Watch for Our Upcoming Feature: On Dave Stieren’s Radio Show (NGP Photo, w/Author) We Unmasked Efforts to Undermine Alaska’s Constitution
Obama Administration’s Drilling Ban (ObamaBan) Could Harm Alaska’s and America’s Economy for Decades to Come!
Forbes Magazine, by Joel Kotkin–another great American. The Obama administration’s ban of offshore drilling could harm the state’s — and the nation’s — economy for decades to come. The most serious collateral damage from the BP spill disaster could very likely be in the far north, along the Alaskan coast. The problem is not a current spill but the Obama administration’s ban on offshore drilling and what many fear may be a broader attempt to close the state from further resource-related development. Such an approach could harm both the local and national economies for decades to come. Locking up of this vast northern state–which is home to some 700,000 people and has more coastline than the rest of "lower 48"combined–would be tantamount to the U.S. throwing away a strategic ace in the hole. Alaska contains many of the strategic assets–oil, zinc, lead, gold and, perhaps most critically,rare earth metals–critical in the increasingly multipolar battle for global prosperity. (More)
ADN. U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline, responding to a motion filed by Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc., said his order last month that blocked drilling doesn’t prevent the seismic studies by Shell that had been approved by the federal government or that were pending approval and planned for this summer. … July’s decision halted development on billions of dollars in leases in the Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea. … Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asked the court to narrow the ruling so that another company, Statoil, which owns 16 Chukchi leases, could start seismic testing roughly 100 miles from the coast. Government attorneys told the judge that Statoil, a global oil company partly owned by the Norwegian government, would likely face "significant economic losses" if it couldn’t proceed with seismic surveying. (More)
Rearranging The Deck Chairs
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On June 28, 2010, Bill Coates, chairman of the Petroleum Equipment Suppliers Association (PESA), and VP of Sales &.jpg "Ken Salazar")
Marketing for Schlumberger, wrote an open letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (NGP Photo) pleading for reconsideration of the deep water drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico. In his guest editorial in the July issue ofWorld Oil, he explained that the 190 member companies of PESA "supply the technology, and everyday services and supplies that are needed to produce oil and gas;” “employ more than 400,000 people, have 200,000 suppliers and support directly or indirectly more than 1 million jobs” in more than 37 states. Incidentally, he explained “nearly every major technological advance that has impacted the oil and gas industry in the past 30 years has originated from within a PESA member company.”Mr. Coates clearly explains the economic impact of this ill considered moratorium, “While the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi will see an immediate impact through the loss of industry jobs, our country will suffer from delayed and lost production of oil and gas as well as the potential movement of critical industry talents to overseas opportunities.***layoffs have already started and many of our companies simply do not have the resources to survive a six-month drilling ban.… American oil and gas production–it’s jobs and tax base in tow–will be compelled to move overseas,… perhaps permanently so.”
Unfortunately, this poignant open letter closes with a whimpering plea begging the Department of the Interior “to reconsider both the scope and purpose of the deep water moratorium” and the groveling expression of willingness “to discuss reasonable alternatives that allow our member companies to put people back to work.”
Sadly, while serving as the Schlumberger President for North America, and before that, GeoMarket Manager of Schlumberger Oilfeld Services Gulf of Mexico Operations, IT and E-Commerce Coordinator for Oilfield Services, and his start in the industry as a Wireline Field Engineer at Houston Offshore, Mr.Coates apparently never had the opportunity to consider the ageless wisdom provided by Samuel Gompers to his fellow workers at the dawn of the American Labor Movement, “negotiation is possible only when the parties proceed from equally strong bargaining positions; otherwise one of the parties is begging.” The bargaining position of PESA is not equal to that of President Obama and his Secretary of the Interior.
A few pages later in the same issue of World Oil, Jim Redden, a contributing editor, characterizes the Deepwater Horizon disaster as “a perfect storm for the anti-drilling crowd”. While stridently criticizing the President of the United States and the media as well as almost everyone else who opposes offshore drilling for oil and gas, and correctly predicting the effect that the deep water drilling moratorium will have on speculation in oil futures and the eventual increase in the cost of gasoline at the pump and fuel oil in the home as well as electricity generated from natural gas rather than coal, Mr. Redden wrings his hands and postures to a receptive audience.
On June 22, 2010, United States District Court Judge Martin L. C. Feldman restrained the secretary of the interior from enforcing the moratorium and shortly thereafter the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to lift the temporary injunction. Unfortunately, the only immediate attention to the litigation was the report of oil and gas industry holdings by all the judges involved in the litigation.
None of the issues raised about the economic impact of the moratorium, the lack of any significant substantial scientific or economic support for the moratorium, and the place of oil and gas from the deep water areas in the Gulf of Mexico were ever tested in the crucible of cross-examination under oath in the courtroom. There was a presidential commission which heard some testimony and issued an opinion and report questioning the wisdom of any moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but the testimony before that commission was never really tested nor did it become the subject of any significant media attention.
According to the decision lifting the moratorium, there will be a trial on the merits someday, but probably after the real issue becomes moot, after the rigs have left our Gulf of Mexico and moved off to Brazil, Africa, China, and the other areas of the world more interested in the revenue from oil and gas production than poorly supported claims of potential damage to natural resources.
The real issue that must be addressed if oil and gas exploration and production is to continue in the territorial waters of the United States is the importance of oil and gas to the national economy and the American way of life. It is time to stop apologizing for American success in the 20th century. It is time to stop listening to prophets of doom whose hidden agenda is the impoverishment of American workers and the reduction of the United States to the kind of toothless tiger that Great Britain became in the years after surviving World War II.
The only forum that permits significant issues to be considered rationally in a way that can be comprehended by the vast majority of the American people is the courtroom. Political debate has lost its content value. Issues are not important. Rhetoric and jingoism have triumphed over rational discourse. Telegenic personalities, no matter how vapid, move voters who have no opportunity to understand much less appreciate the importance of the issues that are being ignored or avoided.
This tragedy is being compounded by the failure of the oil and gas industry–not the super majors–but the independent oil and gas entrepreneurs, the small and midsized firms involved in providing the oil and gas which makes modern civilization possible to take meaningful action to inform and educate the American people and their elected officials by bringing them a message they must hear and understand. The millions of people who make up the work force that provides energy for our economy now face continuing unemployment here in the United States as our elected officials lock up our resources for the enjoyment of the wealthy and the impoverishment of everyone else. Yet, all the industry can do is plead for an opportunity to “discuss reasonable alternatives that allow our member companies to put people back to work.”
The environmental movement became a force in American politics through litigation. Unfortunately since passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1970, followed by a great deal of legislation built upon and derived from that landmark expression of public policy, there have been very few substantive issues raised in the “environmental” litigation brought by organized environmental groups throughout the country. Cases are decided on narrow procedural points and the impact of those decisions on the resources involved in the economy which depends upon them are rarely, if ever, considered.
In the early days of the environmental movement, litigation was conducted to raise public concern over real issues of substance and was based on the fundamental principle of equity jurisprudence–use your own property so as not to injure that which belongs to all the people, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the diverse populations of plants and animals upon which our culture and human civilization depends. The Courts were asked to implement the ultimate rule of equitable enforcement–there shall be no wrong without a remedy.
It is time to go back to the Courts on behalf of responsible oil and gas exploration and production. There is no reason why the industry cannot establish by a fair preponderance of substantial credible scientific evidence that modern methods of oil and gas exploration and production are, or certainly can be, ecologically sophisticated, environmentally responsible, socially relevant, economically rational and, perhaps most importantly, politically acceptable to the American people.
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