As I argued back in April (see "Sandy Alberta, the Saudi Arabia Next Door"), America can import its oil from our democratic, market-oriented, environmentally friendly neighbor to the north, or from anti-American crackpots like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and anti-American madmen like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Obama administration appears to be leaning toward the crackpots and madmen.As the Wall Street Journal reports today, the administration has been subjecting to endless delays the efforts by TransCanada Corp. to build a pipeline linking the oil sands of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico refinery complex where that oil would be refined. By approving the pipeline, the United States could create thousands of construction and oil refinery jobs and capture much of the economic value of the oil production in Canada itself-- American companies are big participants in the oil sands boom --in the process.
But President Barack Obama has said publicly that he wants to investigate "how destructive" oil-sands operations might be to the environment before approving the line. The Environmental Protection Agency has urged a more thorough environmental impact study. And the State Department is dragging its feet in signing off on the transnational pipeline, which would cross the Canadian-U.S. border.
Let's set aside the concern that America's job creation numbers remain dismal: only 18,000 net jobs created last month. Let's overlook the arrogance of the United States dictating environmental policy to Canada, a nation with mature democratic institutions and a mature environmental movement. Let's look at the hypocrisy. Canada's heavy oil is very similar to the heavy oil we import from Venezuela. Which country do you think is a better steward of its environment -- Canada, where the nation's strong democratic institutions provide for ample input by environmentalists, or Venezuela, a Third World kleptocracy where a populist thug is running the economy into the ground through short-sighted policies geared to keeping him in power?
Is President Obama concerned about the oil pollution in Lake Maracaibo and the Caribbean? Does he want to investigate "how destructive" Venezuelan policies are to the Amazonian rain forest? Of course not.
Wow, this is just breathtaking. In one policy-debacle trifecta, the Obama administration is harming U.S. energy security, dampening U.S. job creation, and discriminating against an environmentally friendly democracy.
I agree with most of what you're saying here.
ReplyDeleteI do want to take issue with the "jobs numbers" argument however. Temporary construction jobs aren't really the solution. Moreover, the reason we've had such dismal jobs numbers is due - in large part - to the efforts of Republican governors laying off as many state employees as they can get away with.
What is Bizarro is this post by Mr. Bacon.
ReplyDeleteThis is worthy of Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh or the other fringe media howlers.
Much of the time Mr. Bacon makes sense, and one can believe he makes an honest attempt to examine a real world condition. This is so silly, it is not even ‘dangerous.’
Of course the staff at EPA is concerned about pollution in Lake Maracaibo, they just have no jurisdiction over anything that impacts it.
Oil pipe lines are a problem. You may have noted the Exxon-Mobile pipeline that dumped oil into the Yellowstone River? Or the impact of deterioration of the Trans-Alaska pipe line?
Root problem here is that after 60 years of US foreign policy aimed at maintaining the flow of cheap oil at all costs, someone is finally trying to ask the right questions.
If you want to whack at the current President, how about his using oil reserves to hold the price down? The US must face reality. Europe was right all along. Tax the hell out of petroleum so when it runs out US is not dependent upon it.
This is just another part of the grasshopper mentality of living off natural capital until it is gone or rather cost so much it is not available for many of the important uses. It was all burned up to support dysfunctional settlement patterns.
We see this here in PA every day with the Marcellus Shale Gas. “A hundred years supply” say the “People of the Oil and Gas Industry.” And what happens then? And what is the cost in the meantime?
An honest blogger should tell those on the right fringe that to maintain anything like the current civilization everyone is going to have to pay a lot more – especially the rich.
An honest blogger should tell those on the rational right, those in the middle and most of those on the left to take a deep breath and admit to citizens that there is no ‘recovery’ possible with shrinking resources. “Buckle up and prepare to do with less and be smarter with what you have.”
The goal must to real conservation and rational allocation of costs and benefits, not reliance on massive consumption to float a shrinking number of boats.
We do not know much about Canada but it appears that provinces have more autonomy than states
Our impression is that Alberta has been under the control of oil and mining interest for decades. BC to the west put coal off limits due to downstream pollution. If this was in Ontario rather than Alberta there would not be the massive pollution from this project.
Talking about all the good aspects of ‘Canada’ justifying oil sands extraction is like saying West Virginia should be able to remove mountain-tops to get coal because Hawaii is a nice place to vacation.
The claims that the oil sands producers are going to switch to ‘in-place’ extraction may help but there is still the overarching problem of massive consumption to support an unsustainable trajectory. As we know Hydrofracking has only raised the anti and made fouling the ground water and the environment more profitable.
The other thing is that this is yet another example of why blogs are not useful.
They just make people mad and / or reinforce myths and prejudices. They provide a way for the articulate few to vent their spleen and blame ‘someone’ instead of seeking consensus on a rational way forward.
MGM
I think MGM is closer to the truth here than is Mr. Bacon.
ReplyDeleteThere is an interesting comment over on the ‘new’ site from a person from Canada. Seems to back up what MGM says about what would happen in Ontario.
Much more important, unless “the rational right, the middle and most of the left” as MGM calls them wake up, then comments like the one on the other site will be what the majority of voters will respond to. That is what ENOUGH? is all about. I hope EMR gets the third draft done soon.
Observer
MGM views my post as "yet another example of why blogs are not useful."
ReplyDeleteIs there *any* medium in your view that would (a) permit views different from your own, and (b) be useful?
I'm sorry, MGM, it's comments like that that make it seem like you believe you have a monopoly on the truth. You come across as someone who finds dissenting views to be an irritation. Well, welcome to the messy world of democracy and free speech!
I don't share your outlook at all. I *know* I don't have a monopoly on the truth. I am happy to put my ideas into the public domain and have people of diverse viewpoints subject them to withering scrutiny. Sometimes I learn something. Sometimes I backtrack. Sometimes I learn that the opposing arguments are so weak I'm pretty sure I'm right. Whatever the final result, I'm better off.
As for the substance of your counterpoint, sure, oil pipelines pose environmental problems. Yes, there should be regulation to protect the public safety and the environment. But windmills have problems, too. (Just ask the birds and bats.) So do solar farms. So does every energy alternative. I'm all in favor of putting all forms of energy on a level playing field -- no subsidies, no special tax breaks. I'd go even farther and say that we should impose a carbon tax to offset the externalities unique to fossil fuels. (We can argue over how big those externalities are, but I accept the principle.)
But all I hear from some (not all) people in the environmental community is no, no, no, no. It's true enough that we are running out of fossil fuels. But here's the funny thing. We keep finding more of them.... The Marcellus Shale revolution is turning energy economics on its head. I have long assumed that we could find new energy sources but that each new discovery would be more expensive to exploit. I never figured on Marcellus Shale.
Now, I'm sure there are legitimate environmental concerns associated with the extraction of shale gas, and I think that reasonable regulations should be imposed to mitigate those dangers... even if it means driving up production costs. But I have no patience with those who offer objections to every new energy source in the U.S. and Canada while turning an eye to the environmental damage created by fossil fuel production in other countries. They belong to the "if I can't see it, it doesn't count" school of thought. Somehow, pollution in developing countries isn't as deserving of censor as pollution in the U.S./Canada.
Me thinks you protest too much, Mr. Bacon.
ReplyDeleteI am sure some smart person will come up with a way to use existing and future electronic media to provide a useful fora for discussion of, and arrival at consensus on strategies to transform the trajectory of human society from the current unsustainable one to a sustainable path.
We hope the fora and the consensus happens before it is too late.
I looked again at your post and see not ‘ideas’ except roll over and let the big energy companies do what they have done in the past. That and bashing the president for not paving the way.
I looked over my comments and did not find any suggestion that the oil sands or the Marcellus Shale never be used, only that all resources be used in a prudent manner and the costs be fairly allocated.
Lets discuss the root problem we identified above, not some herky-jerky patch that may buy a few years but dig the hole deeper.
Perhaps you should take a deep breath and come to grips with the fact that a few quick fixes will not solve any known problem and the longer human stay on the current path the less likely it will be able to recover.
I know several well informed citizens of Canada and their views of the situation in Canada are much more in tune with your strident critic at the new site than with your portrayal of the situation.
MGM
1) we have plenty of stuff to build. While a construction site or project is temporary, construction jobs need not be. However, Poole that work such jobs tienda to be migratory, as are many military personnel. Such people are often effectively disenfranchised by more stationary " locals" and therefore they pay more than fairly allocated costs.
ReplyDelete2) Oil pipelines are a problem, because bad things happen? By that argument, so are the local wineries, according to a recent letter to the editor. We might add swimming pools, farms, and anything else we can think of. Absent quantification, this argument carries little weight.
3) conserve and do with less is the petrified dish argument, which only means that resources lie unused ( conserved) and shortages happen sooner. Unless the root cause is identified and corrected, it will correct itself by war and famine. When that end game is resolved, we will have fewer people consuming more, not more people consuming less. The present trend in wealth disparity presages more of the same.
Arguments for consuming less are going to meet with resistance. Mobs in Greece and the middle east are not clamoring for less of anything.
4) we hear a lot about fair allocation of costs but little about how that should be achieved. One way is much stronger and many more property rights, so that costs and benefits may be more fairly traded.
Strategic oil reserve is the petrified dish problem in action. We "saved" some oil, so we could use it later, when it costs more, and we get less benefit.
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, your comparisons between Venezuela and Canada are woefully lacking in perspective. American companies have been drilling and producing oil in Venezuela since the 1920s. Americans wrote Venezuela's oil laws in 1922 when Juan Vicente Gomez was in charge and the big lake strike happened. Americans and Dutch oil firms ruled the roost there for a half a century until oil was nationalized in 1976. That was a long time before Hugo CHavez was on the scene. Venezuela is still a critically important oil producer for the U.S. despite political upheaval.
This may be news to you but global oil firms are ALWAYS dealing with uncertain political situations. Ain't nothing new. As for Canada, they are already our No. 1 trading partner.
Before you start another anti-Obama tirade you might be wise to do at least a little research. Just a tip.
Peter Galuszka
Jim,
ReplyDeleteYour comparisons between Venezuela and Canada are pointless. Americans wrote Venezuela's oil laws whent he big lake strike hhappened in 1922. They ruled the roost there until Venezuela nationalized oil in 1976 - a long time before Chavez was on the scene.
PG
Mr. Gooze:
ReplyDeleteJim gets his news from Mr. Murdoch’s WSJ.
He knows the EPA and Obama are in cahoots because Rupert’s boys hacked their phones.
Business As Usual
Agree. US have been shaping world's oil distribution for decades, but finding solution of American oil shortages in Canada is absurd. Canadian oil is not there for US to take as well as the Venezuelan, Libyan or Iraqi. Oil wars in these countries are harming the environment more than their "anti-American" leadership ever would.
ReplyDelete