Dear Sen. Toomey (and GOP), We can't drill our way to so-called energy independence.

Dear Senator Toomey,

Let me say as respectfully, directly, and candidly as possible that I could not disagree with you more on your strategy as outlined in the following statement from your email below.

"It is for this reason that I have been disappointed by the President's reluctance to a significant expansion of oil exploration and energy production within our own borders, including in the north Alaska coast. More oil production in the United States - both offshore and on land - will create jobs and bring new supplies to market, making us less dependent on the Middle East for our energy security. I will continue working with my Senate colleagues on policies that will bolster domestic oil production."

This is, with all due respect, an idea that has no merit and makes absolutely no sense in the 21st century.

First of all, fossil fuels are fungible resources. There simply are insufficient resources within our borders and offshore in our waters to have any meaningful impact on prices globally(1).

Second and perhaps even more importantly, the risks to our environment as demonstrated most recently by the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster last year proves that this is an industry that cannot be trusted to put safety for its workers and the environment above profit. It is time for us to stop subsidizing this wildly profitable industry and to start helping companies who want to provide us with energy solutions that do not put workers' lives at risk and which do not permanently and irrevocably harm our planet.

Therefore and in closing, unless and until you publicly reverse your position and instead advocate to the president and your colleagues for greater and more meaningful commitments to cleaner and greener energy technologies such as solar, wind, and geothermal, please know that I will advocate against you and your reelection. I will tell all of my family, friends and neighbors that yours is a short-sighted and doomed idea to "drill, baby, drill", and I will use precisely that kind of language to attach you to less serious political figures who share what I consider to be ridiculous and dangerous ideas about energy and our future.

Sincerely,
Greg *********


(1) http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/arctic_national_wildlife_refuge/html/preface.html and http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html


----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Senator Pat Toomey"
To: "greg
Sent: Monday, May 2, 2011 11:24:14 AM
Subject: Reply from U.S. Senator Pat Toomey

May 2, 2011


Dear Mr. **********,

Thank you for contacting me about energy prices. I appreciate hearing from you as I begin my service on behalf of Pennsylvania.

Like you, I am very concerned about the increased cost of gasoline and other fuels. High energy prices hurt the wallets of households across the country and pose a serious threat to our economy. It also is troubling that we continue to import billions of barrels of oil every year from unfriendly and unstable parts of the world. As Administrator Lisa Jackson, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, recently noted, our dependence on foreign oil is the "most important factor" for the increase in gasoline prices. Clearly, we need to advance policies that tackle this problem and help Americans who are concerned about how much they are paying at the pump.

First and foremost, we need to produce significantly more energy here at home and put our country on the right track towards energy independence and affordable fuels. It is for this reason that I have been disappointed by the President's reluctance to a significant expansion of oil exploration and energy production within our own borders, including in the north Alaska coast. More oil production in the United States - both offshore and on land - will create jobs and bring new supplies to market, making us less dependent on the Middle East for our energy security. I will continue working with my Senate colleagues on policies that will bolster domestic oil production.

In addition, you may be interested to know that I have cosponsored an energy bill to protect Pennsylvania jobs and help lower energy prices. The Boutique Fuel Reduction Act of 2011 (S. 511) would reduce the probability of gas price spikes by simplifying our complex gasoline system and curbing "boutique fuel" regulations that can drive up prices at the pump. This bill is currently pending before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Lastly, some have argued that speculation in the oil markets is driving the increase in gasoline prices. In response to such concerns, my office has contacted the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to learn more about the possible impact of energy speculation and about federal efforts to regulate the trade of energy futures. I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues on this issue, as well as on other possible factors that could be driving gasoline prices such as the Federal Reserve's recent efforts to pump an unprecedented amount of money into the economy.

Thank you again for your correspondence. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of assistance.

Sincerely,

Signature

Pat Toomey
U.S. Senator, Pennsylvania

The End of Clean Water in PA?

The New York Times published a disturbing article today, "Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers".

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With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself.

While the existence of the toxic wastes has been reported, thousands of internal documents obtained by The New York Times from the Environmental Protection Agency, state regulators and drillers show that the dangers to the environment and health are greater than previously understood.

The documents reveal that the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle.
---

Pennsylvanians and Americans anywhere near hydrofracking are left to wonder about just how safe their tap water (and well water) really is. Bottled water is no answer as it's a path in all the wrong directions because of the amount of oil used to make the bottles, the health hazards those bottles themselves create, and the problem that billions and billions of them going into landfills create for thousands of years to come.

It's crazy what we tolerate as citizens from our elected officials who are supposed to be working for us. That has proven to be a complete fantasy in the Koch Party, and the Dems are not much different it seems.

Some interesting and disturbing facts about bottled water:
Out of the 50 billion bottles of water being bought each year, 80% end up in a landfill, even though recycling programs exist.
17 million barrels of oil are used in producing bottled water each year.

Bottled water costs 1,000 times more than tap water. Drinking 2 Litres of tap water a day only costs 50 cents per year.

Plastic leaches toxins into the water, which have been linked to health problems such as reproductive issues and cancer.


Here's a challenge for all the pro-business GOP shills out there: Take a drink from one of the water treatment facilities that have no means for testing for radiation and which are located downstream from a sewage plant where fracking water was sent, and then have that water tested.

Bush and Chaney can't lose

No matter how badly things will continue to go in the Middle East and in the world in general as a result of the greed, incredibly piss-poor judgment and cowboy politics that have governed this great country for the last 8 years, the Bush/Chaney cabal can't lose.

What??? Yes, you read it correctly. Whatever happens, they can't lose.

First, they and their supporters will always say they weren't to blame for what I consider to be an absolute, utter and complete failure of their administration. They have become the masters of deception. They have taken every advantage at every turn to create and leverage fear in the minds of what used to be a rational populace. What I think is that their "failure" has been premeditated and warrants impeachment.

They and their supporters will always say ridiculous things like "Better to have fought them over there than over here", "Hussein presented a threat to Americans", and "We need to open up ANWR and the continental shelves to oil and gas production".

As for the whole "Better to have fought them over there", it's as if we all suddenly found ourselves in some bad World War II movie and were in jeopardy of a Normandy-like invasion. I had and still have no argument with removing the Taliban from power. They clearly were involved in the heinous crime of 911. The events of 911, however, were and always will be just that - criminal acts. They should have been viewed through the prism of law enforcement not some Bush-contrived declaration of war by some foreign government or sovereign nation. Just because some idiot like bin Laden "declares war" doesn't mean that war has been declared....unless, of course, such a declaration is exactly what is wanted.

Yes, the combined military forces of free nations under the auspices of the U.N. was the right move with Afghanistan. Everyone in the free world was in support of America on September 11, 2001. Everyone in the free world knew that we were the one country that could lead a global movement to address terrorism. Everyone was behind us starting that movement with the Taliban as it would send a clear signal to any government who harbors and supports terrorists that the world - not just America, but the world - would no longer stand for it.

Where we lost all credibility in the world was when Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld, Powell and all the rest of them conjured up lies in order to justify their indefensible and inconceivable left turn into Iraq.

Bush and his supporters will continue most certainly cling to the lies about what a serious threat Hussein was because of his ties to terrorism and WMD programs. The facts are in. There weren't any of either. (http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/index.htm and http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1435)

And when it comes to oil, they'll keep saying that, in addition to Mideast instability (which they've done nothing but exacerbate), part of the reason oil is so high is because companies are being kept from opening new domestic fields. There's no debate if anyone's willing to look at the facts.

The amount of oil in places like ANWR and the continental shelves will have very little effect on the price of a commodity that is dictated by a global market. All anyone has to do is the math.

According to the CIA (yes, *the* CIA), 2005 estimates of American oil consumption are just over 20million barrels of oil a day (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html). The best estimates of domestic reserves in ANWR and the outer continental shelves (OCS) that are currently off limits are 42 billion barrels and 18 billion barrels, respectively. http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/arctic_national_wildlife_refuge/html/preface.html and http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html

Sounds like a lot of oil until you consider:
1. The technically-recoverable oil is more like 15.6 billion in ANWR, making for a total of ANWR and OCS of about 24 billion barrels. 24 billion (if it were even possible to have it all at once) divided by 20 million barrels consumed per day (making the silly assumption that consumption hasn't changed since 2005 estimates) works out to be 1200 days, or about 3 years and 3 months.
2. It will take years before even the first barrels reach the market and puts at risk eco-systems that can never be replaced.
3. Oil is a fungible. No matter what our paltry reserves are, they aren't enough to drive global markets on way or another.


So, in my opinion, there's one thing we can all be fairly certain about. No matter how unstable things become in the Middle East and around the world, Bush and Chaney can't lose. They will keep doing what they've always done - blaming every and anyone but themselves for failed political leadership - while personally profiting from the mess they've created.

What, after all, could be better for a couple of oil men financially and politically than a growing global demand for oil in the face of an ever-shrinking supply, coupled with political turmoil and social unrest which they helped to create, all of which combines to keep oil prices rising?

Opening ANWR and continental shelves isn't the answer

As filling up our tanks sneaks up on a 3-digit expense, some misguided people think the answer is to do even more domestic drilling. Not only will it not help, it's unnecessary. One reason is that almost 75% - about 33 million acres - of public lands that oil companies already have access to currently lie idle. (http://wilderness.org/OurIssues/Energy/DrillingWilderness.cfm)

What it will do is put some of the most precious, non-renewable environments our species has left into the hands of the very same kinds of people who have already demonstrated a willingness to gladly destroy these last natural jewels for whatever profit they can wring from them.

You don't have to stay silent. You can make your opinions known to the very people who supposedly represent us.
http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/oildrill