MIKE CHIROPOLOS
The Basics
- Name: MIKE CHIROPOLOS
MIKE CHIROPOLOS’s Recent Comments
Click here to view comment in original post
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
For eight long years we had the Bush-Cheney National Energy Plan, which was an industry wish list prettied up to look like an actual policy. It wasn’t. It was about turning Big Oil loose and letting them run wild on public land and resources, locking up untold expanses of public lands in ten-year leases and getting the hell out of the way wherever and whenever industry wanted to drill.
The Bush-Cheney energy approach paid lip service to renewables and efficiency, but the proof was in the pudding – the funding, the policies, the appointments, the numbers. Their energy policy on-the-ground in the Rockies was all about maximizing new leasing and development and giving more production the benefit of every doubt when energy came up against any other value. The watchwords were expediting, streamlining, fast-tracking and maximizing.
The result was fragmented habitat, declining wildlife populations, dozens more at-risk species, contaminated groundwater supplies, dirty air, and – yeah, loads of greenhouse gas emissions from flaring, methane leaks, compressor stations, and all the other industrial processes it takes to get gas out of the ground to market. “Clean-burning natural gas?” Hardly. Nobody who’s been to the gas patch buys that myth for a minute and the life-cycle carbon impacts don’t back it up either. Fact is, natural gas might burn cleaner than coal at the power plant, but it’s another dirty fuel in the overall scheme of things.
A bunch of groups and a whole lot of individuals didn’t like what they saw happening to the West, and they stood up to the Bush-Cheney policies. Bad as those eight years were, they could have been far worse. Thank our lucky stars that we’re a nation of laws, checks and balances, and multiple levels of government.
Congress passed bills to protect magnificent public landscapes like the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana, the Wyoming Range, and Valle Vidal in New Mexico. Not because of the Sierra Club, but because broad-based citizens’ coalitions supported protection of these landscapes for economic reasons, hunting and fishing opportunities, quality of life. Coalitions dominated by sportsmens’ groups, local business, hunters and outfitters, as well as green groups.
Courts and appeals boards issued decisions calling for better pre-leasing analysis of coalbed methane drilling, protecting black-footed ferret recovery sites in Colorado and Utah, looking twice before leasing Utah’s Redrock Wilderness, considering the ecological values of the Sonoran Desert grasslands in New Mexico’s Otero Mesa -- to name a few.
It wasn’t just at the federal level that people made a difference. This was a regular sagebrush rebellion – except this time around the people wanted more protection for public lands, water quality, clean air and public health. Colorado started out by regulating its way around a Congressional Clean Water Act exemption for the oil and gas industry in the 2005 Energy Policy Act; and hit its stride by passing a few new laws that culminated in a comprehensive re-write of its oil and gas regulations to increase protections for the environment, wildlife habitat, and public health. New Mexico went to bat for its headwaters streams. A local soil conservation district in Montana took action to prevent oil and gas operations from trashing water quality and soil productivity. County Commissions and municipalities across the gas patch toughened codes to ensure that the boom wouldn’t trash their long-term prospects for sustainable economies that balance some resource extraction with an emphasis on renewable resources like scenery, wildlife, clean air and water.
Will things change overnight with Obama in office and Salazar running Interior? Heck, no. Oil and gas development is a fact of life across the Rockies with millions of acres under lease and tens of thousands of wells. Will there be more balance? Yes, but be aware: for future decisions the pendelum needs to swing much farther towards conservation than would have been necessary if we were starting with a clean slate, because much of the damage of the Bush years can't be undone and is locked in for decades. Now, that urgently needed restoration of balanced policies is threatened by the gas industry’s propaganda campaign on climate legislation.
I couldn’t name a single conservationist opposed to all drilling. Our vision is modest: protect our best public lands from drilling, require industry to “do it right” where drilling is appropriate, and focus on a true New Energy Economy based on conservation, efficiency and renewables.
Does natural gas have a place in national energy and climate policy as a bridge fuel? Yes. Should we give away the store on the Big Oil’s calls for unlimited, unbridled “access” to federal lands and private property, and its desire for even more exemptions from the environmental laws that apply to every other business in the country? Hell, no.
Don’t sell the Rockies down the river, or other gas basins in the country. Next time you hear the gas industry spouting propaganda about how green it is, ask them to explain the Farmington Field in the San Juan Basin. That’s just one of the worst examples of what dirty gas looks like on the ground. Even when the industry makes a genuine effort to reduce impacts and get along with neighbors, which is much of the time for many companies, it’s a dirty industrial operation.
We should be phasing natural gas out of our energy mix, not subsidizing and granting new incentives left and right, across the board. Gas is not the answer – neither for the environment, nor for the climate.
On Should greens ally with natural gas against coal? posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago 16 ResponsesClick here to view comment in original post
What's missing
It's a good plan in many ways. But the junior Senator from New York missed one of the biggest energy issues in the Rocky Mountain West: policies imposed by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. to sacrifice many of our most majestic public lands to feed the nation's fossil fuel addiction.
This is a big issue in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. Governor Bill Richardson gets it, and he has been in the vanguard of a rising bi-partisan tide of Westerners determined to allow energy development on the West's terms, for the West's best interests. If Hilary hopes to win votes in the Rockies, she needs to commit to balanced energy policies that reduce demand for natural gas, strengthen enforcement of public lands laws that the Bush administration has violated or ignored, and commit to a package of policy reforms to protect wildlife habitat, water supplies, clean air, and the private property of working farm and ranch families who currently have no say when their "split estate" lands are leased for mineral development.
Hunters, anglers and other sportsmen are emerging as a key swing voting bloc across the region. They care about deer and elk habitat, trout streams, and habitat protection. Any candidate who hopes to win their votes needs to stand tall on these concerns.
Hilary also needs to follow the lead of Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, another Westerner leading the way to a New Energy Economy. Premature oil shale development in northwest Colorado is a disaster waiting to happen if the boosters from Wallace Stegner's "Land of Gilpin" have their way. The federal government needs to go slow on oil shale, and make sure industry proves they can do it right without wreaking havoc on our environment and quality of life. Colorado's people and leaders have it right across the political spectrum. Hilary's plan needs to encompass oil shale, which would require the construction of new coal plants just to power the mines. She should also address proposals to develop tar sands in Utah, to avoid the ongoing environmental catostrophe in Canada's vast tar sands fields.
MICHAEL LIND
On Some reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of Hillary's new proposal posted 1 year, 12 months ago 9 ResponsesClick here to view comment in original post
Open letter to Ron Paul
Dear Dr. Paul,
I'll take you at your word. All land should be private (that was the Editor summarizing your beliefs and I couldn't find that on your campaign website, so maybe Amanda didn't quite get it right), you enjoy visting Telluride and Ouray in Colorado, you like to bicycle, and you believe private litigation is the answer to polluted air.
What's your position on the call to "Keep public lands in public hands"? Are you aware Telluride and Ouray are surrounded by public lands? That the Uncompahgre, Gunnison and San Juan National Forests are all that keeps rich Texans and other trophy homers from building on every last acre in these scenic locales? Seriously, next time you visit, drop by the county courthouse and look at the land ownership records. You'll find that the private lands all have houses up to the forest boundaries. And ownership is trending to absentee and out-of-state. How does that affect a community?
What if the private land owners all subdivided, and the subdivisions were full of roads and houses? What about the wildlife, Ron? Does your circle of friends and advisers include a wildlife biologist, or a public lands hunter or angler, or a birder? Would you tell them that in your America we could all sue each other if we didn't like how our neighbors managed their lands for wildlife? And not to worry, we could hunt and fish and hike and camp and bird or off-road to our hearts' content -- so long as we can afford to pay private property owners for the privilege?
Should I, as a private property owner on a creek path through town used by thousands of my fellow citizens every day, have the right to deny access because I think the government has no business owning the propery behind my house as well as the front? Am I entitled to charge a toll and establish conditions of use?
Is your America consistent with the founders' vision? What about the kids, Ron? What about the kids?
In the Declaration of Independence, is the self-evident truth that "all men are created equal" dependent on each citizen's ability to sue to enforce that right? Does the inalienable right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" extend beyond one's propery boundary? Do you march to a beat of a different declaration that says something about the rich inheriting the Republic?
At best, you think for yourself and speak your mind, a bit like Senator Mike Gravel. You're less predictable and pandering than Mitt or Hilary, and I like that. But your vision for America sounds like the Czar's Russia with the industrial blight of an English coal town in the 19th century. We can do better. Next.
Yours truly,
On An interview with Ron Paul about his presidential platform on energy and the environment posted 2 years ago 55 Responses