Oil

Check out this photo page at the New York Times blog.  It has some amazing (and profoundly disturbing) images from the Gulf Coast.

Will this unimaginable disaster help us kick our addiction to oil?  Probably not.  It’s just another speed bump on the road to oblivion.

“We must plan for a world in which oil prices are likely to be both higher and more volatile and where oil prices have the potential to destabilize economic, political and social activity.”

(Stacy Lynn Baum photo.)

A report this week about a huge new discovery of oil in the Gulf of Mexico contains this little fact:

“BP [is] the biggest oil producer in the U.S. and biggest leaseholder in the Gulf of Mexico…”

That’s right: the largest producer of oil in the country is a foreign oil company.  Go figure. 

A lot of the money we pay for imported oil winds up in the hands of those unfriendly to us: Iran, Islamic extremists, anti-American Vezezuela, Russia…   And the largest producer of our domestic product pumps its profits back to the UK.  It’s as if we don’t care where the money goes, just so long as we get our daily “fix.”

(Grinning Planet photo: An oil shale outcropping in Utah.)

With only days remaining before a new captain takes charge, the Bureau of Land Management this week offered another 1.9 million acres of intermountain wilderness to energy companies– this time for oil shale demonstration projects.  According to Salt Lake City’s 2News,

“The bureau estimates that Western states hold as much as 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from shale.”

The agency is soliciting 640-acre projects in BLM-maintained federal lands in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Act fast and get it grandfathered in?

Grinning Planet claims that oil shale contains about as much energy as a baked potato– about 30 gallons of oil per ton.  That means recovering the BLM’s holy grail would require processing over one trillion tons of earth.  The DOE says the waste can be used for soil stabilization.  I’m so relieved.

Environmental groups, predictably, have threatened to sue.

(Jotor photo.)

“The financial shortfall places a burden on the county which is greater than the amount we receive to mitigate impacts.” –Uintah County Commissionar Mike McKee.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports on bickering between the State of Utah and Uintah County over who should maintain access roads for federal oil and mineral leases. The Fed collects a 12.5% royalty from lessees, with half of that going to the states and counties in which the leases are located. Utah state laws syays these monies are to be “used for the alleviation of social, economic and public impacts.” But Uintah county says what they get doesn’t cover those costs.

At issue: 59% of royalty funds received have been spent on road maintenance. The State argues that 100% of the funds should be used to maintain roads– neglecting other impacts on issues such as “fire suppression, animal control, impact mitigation, health care and recreation.”  County officials say that as more trucks use the roads to access federal lands, there’s not enough money to repair the resulting damage.

It would seem that the root problem is not who should pay for what– it’s that once again, the Fed hasn’t charged corporate users enough to cover the cost of their use.

(Julien Narboux photo: Arches National Park.)

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

“In the face of intense opposition from the National Park Service, members of Congress and a top official from President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management backed down Tuesday from its plan to sell oil and gas leases near national parks and wilderness-quality areas in Utah…”

They’ll remove 22 parcels from the December 19th auction, and sell the remaining leases “under notice that the two Interior Department agencies could alter lease conditions in the future.”

Naturally conservationists were unhappy with the limited rollback, especially since sensitive wilderness areas outside national park areas remain up for sale. Bill Hedden of the Grand Canyon Trust said,

“In essence, the controversial resource management plans that were finalized in October and November extend the Bush administration’s devastating environmental policies for another two decades.”

One wonders how valuable a lease might be that’s sold with terms that say you might never get to drill. This compromise doesn’t sound like it suits anyone.  Why not wait until a new administration has the chance to review policies so the oil companies at least know what they’re getting (and can pay the taxpayers an appropriate price for it)?

Seperately, the Tribune quoted BLM Deputy Director Henri Bisson as saying, “”I won’t leave a legacy of moving too soon because we didn’t give people a chance to think this thing out.”  But that was on a now-postponed plan to euthanize wild horses.

(AP photo.)

Salt Lake City’s 2News reports that leases for drilling rights on 360,000 acres of public lands will be auctioned on December 19, just days before President Bush leaves office.  The locations of the intended leases include several areas that opponents had hoped would be designated as wilderness areas, including Desolation Canyton and Nine Mile Canyon.

The timing sure looks suspicious, though of course BLM denies that it’s trying to push things through before President Obama changes policies.  Several objections have been filed.