Shame on you, Ken Salazar!
Once again, the Obama administration
is casting
itself as Star Wars’ Luke Skywalker, former
president George W. Bush as Darth Vader, and the oil and gas
industry as the Evil Empire. This time,
however, Obama’s crusaders for energy independence
have taken the blame-game too far, spewing ugly innuendoes at
the former Bush administration, and presenting its own energy
“strategy” utterly lacking in detail, through the
silver-tongued Ken Salazar, a former U.S. Senator
from Colorado and President Obama’s pick for
Interior secretary.
I’m referring to Salazar’s
infamous “broken process” speech
delivered at a Feb. 10 press briefing, in which the secretary
outlined Obama’s “vision” for reaping
energy from the massive U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS),
and accusing Bush of rigging the next five-year
plan “toward the usual energy players while
renewable energy companies and interests of the American
consumers and taxpayers were overlooked.”
Ken Salazar's
conspiracy
In essence, Salazar is
alleging that the Bush administration and
the “usual” oil companies (whoever they
are) engaged in some kind of conspiracy (whatever that is)
against the American people during Bush’s last days
in office.
“It was a headlong rush of the worst
kind,” Salazar claimed, adding that he and the new
president “believe that we need to be honest about our energy
future. A ‘drill only’ approach -- onshore
or offshore -- is not enough.”
Moreover, Salazar accused the Bush administration
of dragging its feet in implementing rules and regulations
that would serve as a guide to development of offshore
renewable energy resources, such as wind, wave, tidal, and
solar power. These requirements were included in the Energy Policy Act
of 2005, which Salazar helped craft as a member of the Senate and Bush
signed into law on Aug. 8, 2005.
“They left office without putting any
final regulations in place
because it was not their priority, notwithstanding the requirement of
the law,” Salazar said. “For them, it was oil and
gas or nothing.”
Shame on you, Ken! If you had spent any time
researching your own database, you would have learned that the
Bush administration, largely through the U.S. Minerals Management
Service, was actively engaged in pursuing offshore renewables,
beginning just two months after Bush signed the Energy Policy
Act, with establishment of a comprehensive website explaining
MMS’ role in advancing the OCS Renewable Energy
& Alternative Use Program.
Bush's
renewable energy list is long
Actually, the list of
Bush renewable energy
initiatives during his second term is too long to mention
here. However, key actions include the release of the Final
Programmatic Environment Impact Statement for the OCS, plus an
accompanying initiative authorizing MMS to install offshore data
collection and technology testing on existing oil and gas facilities in
federal waters.
It’s also worth the Bush
administration’s role in advancing the Cape Wind
energy project offshore Massachusetts, the first such massive
undertaking in the United States, involving 130 turbines generating
enough power for 400,000 homes in the Nantucket Sound area.
Salazar’s main beef is with
Bush’s 2010-2015 plan for leasing acreage offshore
U.S, in particular the East Coast where very little
acreage has been available for oil drilling, or anything else
for that matter, over the years. He argues that the Bush plan
was published in the Federal Register on Jan. 21, the day
after Obama took office, and that by the time he delivered his
“broken process” speech on Feb. 10, only 45 days
remained for the public to comment on the plan. Therefore, he postponed
action on the entire plan for another
180 mentioning days, in order to “establish
an orderly process that allows us to make wise decisions
...”
Actually, records show that MMS began the public
comment period on the proposed five-year plan in early August,
months before Obama took office, and even extended the mandatory 60-day
comment period a few days because of disruptions “to
people and services” caused by Hurricane Ike.