Posted on 04/21/2002 12:42:30 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
ASHINGTON, April 20 — By voting this week to block drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Senate dealt a setback to the petroleum industry and to President Bush, who had made oil exploration in the refuge a cornerstone of his national energy policy.
But the defeat was hardly total. The oil and gas industries — indeed, the entire energy industry — have won an abundance of appointments and regulatory decisions made by Mr. Bush and his 15-month-old administration. For example, in the House energy bill passed last year, and the Senate bill still being debated, the energy industry stands to gain billions of dollars of tax credits and subsidies.
The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management has begun opening public lands for oil and gas exploration. Last year, four million new acres were added for oil, gas and coal mining, up from 2.6 million acres in 2000, agency data shows.
And environmental groups are complaining that the Environmental Protection Agency is considering changing water pollution rules to make it easier for coal companies to mine for coal by removing whole mountaintops. Currently, the earth carved from mountains is defined as waste and cannot be dumped into streams and rivers. The environmental agency is considering changing the definition in a way that would allow coal companies to discard the mountaintop refuse into the water, defining it as allowable "fill."
One day after the release of the White House's national energy report last May, President Bush visited a Pennsylvania hydropower plant and vowed that his administration would quickly carry out the plan.
"I can assure the American people that mine is an administration that's not interested in gathering dust," Mr. Bush said.
That same day, Mr. Bush signed two executive orders that had been recommended by influential trade groups, the American Petroleum Institute and the American Gas Association. The orders were intended to speed the construction of new energy projects. Environmentalists and some Congressional Democrats criticized the president for what they described as allowing the industry to "hold his pen."
An administration official estimated at the time that 85 of the 105 energy proposals in the national energy policy could take effect without Congressional action.
Already, the administration has moved repeatedly to increase oil and gas production and roll back regulations put in place or strengthened during the Clinton administration.
Critics of the administration's energy policies say the White House is rewarding its campaign supporters.
"We cannot dig, drill and destroy our way to true energy independence," said Sharon Buccino, a senior lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "If the Bush administration truly had the good of us all in mind, they would get serious about fuel economy and efficiency.."
Scott McLellan, deputy White House press secretary, said the administration was determined to keep energy affordable and to protect the environment. "This is the first administration in decades to address the energy needs of every American in a comprehensive way with a comprehensive plan," he said.
Mr. Bush has named at least 30 former energy industry executives, lobbyists and lawyers to influential jobs in his administration. Some of them have helped the government carry out major parts of the energy policy without waiting for Congressional action.
Executives and lobbyists for the nation's energy industry have long argued that the Clinton administration had granted environmental groups far greater access when formulating energy policies. Now, they say, the pendulum has swung the other way, with the Bush administration developing a more balanced position that emphasizes increasing the output of oil, coal and power.
"The people running the United States government are from the energy industry," said Fredrick D. Palmer, executive vice president of external affairs for Peabody Energy, the world's largest coal company. "They understand it and they believe in energy supply."
More than any other part of the energy business, the coal industry seems to have fared best under the Bush administration. The industry provided critical support for Mr. Bush in traditionally Democratic states during the last election, most notably in West Virginia.
More than 50 percent of the nation's electricity is generated by coal-burning plants.
"For eight years, we had an administration that was actively antagonistic to coal and oil," said Rob Long, vice president for governmental affairs for the National Mining Association. "To have an administration that is even agnostic on fossil fuels is an improvement."
The Bush administration and Congressional energy bills plan to give the coal industry $3.37 billion in financing and tax incentives over the next 10 years to develop expensive, experimental technologies to burn coal more cleanly.
Environmentalists argue that clean-coal research is wasteful, citing recent reports by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, that say the existing Clean Coal Technology Program was badly mismanaged.
And regardless of how coal is burned, the industry's critics object to mining practices like mountaintop mining, used mainly in West Virginia. Environmentalists say mountaintop removal has despoiled 1,000 miles of streams.
William B. Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, asserts that the state's water protection laws are the toughest in the country. But local environmentalists say the Bush administration, unlike the Clinton administration, has not rejected state regulations that weaken protection of the water system. Environmental groups are suing the Bush E.P.A. over the question.
The environmentalists say that the Bush E.P.A. is moving to change a rule in the Clean Water Act that would make it easier for coal companies to remove mountaintops. Currently, the earth carved from mountains is defined as waste and cannot be dumped into streams and rivers.
An agency spokesman, Joe Martyak, said no decisions had been made, so it was "premature" to judge the agency's actions.
A clear early victory for the fossil fuel industry came in March 2001, when President Bush decided not to impose new controls on emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas widely believed to cause global warming. He said he feared such limits would endanger economic growth.
The decision reversed his campaign pledge to set mandatory reduction targets for carbon dioxide. Energy lobbyists oppose mandatory regulation of carbon dioxide emissions.
The administration is now pushing ahead with its "Clear Skies" initiative aimed at reducing emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, which are already regulated as pollutants, as well as mercury, which is not. It will not address carbon dioxide emissions. A bill offered by Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont, an independent whose defection from the Republican Party handed control of the Senate to the Democrats, would regulate all four pollutants.
"We like the approach that they have proposed on the three-pollutant strategy," Bill Brier, vice president of communications of the Edison Electric Institute, a power industry lobbying group, said of the White House's position on climate change. "We feel this approach would eliminate 75 percent of pollutants people claim lead to health ailments."
With Mr. Bush's roots in the Texas oil patch, many in the oil industry and the environmental community thought the business would thrive under this administration. The oil industry would certainly benefit from the White House's refusal to mandate reductions in carbon dioxide and its efforts to reshape clean air regulations.
But some goals specific to the industry have been thwarted, among them efforts to widen the acreage for natural gas drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Florida, and to have unilateral sanctions against Iran and Libya lifted.
The industry, however, may benefit from a sizable windfall, thanks to a decision by the Bush administration not to reauthorize taxes that feed the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program. Instead, most of the costs would be shifted from industry to taxpayers. The decision not to seek reauthorization has been challenged by Senate Democrats.
Sometimes I wonder if dummies like this writer have a clue where industry gets its money from. Of course, they get it from consumers, who are all taxpayers. The only thing taxes like the one mention accomplishes is to stifle industry.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.