, says drilling in the Roan Plateau will do no good. But let's see how he votes on the windfall profits tax against Big Oil. Somehow I do not believe a windfall profits tax will produce one more barrel of oil or one more cubic foot of natural gas. But I guess the politicians feel good about it while we stand at the gas pump, pumping our kids college education dollars into our gas tanks or our retirement savings.
Governor Bill Ritter, Senator Ken Salazar, Representatives Mark Udall and John Salazar all have serious misgivings about drilling on the Roan Plateau because of environmental concerns. We have the technology today to drill for oil and gas without leaving a big footprint. We also have the technology today to insure we do no permanent damage to the environment. I guess none of them are concerned that our economy will be ruined and thousands will be out of jobs soon if we do nothing about our own energy independence.
We have met the enemy and he is us!
Then there is offshore drilling for Oil and the Anwar area of Alaska. Both are still off limits according too many of our elected officials. I guess when they vote "Green" it means they would rather send all our greenbacks to hostile foreign governments instead keeping our money and our jobs at home. What really happened to the idea of energy independence?
We have met the enemy and he is us!
We have not approved a new nuclear plant since the 70's. And the last
refinery built in the U.S. was in Grayville, Louisiana in 1976.
We have met the enemy and he is us!
I too believe that eventually we will be able to replace fossil fuels with something better. But it won't happen now. Any chance of replacing fossil fuels with better alternatives is far into the future. Our concerns must be on today's realities. We can't continue to duck the obvious. We must prepare now to meet today's energy demands with today's technologies while working for alternatives to fossil fuels.
Recent polls show that 67% of Americans do believe we should recover our own known reserves and quit relying on hostile governments to provide our energy needs.
We have indeed met the enemy and
he is us. It is time to make a change.