LONGMONT, Colo. — President Obama’s plan to boost domestic drilling for natural gas carries the promise of new jobs and provides a convenient pivot away from his lurching bid to transform America’s energy economy with wind and solar power.
Yet in pockets of the nation, including the communities around Colorado’s pristine mountains, such a shift carries a political price. The spike in fossil fuel production in this crucial swing state has generated a backlash, as neighborhood activists and environmentalists decry the key means of producing the energy: hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, of rock deep below ground, releasing reserves of natural gas or oil.
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Obama's policy of "all of the above" is a political reaction to Republican criticisms of his reluctance to drill everywhere and his proposal to end oil/gas subsidies. However, policy is about choices and direction. This country wastes so much energy yet it feels compelled to drill and gouge and "frack" for more without thinking about what all this production is doing to the environment and how this energy is being misused. We need an energy budget and an audit of its use. We need energy demand management strategies and more energy efficient land use, transportation and building construction and energy retrofit standards. Asking for behavioural changes is politically more challenging for an elected official when it is easier to promise technical fixes to everything. Yet behavioural changes are the least costly to effect. The other dangerous trend is equating further energy production. however environmentally detrimental with large numbers of new jobs (pollution is not a job solution)when the jobs may disappear with market circumstances such as price decreases, cost increases and demand fluxuations. What is more job rich is retrofitting existing buildings to make them more energy efficient. The answer to the energy test question is not "all of the above" and environmentalists must press the next President to come up with a better answer and more coherent policy that prioritizes energy management.
No matter what Barry does he looks and acts like a fool! What a sad little man
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Fracking is pumping chemicals into the ground, which should be covered by the Clean Water Act. Why we would consider this energy source is beyond me. Trading oil from the Middle East for poisoned ground is a very bad trade. How aboup raising gas prices, subsidizing the cost of hybrid and electric cars and building more public transportation infrastructure?
Greenies believe! Anything produced by mother nature is bad, they say. Fracking according to the media has become the new devil and that horrible natural substance called oil is the anti-Christ of the Wind Mill worshippers. Coal will collapse the entire environment. That Canadian oil pipeline was the last straw for our "environmentalists". Gasoline at $8/gal is Obama's next priceline to help America's poor and needy citizens. On the other hand, he faces an election next month, so lo and behold, wave the magic wand and domestic oil drilling is now O.K. Some enviornmental expert whispered in his ear that his "folks" are smelling that rotten eggs odor self inflicted poverty. I remember back in 2008 when it was $158/gal , he said he thought $4/gal for gasoline was about right. I reached for my wallet and had a really bad feeling that it was going to cost about $60 to fill my tank and wondered if his "folks" were going to blame Bush for that. If you think this is slightly uncomfortable, just wait. If he is reelected you ain't seen nuthin' yet. Grab your wallet and your butt because you are going to lose both.
he still won't allow the keystone oil pipeline from Canada. That would be the best job creator of all. Globe doesn't mention that all, naturally. If Obama really wanted to win, he would have allowed the oil pipeline