William Yeatman

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continues to bring amusement and gaiety to the national political scene.  Pelosi explained on Meet the Press on Sunday just before the opening of the Democratic Party’s Convention that she had an alternative to allowing offshore drilling.  And that alternative is—natural gas!  “I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels."  Leaving aside the fact that natural gas is a fossil fuel, getting it requires drilling, and most of America’s reserves are in federal offshore waters or on federal lands in the Rocky Mountains and Alaska that have been declared off limits by Congress.

Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) picked up on Pelosi’s plan in his acceptance speech at the Democratic Party Convention Thursday night in Denver.  He dismissed more domestic oil production: “Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure.”  But then Obama immediately went on to say: “As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves.”  “Tap” is a technical word meaning “drill”.  And I don’t think he can tap those reserves.  It will take big oil and gas companies investing billions of dollars to find gas (often accompanied by oil deposits) and then build the infrastructure needed to produce it and move it to consumers.  They can produce a lot more natural gas (and oil) if Congress would allow production in federal lands and offshore areas currently under moratoria and if the next President then directs the Interior Department to prepare areas to lease through competitive auctions.

However, Senator Obama did not pick up on the speech by former Vice President Al Gore, Jr. earlier in the evening. Gore preached the old-time gospel of global warming hellfire and damnation. All Obama said about global warming was: “ I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease.”

I hope that Senator John McCain’s (R-Az.) selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate will cause him to reconsider his opposition to allowing oil exploration in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.  If U. S. Geological Survey estimates are roughly accurate, a few wells could produce as much oil as is currently imported from Saudi Arabia for twenty-five years.  Producing more oil in America will lower our balance of payments deficit and create thousands of high-paying jobs.  In addition, the oil produced from this federal land in Alaska will contribute tens of billions of dollars in royalty payments to the federal treasury.  Those royalty payments could help pay for the tens of billions of dollars of subsidies for renewable energy that Congress is likely to pass before the November election.  Perhaps a Senator or Representative could offer an amendment that would re-start the renewables subsidies to pay for them as soon as royalties start flowing from oil production in ANWR. 

Finally, I have just heard a nasty rumor that one piece of the Democratic energy package may be a 25% renewable portfolio standard for electric utilities.

When it comes to environmental concerns, more Americans are starting to think less about global warming and more about energy, according to a recent survey.

Republicans adopted a blueprint calling for stepped up petroleum drilling and refinery construction in the "most aggressive" energy policy in the party's history.

As our thoroughly unscientific poll indicated, worries about the economy seem trump big policy choices like climate change or health care. That’s in line with recent national polls, as well. And that concern about the economy and jobs shows up clearly in Democratic talk about clean energy in Denver.

Global warming alarmists claim that their primary concern is the well-being of future generations. If that’s really the case, they should take up Klaus’s challenge, and embrace – not stifle – prosperity.

A new U.N. report urges countries to phase out energy subsidies, saying they often waste money, do not always help the poor and are bad for the environment.

Incisive article in the Wall Street Journal today on how Russia is using energy supply as part of its strategic renaissance. An excerpt:

“Despite Russia’s repeated use of energy as a political weapon in Eastern Europe, Western Europeans keep repeating the mantra that Russia has been a reliable supplier to “Europe.” They also choose to ignore that natural-gas giant Gazprom serves as the Kremlin’s leading foreign-policy arm. The company is primarily state-owned, and many members of Gazprom’s leadership are current or former government officials. The Kremlin’s present occupant, Dmitry Medvedev, until recently was the chairman of Gazprom. His replacement there is former Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov.

The Russian plan is rather simple: Punish countries that refuse to come under its influence by building new gas pipelines that bypass them, while rewarding countries and political leaders that cooperate with Russia with lucrative energy deals. Maintaining a monopoly over the transport of Caspian gas to Europe is essential for Moscow to ensure that all those countries that have submitted to a Russian “partnership” will acquiesce to the return of the former Soviet space to the Kremlin’s control.”

It is vital to understand that Russia has designs on Eastern Europe and is using its energy supply to buy off Western Europe. The future looks bad if this is the case.

Yet there is a question here that needs answering first. Natural gas, while cheap to burn and an efficient form of energy, is not the only source of electricity Western Europe has. Germany and Britain both possess abundant coal. France has based its energy profile on nuclear. Both could provide Russia-free energy across Western Europe, yet both are reviled by environmentalists. Wind power and renewables, beloved by environmentalists, are simply not up to the job.

It therefore seems that when faced with a choice between empowering Russia and annoying environmentalists, Western Europeans are less afraid of the former.

Let’s also remember that the Kyoto Protocol is designed to see large amounts of Western European money transferred to Russia as European nations purchase credits for emissions reductions banked by Russia following the collapse of communism. European nations can’t reduce emissions on their own, for the aforementioned reasons, so they need to buy credit from elsewhere. This was the central reason behind Russia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. To put it bluntly, the Kyoto Protocol is subsidizing Putin’s military retrenchment. If supposed oil wealth funding madrassas is a problem, then this certainly is as well.

This is, needless to say, a terrible situation to be in. When environmentalism gets its way, Putin gets his. If Putin’s energy weapon is to be neutralized, Western European governments need to face down the environmental lobbies in their countries, and allow digging for coal and new nuclear build. Political calculus, however, suggests otherwise. And Putin knows this.