Energy From Skittle-Producing Unicorns
It’s one thing for a few cynical bloggers to figure things out. It’s another to be so obvious that everyone gets it, and that’s the cliff on which the administration is dancing right now. Michelle Malkin dug it up this morning, too bad the administration isn’t allowing anyone else to dig.
Last week, Salazar defended pulling 77 oil leases granted in the final days of the Bush administration. Salazar’s inspector general concluded that there was no evidence of any rush to auction off the parcels– as baselessly claimed by environmental groups and Salazar himself. In fact, the leases were granted only after seven full years of rigorous study and debate. (Read the pdf of the report here.)
Here are some of the comments from the AP article:
Salazar wanted to take a “fresh look” at the parcels before deciding whether to release them, Barkoff said. The bidders got their money back…
The lawsuit that blocked the release of the 77 leases around Arches and Canyonlands national parks has yet to be resolved…
Investigators found no evidence in interviews of key BLM officials or in a review of e-mails that Bush administration appointees pressured employees to rush the sale, the report said…
The report, however, faulted BLM for contributing to a perception that the sale was rushed in the month before President Barack Obama took office…
Part of the complaint was that some of the leases might have created rigs visible from some of the monuments in the parks. You know, oil companies are pretty good these days at putting rigs in inconspicuous places and then drilling horizontally, precisely to avoid stuff like this. They have a pretty clear idea of branding, what with all the MBAs they hire.
Michelle also notes it’s not just some drilling leases:
[Investors' Business Daily] notes that Salazar also halted plans to lease oil shale rights in five Western states “estimated to hold between 1 trillion and 2 trillion (with a ‘t’) barrels of recoverable oil.” These shale resources remain untapped thanks to militant greenies who pay lip service to energy independence while blocking all means of achieving it.
Shale oil is a favorite of mine, since most of the time the land that holds shale oil is reasonably barren. Having that much crud in the ground means that not much grows, and a lot of the land is actually in better shape if the company that mines it replants when it’s done with the area, like they do in Canada. Yes, it takes a lot of energy to produce a barrel of shale, but it’s as self-producing as corn, and that doesn’t take food out of people’s mouths.
So what’s the deal? It’s clear that the administration doesn’t want to drill in the Gulf anymore, and now it’s showing its desire to to drill nowhere else. Maybe they heard that China is now the #1 energy consumer, so they decided we don’t need to drill anymore? Maybe they just think that energy comes from those Skittle-producing unicorns that they think fly through the air?
I’d say I’d start installing solar panels and wind, but they’ll tell me that the turbines kill birds and the solar fries it up nice and tasty. Then they’d ban it.
Updated. Thanks both to Cassy and John Hawkins for the links. If you’re new here, feel free to take a look around and see what cynics look like.
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