A Big Price To Pay For Caribou Playground

David Shagoury, Published in The Bulletin Newspapers, January 14, 2001

Virtually every recession suffered in the modern era was at least partially prompted by energy problems.  Energy is the commodity that is most intricately woven throughout this economy, and consistent with the technological advances that are strewn within the every day lives of Americans, so intrinsic to the expanse of our freedoms.  Yet, even as we are finally in receipt of a substantive energy plan that focuses on responsible means to expand the energy supply produced by this resource rich country after eight years of no energy policy whatsoever (except benefiting from the actions of previous administrations), evangelicals of irrational gloom and self righteous indignation are determined to deny the American people access to their own wealth of energy.

As with other elements of the hard Left in the American body politic, the environmental extremists now predominate the national Democratic Party.  They provide important activist campaign support, and more importantly spend millions of dollars to defeat its more mainstream opponents.  Now they are committed to defeating all of the elements in the President’s proposal to help ensure a more consistent and less expensive supply of energy for the American people, and the quivering Democrat political leadership abandoned even the pretense of bipartisanship by declaring much of the Bush-Cheney Plan D.O.A. in the new Senate.  Why is there such vitriol from the Left when Americans have recently suffered from such high gasoline, home heating and electricity costs?

Of course the question is rhetorical.  Environmentalism began as an important and worthy movement to increase industry accountability, and the general consciousness in the defense of our air, water, land and animal life; its early leaders are certainly owed our praise.  However, as these activists themselves now define environmentalism, it has sadly degenerated into a movement that demands increasing control over the same and reserves the right to condemn those who disagree in McCarthyite terms.  Whereas, in its incipient stage, the primary motive of environmentalism was to protect people, now people seem ancillary as they attempt to impose their own strident and somewhat surreal morality upon the citizenry.

So, to these activists, it really is tertiary if a person’s freedom to travel is being curbed due to an in-balance of supply and demand in our energy sector.  In fact, these descendants of a once noble movement actually prefer that you pay as much as possible so that you can’t drive as frequently as you desire, can’t afford as man flights, and can’t heat or cool your home as desired; if it means that the environment could be even infinitesimally cleaner from your reduced prosperity and freedom.  So now, in a country that has erected a massive and prohibitive regulatory code that has stunted the domestic energy supply even as demand has risen substantially; a plan to access energy in a tiny footprint within a vast and barren Tundra is emotionally demonized.  Some advocates have literally suggested that utilizing this miniscule parcel is morally unacceptable because there has been occasion when caribou have mated in that exact area.  I believe our Democrat House Speaker Tom Finneran would rightly castigate that as reflective of the “loony left”.

Technological innovation deriving to a great extent from industry research and development now makes energy production and use much more environmentally friendly.  We need to pursue a progressive energy policy similar to what the Vice President outlined.  Cleaner coal processes should be a part of addressing our electricity deficiencies; and where would our region be without the Seabrook nuclear facility?  New technologies in nuclear energy production should significantly reduce the amount of waste it creates (France has a fully modernized nuclear industry which now accounts for 80% of its electricity).  Regulatory reform that revitalizes the construction of our energy infrastructure will greatly increase our capacity to deliver energy to the people and businesses so that Americans of modest means in particular will not be so vulnerable to cost spikes due to insufficient means to bring petroleum, gas and electricity to market.  Also, Congress should review the feasibility of encouraging a more unified gasoline formula standard so that energy is more fluid and transferable throughout the country.  Today, if Chicago is low on gasoline supply, sources in other states cannot be used to provide direct supply assistance because there are now so many different gasoline formulas that vary by state.  Of course, voluntary conservation should also be encouraged.

As a high tech, industrial, energy intensive economy in a cold weather climate, which also has many senior citizens on fixed incomes, Massachusetts would benefit more than most other states from a strong energy policy that stabilized costs by increasing capacity and supply.  But of course, our delegation in the House and Senate cling obdurately to their reactionary ideology and oppose outright the Bush-Cheney energy plan.  Do these politicians really believe that the level of economic growth over the last decade could have transpired with energy costs three times what they generally were?  Does someone really need to explain to Senator Kerry how millions more of his constituents will benefit from an expanded domestic oil supply than will travel to the Alaska Tundra and benefit from visiting the marginal portion of its designated for exploration?  Modest scrutiny would expose these politicians in the compassion industry who seemingly are less concerned about a stable and in-expensive supply of usable energy products than with capitulating to a narrow political interest.  Ah, but what does a nation gain, when it angers a few amorous caribou?