12-22-16 Conquering our naïveté to save capitalism!

Killing Wealth Producing Energy To Kill Capitalism Requires Our Naïveté

Dave Harbour

Courtesy: http://tinyurl.com/hjs5l85

Honest folks can be naive. They assume the best of everyone but, ironically, treacherous ones among us require our naïveté to attack our way of life, as when the United Nations climate change Czar affirmed that the goal of environmental activism is to kill capitalism.

President Obama’s winning campaign slogan has been, “Change we can believe in”, though the word “change” only became fully defined with systematic efforts to 1) increase constituent reliance on democrat largess via expanded welfare and immigration programs, and 2) provide government subsidies and other support for environmental activism leading to an expanded, more lavishly-funded constituency, and 3) engage in systematic emasculation of America’s energy programs which would otherwise provide jobs to free enterprise constituencies and a bedrock of wealth for the economy.

And, when he admitted that his plan was to see the cost of electricity to “necessarily skyrocket”.

The retiring president relied on the good will and naïveté of his citizens to fundamentally change their country in ways they now see to be contrary to their wishes.

The naive among us are still legion. Yesterday, one network’s liberal commentator (Juan Williams) said that, under Obama, American energy production was up and prices were down. A conservative radio host (Rush Limbaugh) yesterday said that the oil industry was not very interested in Arctic and Atlantic outer continental shelf energy resources that the president just locked up this week via executive actions.

Most Americans probably believe the messages flowing from those liberal and conservative, bully pulpits. Truth is: 1) The shale phenomenon producing most of the new oil and gas production has primarily occurred on private and state lands while Obama’s agencies have worked to demean, demonize and delay oil, gas and coal production everywhere and block access to fossil fuel production from federal lands (Referrence 1, 2, 3, 4). 2) The industry is very interested in Arctic OCS and Atlantic OCS resources. Obama’s White House has blocked via its regulatory powers, exploration activity in Alaska’s on- and off-shore Arctic. It has denied the opportunity for companies to invest in Atlantic leases even though the majority of adjacent Atlantic states have asked for leasing — and associated revenue sharing of oil and gas wealth — to occur.

Energy is a complex industry. It is capital intensive, meaning that very few people produce a great deal of wealth upon which the entire economy relies. Other industries like commercial fishing, mining, transportation, manufacturing, agriculture and every sort of service industry job depend on oil and wealth production. Without that wealth, forget national security, education and freedom itself.

We would, therefore, make three recommendations to our citizen, media and industry readers.

First, when someone claims a president is responsible for increased energy production, ask how he did that and where he did that.

Second, if you are a Juan Williams or a Rush Limbaugh, please make a call to knowledgeable organizations like the Alaska Oil and Gas Association in Anchorage, the American Petroleum Institute or Consumer Energy Alliance. They will help you get your facts straight without puffery or any attempt to fake the news.

Third, we urge the fossil industries to spend as much time and investing as much interest in developing relationships with print and broadcast journalists – and commentators – as does the socialist, enviro-activist crowd whose motto seems to be, “the end justifies the means”.

We, here, see otherwise good print and broadcast journalists calling some environmental group every time an energy issue is in the news. But the encyclopedia of factually reliable energy knowledge is vested in the halls of our valuable energy industry.

Energy companies have a lot to lose if they were ever to be caught giving the public inaccurate information. On the other hand, we have time and time again witnessed environmental activists and their political partners intentionally spread inaccurate or incomplete information.

And, as in the case of one of our heroes, Limbaugh, mentioned above, even conservative talk show hosts can get it wrong if they speak before taking the time to check their facts.

So rather than constantly complaining about how ‘biased’ the media is the industry should simply work harder to make sure they are educating new politicians and journalists — and the influential cadre of national and local talk show hosts. Every time an energy issue arises – like this week’s White House action to kill oil and gas wealth production in the Alaskan and East Coast outer continental shelf areas – industry communicators should come out of the woodwork to offer information to influence leaders without waiting for a “news query”… then taking a whole news cycle to develop an “approved response”.

We have tried to show that becoming an entire nation of well-informed energy citizens requires truth seekers from all sectors to redouble efforts toward that worthy goal.

We have no doubt that one key to the continuance of our representative republic is the enhancement of public integrity and wealth-producing fossil energy production — at the expense of political naïveté.

Perhaps the advent of a new federal administration, beginning on January 20, is a good time to refocus on that worthy goal.

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About the Author: wpnorthern

Dave Harbour, publisher of Northern Gas Pipelines, is a former Chairman of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, a Commissioner Emeritus of NARUC, NARUC's Official Representative to IOGCC and Vice Chairman of NARUC's Gas Committee. He served as Gas Committee Chairman of the Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners. He also served as commissioner of the Anchorage Bicentennial Commission and the Anchorage Heritage Land Bank Commission. He earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree: English, at Colorado State University, a Master of Science Degree: Communications-Journalism at Murray State University and graduated from Utility Regulatory School for Commissioners at Michigan State University. He served as a Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs at Alaska Pacific University, taught bank marketing classes at the University of Alaska and was an English teacher at Los Alamos High School. Harbour served in ranks of Private - Captain during a 4-year assignment with the Army in Korea, Idaho, Georgia and Fort Meade and received the Meritorious Service Medal among other commendations. Harbour is also a past Chairman of the Alaska Council on Economic Education, the Alaska Oil & Gas Association Government Affairs Committee, the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, the Export Council of Alaska and the Department of Commerce's District Export Council. He is a past President of the Alaska Press Club, American Bald Eagle Foundation, Consumer Energy Alliance-Alaska and Common Sense for Alaska. Harbour was instrumental in founding the American Bald Eagle Research Institute (UAS), the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, the Downtown Anchorage Business Partnership, and Arctic Power. He also served as CEO of several small Alaska organizations, including the Anchorage Parking Authority and Action Security, Inc. Harbour is also Chairman Emeritus of the Alaska Oil & Gas Congress. Harbour's wife, Nancy, is a professional, performing arts administrator and his three boys, Todd, Benjamin and William work in the fields of environmental management, energy marketing and medicine.