I guess there is a breed of man that spends its formative years in search of one big oil geyser that will make them rich and famous consistent with their dreams. For this kind of man the image of the geyser is iconic. It is erotic. The geyser is their Holy Grail. They no longer think about capping the well and pipelining it to a refinery. The image of the geyser is their El Dorado. The geyser is pornographic.
Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) plans to pursue an aggressive pro-oil agenda as the incoming chair of the House Science and Technology Committee. In an interview with the Dallas Morning News this month, the “unconditional champion of fossil fuels” described his zeal for the “holy grail” of the oil industry — the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — discussed issuing subpoenas to interrogate climate scientists, and explained why the BP disaster “didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for offshore drilling.” Hall described the BP explosion that killed eleven men, injured dozens, and led to the despoilment of the Gulf of Mexico as a “tremendous,” “blossoming” flower of energy:
As we saw that thing bubbling out, blossoming out – all that energy, every minute of every hour of every day of every week – that was tremendous to me. That we could deliver that kind of energy out there – even on an explosion.
The camera that was set up so we could watch the geyser sending its pollution into the Gulf twenty-four hours a day was providing the equivalent of the Playboy Channel to Ralph Hall and his breed of wildcatter and would-be wildcatter. Sick, twisted breed they are.
And this nutzoid is a chairman of a key House Committee. We collectively are in trouble!
The Science Committee.
Science and Tech is not a key committee. And with Paul Broun, Jr. on the Committee, Hall is not close to the nuttiest Republican.
Notwithstanding that ANWR has only a small amount of oil. Better to lose a precious and irreplacable sanctuary than let that oil go to waste.
Drilling in ANWR has nothing at all to do with constructive energy policy; it’s just the cons’ way of sticking it politically to liberals (as they see it) in their typical “in your face” fashion. It’s one of their many pseudo-solutions designed more to make a lot of noise as opposed to actually solving a problem.
Sort of off topic: I’m not a Ken Burns fan, but his series on the national parks was one of his best I think. I just sort of naively accepted these parks as part of american life. I had no idea what a long bitter struggle it was to establish most of them. Almost every proposed park was met with fierce resistance from extraction industry and logging concerns, often deploying the eternal arguments about jobs and development. One robber baron in Arizona apparently became Senator just to block implementation of the Grand Canyon NP. It’s really amazing that a diverse coalition of organizers, often led by minorities, was able to cobble together the political force necessary to overcome entrenched interests and create these parks.
Which sounds quite familiar to many of the same issues and challenges that progressives face today. I have little doubt that people had to fight long and hard against very deep pockets to accomplish getting national parks established. We have faced many setbacks and will undoubtedly face many more in the months and years ahead, but we must keep fighting for what is just and right.