Posted on 12/05/2003 6:42:00 AM PST by FlyLow
Five months after President Bush issued an executive order to allow oil and gas drilling in some Western federal lands, NBC found it suddenly newsworthy -- just as soon as they located a single Republican guy in Montana upset about it. If it passes as written, it could open up some pristine Rocky Mountain areas to oil and gas drilling, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw warned before noting how NBCs Jim Avila found that has stunned even some of the Presidents supporters in those areas. Avila showcased a lifetime Republican, one of the Westerners who helped George Bush win all but five Western states who is now changing parties because of Bush energy policies.
Brokaw introduced the December 3 story, as transcribed by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth: The administrations energy bill, which is now bottled up in Congress, is another flashpoint between environmentalists and the Presidents supporters. If it passes as written, it could open up some pristine Rocky Mountain areas to oil and gas drilling. As NBCs Jim Avila reports tonight, that has stunned even some of the Presidents supporters in those areas.
Avila found a disillusioned Republican: Raw, untamed Montana. The Rocky Mountain front where flat plains crash into Americas highest peaks. Not a national park, no distinct boundaries. Just harsh land and wildlife from grizzlies to wolves, unchained since Lewis and Clark first saw it 200 years ago. Carl Rappold, rancher: This is wild country here. Avila: The Rappolds homesteaded here a generation later, now fighting to protect their Montana homeland from natural gas drilling. Energy companies want six to eight wells along the front. Rappold: Im really mad about it. We need some of these places left just the way they are, just the way nature created them. Avila: Rappold is a lifetime Republican, one of the Westerners who helped George Bush win all but five Western states. Rappold: My family has always voted Republican. Avila: Now changing parties because of Bush energy policies. Rappold: I think its going to have a big impact on the presidential election. Avila: In fact, the August presidential order lifting environmental restrictions against drilling in seven Western areas, including the Rocky Mountain Front, has angered and now linked three very different interest groups: environmentalists, ranchers, and hunters. Bill Orcello, hunter: The first environmentalists, as they say, were hunters. Avila: Bill Orcello and Eric Grove, two of 47 million hunters in the United States, roaming the Front for pheasants. Eric Grove, hunter: If youre going to support hunters, then you need to support wildlife habitat. Avila: The Bush administration and energy companies argue the nation can have its gas and wildlife, too, claiming wells cause no harm to wildlife. And unlike this Canadian gas field just across the border, will use new technology to leave just a small footprint. Gail Abercrombie, Montana Petroleum Association: Energy production and wildlife habitat can coexist. There are protections in place in the regulatory framework to protect the wildlife habitat. Energy production can be done so that the wildlife is protected. Avila: But for Carl Rappold, wilderness, by definition, is no longer wilderness when altered by roads, drills and wells. Rappold: If were this short of gas that we have to ruin every last piece of ground, its time we found a new source of energy. Avila concluded: The words of a former Republican now voting with environmentalists because he feels the land is threatened. Jim Avila, NBC News, Chicago.
I wouldn't go there, if I were you, but of course I am not. I don't have much of an opinion on the energy bill one way or the other as I am not very well read on the subject.
However, I can tell you there have been plenty of Bush's domestic policies and agenda that I am in total opposition to.
Will it drive me to "switch parties"? No, as I re-registered, "non-party aligned" in 1999 after the feckless GOP controlled Senate decided as they could not get the votes to acquit they didn't need to have a "real" impeachment trial.
I have continued to vote GOP since as it is not safe to have the Democrats in control, from a national security viewpoint, but I am definitely not well pleased in the main with GW's domestic agenda and spending in a pandering fashion to capture the votes of the wishy/washy middle and left of center folks.
I know there are plenty of folks that feel the same way as I do on this forum. Granted most here are died in the whole, he (GW) can do anything, and we will worship the ground he walks on, bots, but there really are a growing number of conservatives who aren't all that enamored by his policies here at home.
You would advocate the murder of innocent birds so that you can sit in a heated house with hot water?
Yet, of all the FReeper detractors we've run into -- the ones who, like Rush, pass judgment while knowing nothing, apparently because some "conservative" might accuse them of being an enviro-whacko if they give a hint of thinking windpower's anything but totally stupid -- the vast majority have no intention of weighing the facts, and are blissfully happy to keep on p*ssing into the wind.
So, if I was mistaken to lump you into that category which we have come to refer to as "FRetarded," I sincerely apologize.
Here are some sites where you can read up on wind energy:
I live in the "pristine" Nevada desert and I don't see anyone getting their hackles up about dumping nuke waste here.
If it weren't for the 'foolishly spent billions' of the manned space program, you would not now have the computer on which you bitch.
That's not the point of the post. The point of the posting is the blatant bias in the reporting. Like the original poster asked, when will NBC feature some dude POed at the Democrats?
OH NO, you didn't buy into the spinoff thing did you? I've got a swamp you might be interested in buying also.
</sarcasm>
Worked in the program, Sonny Jim. Knew a couple of guys who could speak digital better than english and that was back when you had to do it with actual switches. Between the two of us, only one knows what he's talking about. The other is just tattooed white trash.
Natural gas should be used for the hydrocarbon value/products not burned to make heat for a structure....
Draw a circle of 100 miles around Rifle Colorado and lots of potential there in the form of shale... However the feds and their increasing requirements drove the experimenting companies out some 15 years ago....
Always a pleasure to discuss energy with a Freeper that knows something about energy. I think the problem with natural gas is the sudden increase in demand caused by dozens and dozens of gas fired power plants. I'd much rather see gas used for home heat. The thing about home heat is that passive solar design cuts 90 percent of the energy needed and doesn't really cost much at all.
They are expecting large scale offshore wind plants to sell power for 2 cents per kwhr wholesale and I don't knot if that is with any subsidy. These will be 500 to 1000 mw plants made up of 3-5 mw turbines. It's hard to even dream up a negative impact since there aren't any birds out there and they are miles from shore. Ironically the window of opportunity for installation is small because it's so windy out there.
We certainly have plenty of coal, shale and oil sands on this continent. They are a great to have as we improve renewable technology and, dare I day it, conservation.
I'm sorry to hear that because it's a pointless waste of money.
Seems like there must be a whole lot of us white trash types out here. Because, legend has it that the digital computer was invented in the basement of the Physics Building on the campus of Iowa State University, sometime around 1940.
I seem to recall that the transistor was invented a few years later at Bell Labs.
So, by all means, please enlighten all us poor white trash types as to just how the billions spent on the manned space program are responsible for the PCs on which we bitch. And, while you're at it, clue us in on exactly why the contributions of the space program to our bitchin' machines would never have been accomplished if left to the private sector.
Sometimes, the only real difference between a liberal and a conservative is the particular flavor of his unconstitutional special interest.
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