July 26, 2011 in Nation/World, Region

Babbitt blasts ‘radical’ GOP bill on public lands

By Matthew Daly Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is blasting as “radical” a Republican proposal to open up more than 50 million acres of public lands to logging and other development.

Babbitt, who was Interior secretary for eight years under President Bill Clinton, said the GOP bill would virtually repeal the 1964 Wilderness Act and open an area the size of Wyoming to development.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., “is the most radical, overreaching attempt to dismantle the architecture of our public land laws that has been proposed in my lifetime,” Babbitt said Tuesday at a House hearing on the bill.

“Simply put, it trades protection of wildlife habitat, clean water and clean air for corporate profits. It is nothing more than a giveaway of our great outdoors,” Babbitt said.

McCarthy, the third-ranking House GOP leader, said the bill would increase Americans’ access to national forests and other public lands, while creating jobs and reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

“Millions of acres of land across the United States are being held under lock and key unnecessarily,” he said.

McCarthy and other Republicans called the bill a commonsense proposal that acts on recommendations by government agencies to open up public lands for increased public use.

Allowing public lands to be managed for multiple use — rather than “locked up” as wilderness — opens them to responsible resource development, healthy forest management, grazing and other activities, they said.

“There is nothing extreme about following non-wilderness recommendations. There is nothing extreme about local stakeholders participating in the planning process…And there is nothing extreme about proactively managing forests impacted by the mountain pine beetle,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.

Beetles have killed millions of trees in the Mountain West in recent years.

A host of industry groups, including the American Loggers Council, the California Cattlemen’s Association and the Independent Oil Producers’ Agency, support McCarthy’s bill, while environmental groups oppose it.

The Obama administration said Tuesday it strongly opposes the measure.

Babbitt, who recently criticized President Barack Obama for failing to lead on environmental issues, said he was speaking out against the bill “so that the American people can see and clearly understand the threat it poses to our public land heritage.”

In an interview, Babbitt said the lands bill and an environmental spending bill being debated in the House “reflect the more radical nature of this Congress.” The two measures persuaded him to re-enter the political fray after years of relative silence since leaving office, Babbitt said.

Babbitt said he became alarmed this spring when, as part of a budget compromise, Congress allowed some gray wolves to be removed from the endangered species list. He became more concerned when Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, under intense GOP pressure, backed away from a plan to make millions of acres of undeveloped land in the West eligible for federal wilderness protection.

“That was, to me, kind of a wake-up call,” Babbitt said. “Things are different now. This is a broad assault on our environmental laws, and it’s time to get out in the open to counter it.”

In a speech in June, Babbitt said Obama had yet to take up the “mantle of land and water conservation … in a significant way.”

He said Monday he was encouraged by a White House statement vowing to veto the GOP environmental spending bill.

35 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

RedCedar on July 26 at 10:36 a.m.
What’s missing from this article is any specific information about anything in any bill that does anything close to “repeal the 1964 wilderness act”. There seem to be two specific things that Mr. Babbitt doesn’t like. One is delisting some populations of wolves, and the other has something to do with backing away from considering certain land that is currently not designated as “wilderness” for official “wilderness area” protection. Those are both subjects worth arguing about, but his breathless hyperbole about them makes me wonder if either the reporter left the most important parts out or Mr Babbitt is losing touch with reality in his dotage.
There was absolutely nothing mentioned about rolling back any regulations regarding currently-designated wilderness areas.
Patanjali on July 26 at 10:37 a.m.
This Republican initiative is yet another attempt by reactionary Republicans to pander to corporate interests. We must not allow extremists to gut our enviroment or destroy our remaining wilderness areas.
liberal_in_right_wing_land on July 26 at 10:46 a.m.
The bill is only supports by logging companies, oil companies and farmers groups. Yes, sounds like a plan that is out to protect our wilderness out here in the west that makes so many people want to live out here. Its pretty obvious this guy put this bill out because these groups all contributed to his campaign and he now has to satisfy his corporate masters.
I have an idea, if this idiot congressman and these groups don’t like the wilderness areas we have out here in the west, then move to the east coast were they have little to no wilderness area and you have basically a concrete jungle from Miami to Boston. Sorry. I don’t want the west to look like the east anytime soon.
liberal_in_right_wing_land on July 26 at 10:47 a.m.
The bill is only supported by logging companies, oil companies and farmers groups and republicans. Yes, sounds like a plan that is out to protect our wilderness out here in the west that makes so many people want to live out here. Its pretty obvious this guy put this bill out because these groups all contributed to his campaign and he now has to satisfy his corporate masters.
I have an idea, if this idiot congressman and these groups don’t like the wilderness areas we have out here in the west, then move to the east coast were they have little to no wilderness area and you have basically a concrete jungle from Miami to Boston. Sorry. I don’t want the west to look like the east anytime soon.
valleyman on July 26 at 11:04 a.m.
Just curious liberal:
Where does the wood come from to build your houses and to build businesses? Logging Companies….
Where does the gas come from to drive your car or fuel the publically-funded bus you ride? Oil Companies…
Where does the food come from you eat? Farmers…
Where do ideas come from to end some of the ridiculous, backwards, feel-good policies of previous administrations come from? …..
I support wilderness areas. I do not support holding ALL federal land hostage to the environmental movement and left wing nuts who think their houses build themselves from nothing, their cars run on magic fairy dust, and their food comes from the store and not from farms and ranches.
Why do we need to import our timber from Canada and overseas when we have billions of board feet of our own we could use in a sustainable way? Why do we need to import our oil from countries that don’t like us when we have millions upon millions of barrels of our own oil under our feet? Why do we need to import cattle and produce from foreign countries when we have the land and the knowledge to do it more efficiently and better here?
I’ll tell you why: We don’t care if Canada cuts down all their forests… Better them than us, and that way we still get our houses. We don’t care if we support terrorism and hostility towards the U.S. by buying foreign oil… Better from there than from drilling our own and possibly disturbing an indigenous mouse population. And farming… pffff…. we don’t need food… We can live on ideas and wait for the government to provide us manna from the halls of the White House.
Kivaari on July 26 at 11:05 a.m.
Opening the timber lands in particular will help create jobs. Under existing laws in the NW we will not strip the land bare without re=planting (within 3 years). Using the local laws we cannot end up looking like the eastern US. Kick the federal government out of the states. Let Idaho manage Idaho. Let Washington manage Washington. Eliminate the USFS, BLM, EPA, DOE and let the states thrive. NO ONE wants polluted lands or waterways. We sure could use some jobs.
gmorton on July 26 at 11:14 a.m.
Patanjali wrote,
“This Republican initiative is yet another attempt by reactionary Republicans to pander to corporate interests.”
Well, Patanjali, there are a few interests at stake beyond those of investors in corporations. There are, for example, the interests of anyone who wants to buy or build a home and needs lumber, anyone who wants electric lights or to drive a car and need oil and gas, everyone who likes steaks and hamburgers and needs beef, everyone who wants bread and needs wheat, everyone who wants to buy his fiance an engagement ring and needs gold, everyone who wants a cavity in his tooth filled and needs silver, everyone who needs an artificial hip and thus needs titanium, and so on.
You seem to forget what the interests of those corporations actually are – it is to make money, which they can only do by meeting all those needs and desires listed above, and many others.
I suspect those interests greatly outweigh the fetishes of greenies and neo-primitives.
gmorton on July 26 at 11:16 a.m.
Great comment Valleyman!
MrNatural on July 26 at 11:35 a.m.
The termites have returned…
Dazzeetrader11 on July 26 at 11:52 a.m.
This greenie liberal push would lead us back to the 20’s or 30’s.
We do not want to squander. The unrealities are stunning as put forth by th eliberal movement and the environmentalists.
Ho wlong will the US government pander to these types when the US has oil, sand, shale and coal galore? WHy send the money out of the country for energy whenit’s all right here and nearly inexhaustable???
It won’t be Obama and his idealogues who develop our resources. They just won’t. Flimsy though the logic might be, for now the Babbitts are in charge.
How rich we are in resources. How poor we are in ideas at the top. Developing our energy sources and making big jobs should be a priority.
CougarGold on July 26 at 12:15 p.m.
Let’s pretend for a minute that we didn’t have a capitalist society with private enterprise. Let’s just pretend that our government provided everything for us including lumber, energy, food. Exactly where would those government provisions come from? Likely from the government’s own properties where they could use the natural resources and cultivate them into useful products they could distribute to the masses. What and to whom would the enviromental groups then complain to? And how would those complaints be structured?
“Please don’t build a house for me, I’ll live in a cave”
“Please don’t provide energy for me, I’ll burn wood for heat….err, that screws up my first complaint…I’ll just wear more clothes.”
“Please don’t provide food for me. I’ll eat pine cones I pick up off the ground.”
Regardless if it’s the ‘evil corporations’ who provide our sustenance or if it’s through some euphoric communal or socialist system, our very existence is due to productive use of our natural environment. The demonizing of ‘evil corporations’ is really short-sighted. The government, even if it fully wanted to, simply cannot meet the needs of our civilization. Our entire economic success since the beginning of our nation has been dependent on making use of our vast natural resources in some form and by adding value to them through human labor and reselling the value-added product for a profit. That provides the money that drives our economic success and the freedom of the system is what provides the motivation to expand it. Ingenuity is not intrinsically altruistic, it’s goal driven and profit is the biggest motivator to a society such as ours.
The anti-capitalists fail to grasp that, although our societal systems including capitalism and democracy suck in many ways and are ugly and sometimes dirty in how they’re practiced, they’re still the best systems on the planet. And they are largely the drivers that have allowed the U.S. to become the most successful nation in human history and the envy of most of the rest of the world. What has fueled this success is the use of our natural resource base. Cutting off access only further inhibits our ability to succeed into the future.
lowtechmaster on July 26 at 12:16 p.m.
As with the present rantings about the debt ceiling, neither “side” can see any room in the middle. It may be necessary to allow some drilling and logging, but it may not be necessary to open up so much public land for those purposes.
And those who support the proposal are far more concerned with their campaign contributions than with creating jobs. [Moderate Republicans in the House who represent “safe” districts have moved far to the right because they do not want primary competition—not from the Democrats, but from the Tea Party part of their own party.]
mikeln on July 26 at 12:58 p.m.
These lands can be managed and a profit can be made. It would be fine with me as long as the lands were not destroyed, you know, responsible land management that requires the people who profit to take a little less and not require everyone but them to pay to fix what belongs to all of us.
Dazzeetrader11 on July 26 at 1:08 p.m.
Good post Cougar.
Government, such that it is right now, is standing in the way of making the US self sufficient.
We’re about the only country that has everything we need within our borders . Energy, food, textiles, etc….all right here in the US. We’re being barred from using our own resources.
To what end? Obama and his left have their plan. It differs from what many of us have grown up with. Obama continues to defy what the US wants and needs. It’s pretty simple really. That big “sucking sound” Perot described is upon us like never before. Record food stamp usage is just one example. When and how many of these programs takes us will define our future. Wars and social handouts (programs) weaken us. There isn’t enough money for everything. Cuts are mandatory.
So is progress is becoming self sustaining. It’s pretty obvious the rest of the world is failing. No doubt. Do we want to join them in their “Greece-like” behaviors? I do not. Obama should get out of the way. His socialist type plan is killing the US. He knows that. Most Americans know it too. Let America be what it was designed to be. In past times, we could support nearly everything. Not anymore. The worst part is that our infirmities come from within. That needs to stop.
CougarGold on July 26 at 1:11 p.m.
mikein - I agree. Responsible stewardship including reclamation escrow funding accounts should be part of that responsibility demand and management. We learned a lot of lessons from past operations that seriously damaged the landscapes of public lands. Cutting them out from public use entirely though is irresponsible too and are essentially knee-jerking reactions to the sins of the past.
Balanced land management is the key to successful resource as well as recreational use with certain set-asides for natural wilderness. I use and enjoy wilderness areas as much or more than most people but also realize; we need our resources for our own advancement.
Turning a blind eye to the damage caused in other locations where many of our resources come from doesn’t mean we’re not responsible for ‘destroying the planet’. It just means out of sight, out of mind. The planet would be better off if we got away from the importation of goods from countries with lesser controls and developed these products domestically where we can maintain management of the resources more closely. Not to mention, it would help our economy and jobs situation PLUS we’d be less dependent on countries who really just don’t like us, thereby more secure.
RedCedar on July 26 at 1:21 p.m.
I carefully read all the good wide-ranging comments here, mostly about environmental protection, jobs, and resources in general, but it’s still clear that none of us knows what, specifically, has Mr. Babbitt’s knickers in such a twist.
I think it’s fair to say that most of us want some wild land preserved unspoiled, some public land available for a variety of uses, and some benefits of modern technology. Within that context, we ought to be able to have a reasonable debate about “how much” and “where”. Instead, like everything in modern politics and the media, complex issues with a broad middle ground are simplified and exaggerated until an attempt to sell some bug-infested lodgepole before it burns gets spun into an attempt to repeal the Wildnerness Act, and the de-listing of formerly-endangered species that is no longer endangered and therefore does not meet the legal criteria for listing as such, gets spun into some sort of blood-thirsty desire to exterminate all charismatic megafauna.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, an attempt to add some minor fragment of public land to a nearby Wilderness Area (minor fragments are all that’s left since the good stuff is already under Wilderness designation) gets spun as an attempt by environmental nuts to “lock up” all public land and force us to live in caves and eat roots. Honestly, not everything is a battle between Good and Evil.
liberal_in_right_wing_land on July 26 at 1:23 p.m.
Its funny the people who think all these natural resources these corporations are trying to get from these lands, OUR LANDS, will actually stay in this country and help this country.
No, they are going to China and India, you know the same place that all our jobs are going, the same place where there is over 3 billion people and a larger middle class now than this country. These companies aren’t making money here in American anymore, they are making all their money in China and India and they need to strip this countries resources to help those two countries bursting populations with way more money to spend than we have.
All you need to do is look at Iraq and see who is buying all their oil. China. We are even providing the Chinese security while we wasted all this money to fight an illegal war with the promise that the oil in Iraq will pay for it all and now China is the country reaping the rewards. While now we are in massive debt and China has money to spend and they are spending that money to buy up the whole worlds natural resources from Africa to the middle east to Asia and they now want Americas.
Traveler on July 26 at 1:50 p.m.
Dazzee, you show hawken’s proclivity for taking things out of context to buttress your argument.
“That big “sucking sound” Perot described is upon us like never before.”
Perot said that about the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he opposed because the “free trade” aspect (as opposed to “fair trade”) meant that American workers couldn’t compete with the lack of environmental and workplace regulations in Mexico. Businesses — and, needless to say, Republicans — supported NAFTA. Bill Clinton signed it into law.
Traveler on July 26 at 2:15 p.m.
Every time I hear another “there’s gold in them thar hills/forests/lakes” claim, I think of people on a wooden ship miles from land.
Some of the passengers have already ripped out most of the bulkheads and are now going after the hull. “It’s really thick down there,” they say. “Much thicker than we need, and peeling if off will provide LOTS of jobs! And think how much faster we can go once we burn it in our engines — we won’t have to rely on those those sails anymore!”
How many extra planets do we have?
misjustice on July 26 at 2:37 p.m.
liberal, you are spot on.
Those “job creators” moved the jobs to China and India to be closer to their new consumers; TNCs are building in the nations that are buying, the “emerging” economies with billions of new consumers.
AND this nation will be nothing more than a place to harvest the raw materials required for the TNCs new customers.
hawken on July 26 at 2:43 p.m.
Traveler:
I was not part of this discussion.
Now that I’m here, Bruce Babbitt is a radical environmentalist.
He was the governor of Arizona when we moved from that state. He was a radical environmentalist then as well, as governor.
Dazzeetrader11 on July 26 at 2:52 p.m.
56…that’s why I qyoted Perot. It’s the big SUCKING sound of our money leaving the country. Different method but it’s the same bottom line. We lose our money to another country which..as it turns out,..is Obama’s big wet dream. The country is trillions in more debt he created, unemployment at an all time high for the last 25 years, And we are denied use of oUR resources to both use, develop and created good jobs with.
What don’t the liberal brains get about going broke by a plan concocted by ..guess who?..OBAMA and his liberal far left friends??? Ut’s by design and I’ve been saying it for the padt two years. I’m inide of this abit but this guy needs to get out of the presidency as soon as possible. He has no plan except some fluid design to wipe us out and strangle us with debt but no way to make the money to cureit. Next stop is bankruptcy. The his monied libs come in and rebuild in what his dream is: Socialism. What else would you care Obamacare?? He is the enemy within our midst.
johnclarke on July 26 at 2:55 p.m.
http://www.eenews.net/bills/112/House/210411112205.pdf
The bill, in case anyone wished to educate themselves.
Traveler on July 26 at 3:00 p.m.
hawken, just because you didn’t post in this thread doesn’t mean your practice in oh-so-many other threads isn’t fair game to be used as an example.
As for being a “back-side sniper,” not at all: I’ll take on your misrepresentations/fallacies head-on everywhere I see them.
CougarGold on July 26 at 3:01 p.m.
msjustice - If you believe that the only reason for harvesting our lands is for raw material export to other emerging economies, then why are we importing oil to support our own demands rather than exporting it? Why are we importing lumber from Canada rather than producing our own to sell to others? We obviously have a level of demand here but aren’t producing the goods from our own stocks and have lost many of the jobs that go with those production efforts. Yet we still see a need to use the stuff, otherwise we wouldn’t be buying it from others. It’s true that the emerging economies are growth areas for multi-national companies but it’s not true that we don’t have our own demand.
Those living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and likewise, those who live in wood houses shouldn’t throw fiery barbs. Again, pretend for a minute that ‘evil corporations’ didn’t exist and government provided all we eat, the energy we use, and the wood our houses are built from. Would that really lessen our demand? There is a balance to be struck between the wilderness lockout and the productive use of our resources. What it is, I don’t know but obstructionism for the sake of obstructionism under the guise of protecting yet-to-be threatened species (see Babbit’s book “Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America”) by blocking out public land use is not the right approach.
If you live in a wood-constructed home, use electricity, gasoline, eat farm products, yet argue against the use of our resources for creation of these products, you’re suffering from a serious disconnect. It’s similar to the complaints against mining. The reality though is if you use something, anything, that wasn’t grown, it was mined. Yet people attempt to obstruct mining all the time while driving around in their cars made of mined materials. Want to stop mining? Quit buying products made from mined materials. The same goes for using public lands for resource purposes. Obviously, demand is still there so it’s got to be supplied from somewhere.
Traveler on July 26 at 3:13 p.m.
Dazzee:
So you use a Perot quote about another country’s poor environmental protections to defend opening more protected lands here in America to development? Okay …
But as to your other claims, lemme try a cut-and-paste rebuttal I posted to similar claims by hawken in a different thread:
Regarding the national debt:
(hawken): “Within his first 19 months, Obama increased debt more than all presidents combined, from Washington to Reagan, combined.”
(me): Another misleading half-truth that ignores uncomfortable facts. Under Obama, the debt has gone up about $2.5 trillion — a little less than 25 percent. But, according to PolitiFact.com (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jan/22/rahm-emanuel/5-trillion-added-national-debt-under-bush/), Bush nearly doubled it:
“When Bush took office, the national debt was $5.73 trillion. When he left, it was $10.7 trillion. That’s a difference of $4.97 trillion, almost $1 trillion more than what Emanuel said.
But the debt has shot up significantly during the past few months, mostly due to the economic meltdown of 2008 and the government’s efforts to shore up the federal banking system.”
Regarding unemployment:
(hawken): “The “real numbers” for our state are actually 16-16.2%, U6 unemployment. Same numbers nationwide.”
(me): It was at its highest (17.4 percent) in October 2009 — three months after Bush’s last budget — and has been declining ever since (http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp?fromYear=2000&toYear=2010).
… the official rate (not the U6 rate) was also at its highest — 10.1 percent — in October 2009 and has been falling ever since …”
johnclarke on July 26 at 3:39 p.m.
@Cougar
“why are we importing oil to support our own demands rather than exporting it? Why are we importing lumber from Canada rather than producing our own to sell to others?”
Simple, profit. The easy oil (mostly) around here has been gotten. The oil shale remaining is not economically viable, yet. The oil companies want the easiest way to make money. Yes, Canada harvests oil shale, but at a tremendous cost to the environment. They don’t care, so they make it and we buy it.
I don’t know is you watch a lot of TV, but harvesting timber does not exactly create a ton of jobs. With today’s machines, one guy can level a staggering amount of forest.
Profit is the driving force behind trying to open these lands. Once they swallow up all the easy resources, they of course want ours. Not exactly news.
CougarGold on July 26 at 3:57 p.m.
JC - Profit is the difference between cost and sale price. If we were to harvest oil here at a higher price, the sale price will go up and profit, as a percent would likely be about the same. However, can you imagine the impact to the economy if we were to do that? Gas prices are already damaging enough. The oil companies will get their profit, regardless of where they get their oil so it’s not simply that they’re padding their bottom lines, they’re going to get it anyway. Again, blaming the corporations for doing what they do doesn’t really deal with the issue of using our own resources (of which, by the way, we still have lots of undrilled oil that’s currently off-limits) and becoming more self-sufficient. By the way, with oil, if you look at the cost of shale oil versus drilled but add in our cost of defense as part of the cost of imported oil, shale oil starts looking pretty good.
As for the timber harvesting, you’re right. However, it’s lumber I was referring to. Finished lumber is amost non-existent in this part of the country anymore, It’s coming in from Canada by the trainload. Why? Raw material supply is there, not here. Open up logging and the mills will have a chance. As it stands, they’re an essentially dead industry, at least in the PNW. Low housing starts are only exacerbating their problems.
You say profit is the driving force behind opening these lands. Profit can’t stand without demand. Unless demand is curtailed, as it is with lumber currently, profit will exist. So, as American consumers, if we force a drop in demand, those lands don’t really serve the purpose that you’re purporting as strictly profit driven.
jwc928 on July 26 at 4:02 p.m.
The US presently has 756 areas classed as wilderness. The total acreage is 109,478,939. They are administered by: Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Fish and Wildlife.
How much is enough to shut everyday people and business out of?
Each and every “Environmental Group” must hope to shut it all to everything. Don’t even look at the “Biospheres” administered by UNESCO (UN). Washington has 31 wildernesses and apparently more coming in the Omak area. Those Republicans sure are evil trying to create jobs in the forest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._Wilderness_Areas
detroitdude on July 26 at 4:51 p.m.
56traveler said: “How many extra planets do we have?”
Exactly. Seriously, every SECOND a football field size of rainforest is gone, forever. At least we make a conscious effort to “try” to do better here with what we have. All gone and everything that might have been there that we didn’t know about. All so you can never be running short on a Big Mac or Whopper.
MrNatural on July 26 at 4:59 p.m.
Well…the way I see it a few folks could make a lot of private money at the paltry expense of lost habitat, watershed depletion, eroded hillsides and turbid streams and rivers. Then everybody could go huntin right in yer back yard with that assault rifle when the critters (the ones that survive) come down from the mountain and ye kin go fishin for them stocked up white meat trout in the local lakes. Then when all the trees have been cut that would clear the way for placer and strip mines…Ahh just imagine the booty the bounty and the beautiful view when all is said and done.
It’s too bad those large timber companies don’t own enough forested land already to supply our nations building needs.
And too bad we’re the only nation with this kind of pure economic vision…
BTW what genius determines these lands as unsuitable for wilderness designation?
johnclarke on July 26 at 5:45 p.m.
By the way, with oil, if you look at the cost of shale oil versus drilled but add in our cost of defense as part of the cost of imported oil, shale oil starts looking pretty good.
I’m sorry, but you have lost me completely. That, and your reasoning re: lumber.
Shale oil does not look good for a reason. They have not figured out a way to harvest it economically. Trust me, they’ve tried.
DickAdams on July 26 at 8:26 p.m.
Valleyman, I tip my fedora re your post.
CougarGold on July 26 at 9:51 p.m.
“Shale oil does not look good for a reason. They have not figured out a way to harvest it economically. Trust me, they’ve tried.”
That was the point I stated. Shale oil on a per barrel basis may not look good comparatively on a b to b basis. My point was, if you allocate what our country spends both militarily and diplomatically in protecting our overseas oil supply and amortize that cost over the number of barrels we consume, added to the purchase cost of the crude, and domestic shale oil extraction might start to look a little more economically feasible. My other point regarding oil, if shale oil is out due to economics and there is no drillable crude, why would the oil lobbies be interested in this piece of legislation? There is oil under our feet; it’s just not available for extraction at this time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shale_oil_extraction
valleyman on July 27 at 7:46 a.m.
Still waiting to hear where the wood for building houses, the gas to drive your cars/public buses, and the food to feed your mouths cones from…. I think the crickets have it…