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.
