Energy Bill Debated As Peak Looms

By Amy Brouillette, 6-13-05

A key priority of President Bush's second-term agenda will be vigorously tested in coming weeks, as the Senate ramps up for what many anticipate will be a heated debate over the long-awaited energy bill beginning Tuesday. In late April, lawmakers in the House passed a form of the bill, a sweeping energy overhaul that aims to address U.S. dependency on foreign oil by increasing domestic energy production.

If passed, the bill, a 700-plus page manifesto, would offer billions in tax breaks to energy companies, loosen the ban against offshore drilling, open the Alaskan wildlife refuge to drilling, and up the storage capacity of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a string of salt caverns stretching along the coasts of Texas and Louisiana that houses domestic oil reserves.

Meanwhile, an old, radical idea is gaining mainstream footing. Once a doomsday scenario touted by fringe geologists and apocalyptic environmentalists, the “peak oil� theory—the idea human oil demand will outpace earth’s supply, sooner than later—is now being kicked around for real by a growing contingency of mainline scientists and energy policy makers. Over the past several years, the term has slowly crept its way into media reports—googling “peak oil� returns over a million hits—and literature. According to a BBC News report last Friday, French scientists have pinpointed the year—2013—when global oil supply will peak, and then decline. Others predict that will happen much sooner—most notably is Princeton University professor Kenneth S. Deffeyes, who in his 2001 book Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage, pinpoints peak oil production will top out this November.

But the most serious and credible peak-oil warnings are now coming from the Association for the Study for Peak Oil, a coalition of geologists and ex-oil industry suits who have jumped ship to become some of the loudest peak-oil proponents. In February, Robert Hirsch, a one-time ARCO CEO and Department of Energy researcher, prepared a report for the Department of Energy predicting global peak oil supply could hit, depending on consumption, sometime in the next 20 years (the very best case scenario).

Whether the realistic prospect of the earth’s oil supply peaking out was ever broached by the team of oil execs who formed Dick Cheney’s energy policy committee remains a tightly guarded administration secret: the vice president has refused to disclose those meetings to the public, and thanks to the U.S. Supreme court, which tossed out a lower court ruling brought by Sierra Club and other groups, will not be required to do so.

So while the inner-workings of this bill remain shrouded in secrecy, what is known is how a new energy strategy will play out in Colorado: the state is already amidst an energy boom, sure to reach a frenzied pace if Bush’s energy legislation passes, as expected and as Bush is demanding, by August. Already this year, oil and gas drilling permits statewide have hit a record high (for a list of current and pending drilling permits in Colorado, see here).

As lawmakers gear up to debate what many recognize as a zero-sum game, the global public is once again ahead of the curve: a worldwide protest this past weekend—in which nude protesters peddled bicycles chanting the motto "Ass Not Gas"—reveals a growing, collective resistance to our fossil-fuel dependent future (see Jenny Shank's report below).

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