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This man has a secret

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Contributed by: Francis Miller on 7/27/2006

You probably remember the old Gary Moore show, "I've Got a Secret". Well the man in the picture at the right is Senator Bob Hagedorn from Aurora. I think he knows something that may turn out to be something you would like to know. Here's how I came to know the secret.

This morning I am putting grape jelly on my sausage-egg biscuit and reading the Rocky Mountain News when I see this article about a U.S. Congressman named Inhofe from Oklahoma who has gone ballistic over the EPA taking pictures of oil and gas wells in Colorado to possibly detect pollution. Now, it is always my contention that where there are fumes creating a mirage in the air, there is a dead rat under the woodpile. So, I decided to meditate on the matter and turn it over to my higher power for enlightment.

Voila! I remembered an obscure little remark that Hagedorn made back when the Legislature was meeting and discussing getting rid of Colorado's irritating, and it turns out, unnecessary, emissions tests for automobiles. Hagedorn, always possessing more political survival skills than the average bear in the woods, was testing the political winds to see if he could stick a $10 fee on motorists to subsidize the hospitals who weren't getting paid for emergency room visits for accidents involving uninsured motorists.

Anyway, here is the quote from the good Senator's mouth: "the oil and gas industry opposed (the elimination of the $25 emission fee) because it feared, without the emission tests (on automobiles) its wells could be targeted for emission reductions if air pollution worsened."

Now isn't that a fine how-do-you-do? You and I have been forced to sit in line, spend money on emissions tests and repairs so that the *&%$# oil and gas industry doesn't have to comply with any emission reductions?

I started to poke around and find out what the heart of the matter is on this issue. Turns out that oil and gas wells are big time polluters and to plumb them so they don't cause the glaciers to melt would cost a tidy sum. A lot of those wells are old and leaking like the radiator on my 1990 Chevy pickup. Forget that the landowners and exploration guys sit back every month and clip coupons as these wells create Beverly Hillbillies.

You are probably saying by now--tough turtles. That's what I elected Bob Hagedorn and those other clowns riding in the station wagon to and from the Legislature to take care of! It should be a level playing field and if I have to get my car tested then why shouldn't the oil and gas pirates of the Colorado Prairie?

Well, grasshopper, stop for a minute and think long and hard. These oil and gas guys generate lots of extraction taxes and no State is going to jeopardize that. Why do you thing Wyoming spends more per capita on its schools than any other State but Alaska? Extraction taxes my friend. And, that why the good Congressman from Oklahoma is so concerned about the EPA's activities in Colorado.

When all is said and done, the Oil and Gas Lobby has people like Congressman Inhofe from Oklahoma carrying water for them. Why doesn't he just wear an industry tie and hard-hat on the floor of the Congress? As for our confederacy of dunces who run the Colorado legislature it is a sorry, pitiful situation.

You and I are compromised every day of the week by vested interests who have an agenda to protect. Our democracy is hihacked and then we are herded like cattle into emission testing lines with after being told it is necessary to protect the environment. The sign over the testing facility should read, Emission Testing Will Set You Free!

We have been compromised by the oil and gas lobby so they can do whatever the heck they want. How much longer do they think the public are going to buy into their line of blarney? Don't they realize that we know that all those kids dying in Iraq are dying over oil and gas and to protect the right of Douglas County grandees and gentry to chauffer their kids to soccer practice in a Hummer or an Escalade or Navigator?

It is sure a slippery slope down the road back to serfdom from whence we came.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Francis Miller

Parker , CO

Francis Miller has posted 699 stories and 9 comments since joining on 11/17/2005. Francis Miller's average story rating is 4.2.

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