Congressman
Doug Lamborn writes in the Thursday paper that the Obama administration is
thwarting petroleum development on public lands leading to gas prices twice as
high as when the president took office. This is simply intellectually
dishonest. Gas prices were unusually low in January 2009 because of the general
economic decline. I bet we all can remember $4.00 a gallon gas during the Bush
years.
Mr. Lamborn
then plumps for the Keystone pipeline as a supposed cure for these energy woes.
The Congressman claims tens of thousands of American jobs would result and
millions of barrels of oil would be refined in the United States. This too is
disingenuous. The pipeline would be a big construction project, some of it
across private land condemned by local governments, with big profits for the
contractors and the handful of speculators who are invested in the Canadian oil
fields. The oil would be refined in Texas for transshipment to the Orient.
Aside from some temporary jobs – not tens of thousands or anything close to it
– there would be no benefit for working Americans and a terrible risk of
contaminating oil spills.
Lamborn goes
so far as to impugn the motives of pipeline opponents, saying they are acting
from outright malice. What malice is there in trying to protect our aquifers
and watersheds? If Mr. Lamborn feels free to malign the Obama administration
for caring more about environmentalist donors than working Americans, it seems
reasonable to return the rough comment by accusing pipeline proponents of being
in the pockets of big oil and big contractors.
We will go
to the polls this November. We will have a choice to make between those like
Mr. Lamborn who cling to the dirty energy economy and those who look to the
future and who want to protect our public lands.
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