THE AUDACITY OF POPE
Sierra Club President Brings Energy to Convention
Carl Pope comes to the Democratic National Convention with a message: "Energy is the economy, stupid"By David Frey, 8-19-08
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Sierra Club President Carl Pope has one word for Democrats: Energy.
The environmental organization endorsed Sen. Barack Obama early on for president, and Pope will be on hand at the Democratic National Convention in Denver rallying Democrats around key environmental issues. Chief among them will be energy issues.
“If the slogan in 1992 was ‘it’s the economy, stupid,’ this election, the message is ‘energy is the economy, stupid,” Pope said in an interview with NewWest.Net.
Both candidates have been talking up energy. Sen. John McCain has been trumpeting “Drill here. Drill now.” Obama has relaxed his stand on offshore oil drilling. Both have plans that call for a mix of conventional and alternative fuels, plans that don’t sound so different, although McCain stresses drilling and nuclear and Obama stresses renewables.
With soaring gas prices, both candidates are banking on energy issues being critical to voters. But when voters are paying more at the pump, do they care about renewable energy?
“They care about real solutions in kicking our dependence on fossil fuels,” Pope says. “John McCain admitted the other day that increasing offshore drilling will not reduce the price of gas.”
Pope is betting that voters are looking at other ways to reduce the cost of gas besides trying to drill our way out of the problem. Environmentalists hope a surprising Tennessee Republican primary victory might be an encouraging sign. Last week, underdog Phil Roe, the mayor of East Tennessee’s Johnson City, upset Rep. David Davis, a freshman legislator who was expected to sail to an easy victory in a GOP-heavy district.
Roe led a grassroots campaign that tumbled Davis, though, in part painting him as being in the pocket of Big Oil.
“It’s been 42 years since a congressman from Tennessee lost a primary,” Pope says. “The voters are really angry at Big Oil.”
Whoever takes office, Pope says, the next president will have to deal with the consequences of the Bush administration. Partly, that means dealing with an environmental mess, from mountaintop-removal coal mining that has literally leveled parts of West Virginia, to sloppy coalbed methane development in places like New Mexico to Superfund sites that have been left untended around the country.
“That is Bush’s environmental legacy,” Pope says. “It’s going to be a long struggle to restore the landscape that they’ve devastated. Part of it they will never get back.”
Pope dubs the Bush administration “eight years of locusts.” But the legacy isn’t just on the ground. It’s in a government that has foresworn its environmental stewardship, Pope says.
He credits Obama with having a vision for a new economy that embraces innovation to clean up the environment, while McCain leans heavy on drilling rigs.
“I guess that’s what happens to a maverick when you put him in a corral and brand him,” Pope says. “We won’t discuss what else happens to mavericks. But John McCain has a big “O” on his forehead at this point. He found that to win this election he had to become a card-carrying member of the oil and gas wing of the Republican Party.”
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Comments
Glad to see Pope has conceded publicly that the US is an energy society. One caveat...that energy has to be all three reliable, available and reasonably priced. Lack any of those, as we have seen with the latter, and there are consequences that upset people.
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At Pickens' behest, the Texas Legislature changed state law to allow the two residents of an eight-acre parcel of land in Roberts County to vote to establish themselves a a "municipal water district," a government agency with eminent domain powers. And who are those two residents? They are Pickens' wife and the manager of Pickens' nearby ranch.
What does this have to do with Pickens' plan for wind power? You see, Pickens needs pipelines to sell his water, and transmission lines to sell his wind-generated electricity. He will have the same right-of-way problem with his transmission lines as he does with his water pipelines. But never fear; the Texas Legislature has given him another gift. This time, they passed a law that allows renewable projects to piggyback on a water district's eminent domain power. Pickens can use his municipal water district to compel sales of the right of way for his electricity transmission lines.
As for dealing with the environmentalists: Pickens' water plan was attacked by Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, which has assailed all forms of water profiteering and has lobbied to shut down development projects because of water shortages. Just two years ago, in fact, Pope referred (quite accurately) to Pickens as a "con man and a junk bond dealer." But now, after Pickens' wind energy announcement, Pope has proclaimed that "T. Boone Pickens is going to save America," and is flying on Pickens' private plane to join him in media interviews. And, in tandem, since July 9, when Pickens announced his wind energy plan, the attacks on Pickens' water profiteering have been dramatically cut back. The question arises: Is the genocidal wind plan just a cover story so that a $1 billion water cash cow could move forward?
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Right now Russia is thumbing it's nose at the rest of the world as it invades and occupies Georgia. They are very clear that if anyone thwarts them they will shut off their oil supplies, so every one including the US stands helplessly by and watches. If the enviros allowed us to use our own oil resources without more litigation we could do something. Now we can't.
What oil supplies are you referring to? Where are they? Why can't we get at them?
Hal
And I'll ask resectfully, for you to consider the possinbility that this entire energy "crisis" has been used for political ends - people claiming that "Democrats" have blocked us from accessing our own oil reserves. Or that "restrictions to protect the environment" have caused record gasoline prices. What is happening is that people are using this so-called crisis to convince the American people to give them even more of their assets- assets of every type, an dto stop asking questions.
If you have actual evidence that we have proven domestic oil reserves -other than the ANWR- that are offlimits due to restrictions of whatever type, and that we can extract petroleum from those sources and lower our gas prices, or better our security situation, please do that.
Otherwise, please look closely at what you are being told, and ask yourself who stands most to benefit from convincing you that we are sitting on a big pool of oil that we don't extract because of enviro regs, or the actions of "Democrats."
Dwayne
Environmentalists own the Dems and if they want a mosquito protected, somebody better do it, it is up to another species specific group to protect the sage grouse being killed by WNV.
If we were producing all of our own oil needs, russia would not be rattling sabers at us.
If you can find one source, anywhere, that will confirm that the US has domestic reserves of oil, as yet untapped, sufficient to meet the demand- todays and in comng years, of the US energy grid, I will take what you have to say very very seriously.
Other nations rattle sabers at us because we have refused, year after year, to take our consumption of petroleum products seriously.We have never tried seriously to use less oil. They have the oil, we are at a place where some believe that we have to have it, so thye can make fun of us, invade their neighbors, build nuclear bombs, whatever they want. Our petroleum dependence has put us in this situation. The answer is not to turn the nation upside down to get more of it.
If you are a two- pack a day cigarette smoker who cannot quit, and you are sentenced to a couple of years in the penitentiary, then the downside of your addictions will become very clear to you, very quickly. Fellow inmates who are evil and or weaklings, but who have cigarettes, will be able to do with you what they will.
The answer is not to try and get more cigarettes. The answer is to quit smoking. In rehab, nobody tells the patients that the answer to all their problems is that they just don't have enough heroin, or that they should go out and rob their dealers to get more.
But if the leader of the country is a dealer, or works for one, then you might get that very advice.
Dwayne
Here is a link to what may be the biggest oil field ever. Of course there is oil shale in WY, Co, and Utah, that enviros do not want touched. I'm sure you are as aware of the off shore possibilities. I think the whole thing is more an attempt to control the behavior of other people.
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2006/06/20/news/state/doc4497e42f6e8e5430204114.txt
My 1980 Toyota truck is waiting on tie rods that have arrived, but I don't have the cash to pay for them yet, which is a bummer because I really, really, need to get back to cutting firewood because there is not a snowball's chance in H that we can afford to run the furnace all winter. Not that we would want to, anyway.
None of this is all that big of a deal. Nobody is controlling my behavior, other than the fact that, like a lot of other self employed people who live away from cities, there is an understanding that things are going to be a bit tougher.
At least until our heroic energy company leaders are liberated from the tyranny of Democratic enviro extremists, and allowed to practice their genius to extract those giant pools of domestic oil in the service of all of us. Then it'll be paradise, I just know it.
Since my wife and I are a couple of those Hardline Enviros you understand so well tell me why we don't fit into the model you describe.
As a matter of fact I don't know any Hardline Enviros here in Montana that fit your descriptions.
Are you sure you're describing the real people or are you making that stuff up based on what you hear on the Limbaugh/Savage and Fox shows?
Tim, as far as I am concerned your environmental guru Gore sets the tone, with his private jet, limo left running so it is cool when tipper is done shopping, using a years worth of utilities every month. That is hypocrisy. Hal and I are on opposite sides of the issue, but do pretty much the same things to save fuel. What do you do?
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Amid all the hype Pickens’ windmill plan has gotten, the interesting part — the water part — has been mostly ignored, except for an excellent Business Week story by Susan Berfield and a column by Steve Milloy.
Roberts County, Texas, sits atop the Ogallala Aquifer, a huge underground reservoir that stretches all the way to South Dakota. It’s in Roberts County that T. Boone Pickens set aside eight acres from his ranch for drilling deep into the aquifer.
Then he turned this parcel into a town, basically, with only two eligible voters — both of whom were his employees. (This required a change in Texas law in 2007 — a change facilitated no doubt by his $1.2 million in campaign contributions to Texas legislators in 2006).
Then there was an election in this district, in which both voters voted to make this 8-acre municipality a special fresh-water district.
Pickens’ wholly owned government entity now can issue tax-free bonds (meaning he can borrow at a serious discount) and use the power of eminent domain to pressure landowners to sell — or to take their land if they hold out. The eminent domain power is key to building the pipeline that will run this water down to the Dallas area, where Pickens hopes to sell the water. If your land lies in the path of his proposed pipeline, you got a letter explaining that T. Boone wants to buy a stretch of your land — and explaining that he can use eminent domain if you resist. If this begins to sound too cutthroat to the public, Pickens just reminds journalists and politicians that following this water pipeline will be the transmission cables for Pickens’ mammoth wind farm.
Are you really going to side with some greedy holdout ranchers over the future of green power? Sure enough, the Sierra Club is now rallying behind this whole scheme.
Nobody owns the aquifer — that would be too capitalist, of course — but in Texas, whoever has the water beneath his land can pump as much as he wants. The limits on this are usually pumping capacity (which requires money) and ability to sell it (which requires, among other things, pipelines). Pickens has cleared those hurdles, and now he can drain the aquifer faster than anyone ever before, future generations and other water users be damned.
This is why, when presented with some big government program, it’s worthwhile to ask who’s getting rich — because you may find something interesting when you look below the surface.
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PIckens wants to sell billions of gallons of this water. Pope use to have a hissy fit when it was only a mere 100 million dip of the Pickens straw. Now Pope rides on Pickens' jet.
I read that Business Week article a few wks back but did not realize the association w/ his wind farm plans. very concerning. thanks for the info