Liberals love to oppose oil and gas development by saying we need to pursue alternative, "renewable energy". But, as usual, when it comes time to permits such alternative energy projects, like solar power, they don't really like those either. Dianne Feinstein is now attempting to block solar energy production in the Mojave Desert.

No form of energy development is without impact. Environmentalists will never support any of them until they are, themselves, forced to live with the consequences of no power. We need to drill now and stop sending tribute to terrorist or Marxist nations like those in the Middle East or Venezuela.

In the Wall Street Journal today: Democrats' energy policies drive up energy costs (this is news?)

The U.S. Senate today laid the second brick in the foundation to assure the country cannot achieve energy independence. It passed out a bill that turns potential oil and gas development land into untouchable wilderness. The first brick was B.H. Obama's selection of the most liberal and anti-business coalition of natural resource and environment agency heads in the history of the nation. Now, the AP reports Senator "coal is dangerous" Reid did not even allow debate or amendment to the bill as he stuffed it down the throats of the Senate Republicans. So much for bipartisanship.

Wilderness designations lock the land away from not only developing it for multiple uses, but even driving a wheeled vehicle or fighting fires on it. For example, ranchers or landowners who have in-holdings adjacent to these wilderness areas often need to drive hours to reach their property because they cannot make a 15 minute trip across wilderness designated land. Existing access and fire roads are abandoned under a draconian roadless policy.

So, B.H. Obama is still days away from being inaugurated, but the plan is already taking shape: Appoint anti-business, environmental extremists to head up agencies, have the 111th Congress toughen up restrictions, laws, and regulations even more than the bureaucracy already has, ramp up merciless enforcement, take land out of production for mineral and oil development, eliminate hydro uses, ban energy development on all other federal lands, stonewall permits for nuclear power plants, transmission lines, refineries, solar energy, hydro energy, wind energy, etc., etc.. We're just getting started.

What is the end game here? Why do our leaders want to incapacitate us by eliminating domestic energy development and pay tribute to the world's despots who have no problem destroying the environment with unrestrained energy development? Russia even uses it as a weapon of blackmail against the Balkans and Europe. It cannot all be incompetence. This seems to be going very well for the liberals. So, what is the goal?



Besides my theory of liberals grabbing permanent power by devolving our society into a serfdom, I am perplexed. Very perplexed.

That is a quote in the Wall Street Journal by Steven Chu, B.H. Obama's new Energy Secretary-select. While Mr. B.H. says he dismisses raising the federal gasoline tax (for now), practically all of his "Energy Team" says it is the most effective way to address climate change. So. why does the new president in waiting hire people who are on record of being to the left of Karl Marx on economic issues, but then dismiss them? Stay tuned. Or, should I say, be patient?

There is a great email going around with a graphical presentation of the area proposed to be explored within the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, republished by the Heritage Foundation. It so clearly demonstrates how the environmental advocacy groups and the press are misrepresenting the nature of ANWR. Hits you right between the eyes.

Another walking fish pulled itself onto dry land today as the Democratic Party platform evolves into Marxist dogma. Adding to Rep. Maxine Waters' threat to nationalize the oil industry, now Democrat Rep. Maurice Hinchey said on Fox News today, "We (the government) should own the refineries; Then we can control how much gets out into the market."

After, I am sure, a stern talking to by the more circumspect Democrat leaders, the congressman equivocated on his meaning. But even his backtracking revealed a sigh of "If only we could".

Besides Ms. Waters' comment a couple of weeks ago, there was also Malia Lazu, a Democratic Strategist and Obama supporter, who asked Neil Cavuto, why don't we just nationalize the oil companies?"

Does this sound like the beginnings of a campaign? First raise the trial balloon and see it get laughed out of the room. But then, keep it popping up here, there, everywhere, until the public says, "Yeah. Why not?"

These big government liberals want control of business and the money it accesses. Most of them have no clue how to start or manage one themselves, so they see a heavy handed government as the road to success. First, the Democrats spend almost 3 decades to create a problem by limiting supply of a vital national resource; then, when the inevitable crises hits, they point fingers at industry and use it as the pretext to take it over. Could this be more transparent? Do you want to stand in a DMV type line to fill up your tank on your assigned day, at quadruple the cost? That's how government would manage oil.

The voting public is smarter than that, but these people need to be marginalized, and fast.

Oil Exploration in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

You probably have seen numerous TV news reports discussing drilling for oil in the ANWR. Typically, during the voice over news report, the background video displays spectacular natural features in Alaska, such as the majestic Brooks Range mountains or the Yukon River, complete with caribou, salmon, bears, and a panorama of incredibly beautiful landscapes.

But that is not the coastal plain of the ANWR where oil is located. That part of the 19 million acre ANWR is a flat, treeless, and featureless 1.5 million acre desert of frozen tundra that extends from the Brooks Range northward to the Beaufort Sea. The temperature can drop below -40 degrees Fahrenheit during the 56 days of total darkness in the winter. Very few animals inhabit the coastal plain especially in winter.

Several species of birds, a few polar bears that den on the Beaufort Sea pack ice, and lemmings that burrow beneath the snow are the only animals that endure the long winters. May or June brings a few more birds, the arctic fox, and a portion of the Porcupine caribou herd.

Environmentalists usually cite the caribou and polar bear as the most threatened animal species if oil exploration is allowed. The coastal plain is not an important polar bear habitat, as few are observed in the area. As for the caribou, that issue was put to rest decades ago after the Alyeska oil pipeline was built. Environmentalists and their press enablers had a meltdown in the 1970s, warning that the caribou herd would be decimated. The caribou, they said, would not reproduce due to construction of the heated pipeline and proximity of humans in their wilderness habitat. After construction of the pipeline the central Arctic caribou herd grew from 6,000 in 1978 to about 25,000 today according to estimates by wildlife agencies. (There are over a million caribou statewide). Caribou actually calve and graze around the clearings near the warm pipeline. I worked along the pipeline for 2 years and I have seen it myself. They even hang around the drill rigs in Prudhoe Bay as trucks drive by. They don’t even look up.

So what gives? Either these news reporters are too lazy to do their homework, are clueless on anything remotely scientific, or are purposefully encouraging the devolution of freedom and democracy into Marxism. The typical way to create a Marxist regime is to take away fundamental necessities, then endear themselves to the population by rationing it back (party loyalists get more). I suspect it is a combination of all these motives, but mostly reporters are just too lazy. They allow themselves to be manipulated by Marxist environmentalists. These are the truly dangerous people. Not the rank and file dupes, but the leadership who are the greatest and best hope of the disaffected communists who now use environmental doom as the new fear tactic to lead us into another try at utopia.

We will get nowhere with the MSM. But with so much new media available, the rest of us, all of us, need to sound the clarion call repeatedly: The United States needs to become energy independent, and soon. Drill in the ANWR, off our shores, and anywhere else on our soil. We have the technology to do it safely and we cannot allow foreign terrorists or opportunist nations to threaten our freedom. There is nowhere to escape to this time.


Coastal Plain of ANWR (during daylight and without snow)