by djenkins | Feb 10, 2023 | Animals, Animals, Endangered, Oil and Gas, Pollinator, Uncategorized
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) turns 50 years old this year. The law, which was passed in 1973 by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in Congress (unanimous in the Senate) and signed into law by President Nixon, stands as an enduring testament that we can rise above our lesser instincts and be good stewards of what President Reagan referred to as “this magical planet that God gave us.” From the deliberate and cruel efforts to eradicate wolves and grizzly bears from the Lower 48, to the carelessness that drove the bald eagle, our national symbol, to the brink of extinction, history is full of examples where mankind has been intolerant of wildlife and/or ignorant of its needs. Thanks to the ESA, bald eagle numbers have recovered across the Lower 48, going from a low of 1,000 or less in the 1950s to more than 300,000 today. Wolves and grizzly bears have also rebounded significantly, with healthy, sustainable populations in several states. Unfortunately, too many people fail to recognize the ESA as the conservative law it is. President Reagan once rhetorically asked, “What is a conservative after all, but one who conserves?” Conservative political theorist Russell Kirk went even further, writing in a Baltimore Sun op-ed, “nothing is more conservative than conservation.”Wildlife, from apex predators to the tiniest insects, play an essential role in keeping the earth’s life-sustaining ecology healthy. Bears and wolves, by preying primarily on weak and sick moose, deer, or elk, make the populations of those ungulates healthier. And pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, are essential to our food crops. From my personal experiences, I have come to...
by David Jenkins | Sep 21, 2022 | Oil and Gas, Renewable Energy, Uncategorized
With economy-wide inflation still plaguing us and stretching paychecks thin, we should be paying extra close attention to energy prices. The cost of energy affects the price of almost everything. In the transportation sector, high fuel prices increase the costs of getting products to market or directly to your home. High electric and natural gas bills contribute to inflation not only by raising the cost of doing business, but also by directly increasing the cost of powering your home. In both cases, the higher prices can be attributed largely to the fact that fossil fuels are global commodities with their price set by international markets. That means that events virtually anywhere in the world can increase our energy costs here in the United States. The recent spike in these energy costs are tied directly to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sanctions on Russian energy in response to the invasion—and retaliatory measures by Russia—have tightened oil supplies and greatly increased Europe’s demand for U.S. natural gas. Russia is a major energy producer, and over the years, Europe became heavily dependent on Russia for its oil and natural gas supplies. Europe has finally woken up to the strategic vulnerability posed by being over reliant on Russian energy, and is now turning to the U.S., the world’s leading producer of natural gas (Russia is second) to help wean itself off of Russian natural gas. That has dramatically changed the natural gas market here. For a long time we had to use all of the gas we produce domestically because there was no way to ship it overseas, which kept our natural gas prices...
by David Jenkins | Nov 4, 2021 | Oil and Gas
Prior to drilling on public land, oil and gas companies must agree to completely clean up, plug, and fully restore drilling sites once they finish with them. Essentially, they must promise to clean up their mess as a condition of the drilling privilege. Unfortunately for us taxpayers, it is a promise that these companies break with increasing frequency. A common practice is for a company to declare bankruptcy and go out of business under the name it is operating under, then start back up as a new entity under a different name, thus shedding all of the financial obligations associated with its former identity. Anytime this happens—or these companies find some other way to skirt their clean-up responsibility—in results in “abandoned” or “orphaned” wells and the clean-up burden shifts to the American taxpayer. The oil and gas companies get all the profit, and leave you and me stuck with the bill. How big is that bill? A new report by CRS projects that we could be on the hook for as much as $13.7 billion for the 96,000 “producible and service” oil and gas wells currently on our federal public lands. And that does not even include the more than 3.2 million wells that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates have already been abandoned across our nation. This shirking of responsibility by the oil and gas industry is a chronic problem. The solution, however, is quite simple. Require companies to post reclamation bonds in amounts that are adequate to cover the actual clean-up cost if they break their promise—as is supposedly required by law. That law, 30 U.S.C. §...
by David Jenkins | Jun 10, 2021 | Oil and Gas
Our federal government has historically allowed oil and gas companies to lease America’s public lands across the West for exploration and drilling. One reason for doing this has been to spur economic activity; the other is to generate revenue to the U.S. Treasury on behalf of the landowners…you, me, and the rest of the taxpaying public. In recent years this oil and gas leasing program, which is run by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), has fallen short on both counts. The process is supposed to work like this: Leases are offered at auction for lands that have been nominated by interested parties. The idea being that these interested parties, ostensibly oil and gas companies, will bid against each other for these leases and drive up the price. That only works if the parcels being offered up for lease have a strong potential to produce lots of oil. However, too often that is not the case. One problem is that BLM allows our public lands to be nominated for leasing anonymously, and pretty much accepts any nomination without scrutiny. This has allowed oil companies and other speculators to nominate huge swaths of land for leasing, often in an attempt to hide which parcels they are actually interested in from potential competition. That brings us to another big problem, price. When the competitive bidding process is thwarted, BLM offers leases on the nominated land for a paltry minimum bid of $2 per acre—which is essentially a big government handout. In addition to shortchanging the American taxpayer to the tune of $12.4 billion between 2012, these practices are also shortchanging the...
by djenkins | Jan 29, 2020 | Oil and Gas
The current administration’s rush to offer vast swaths of our public lands to oil and gas companies—irrespective of their potential to actually produce either oil or gas—is both unprecedented and unwise. It comes at the expense of other land uses, traditional values, the Western economy, and multiple use principles that have guided American land management for more than a century. This fire-sale approach to managing our public lands is also fiscally irresponsible, as it encourages speculative and non-competitive leasing that allows our lands to be locked up for as little as $1.50 per acre. Nevada has been hit particularly hard, with more than 2 million acres having already been offered up for leasing. This prompted Senator Cortez Masto (D-NV) recently to introduce legislation, the End Speculative Oil and Gas Leasing Act of 2020 (S. 3202), aimed at reining in these irresponsible leasing practices. If enacted, the bill would restore much needed balance to our federal oil and gas leasing program, and help ensure those lands that are leased provide a fairer return to the American taxpayer. This legislation would prohibit most leasing in areas designated as “low or no potential” for oil and gas development. It would also require any public land put up for lease to have an up-to-date analysis of its oil and gas development potential, and reinforce the government’s duty to manage public lands for multiple use. It should not matter which side of the aisle this common sense legislation originates from, it is long overdue and essential for the responsible stewardship of America’s public lands. Without passage of reforms, like those in S. 3202,...
by djenkins | Oct 1, 2019 | Fuel Efficiency, Oil and Gas, Pollution
The Trump administration’s recent move to revoke California’s ability to set tougher emissions standards for cars sold in the state is not aimed at rolling back Obama policy, it seeks to reverse a waiver that then governor Ronald Reagan secured for the state more than 50 years ago. Governor Reagan was very committed to cleaning up California’s notorious smog problem, which was largely due to auto emissions. Not only did he support stronger pollution limits, in 1967 he established the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and appointed a scientist—an expert on smog—to lead the agency. That same year, Congress was considering the Air Quality Act of 1967. Reagan wanted assurance that any new federal law would not threaten California’s strong tailpipe pollution standards. He worked with his allies in the California congressional delegation to secure a waiver that allowed the state to set its own, more stringent, pollution limits. Shortly thereafter, Reagan signed a state bill into law curbing auto emissions significantly more than was required by the new federal standards. Reagan was very proud of his smog-fighting efforts, and as president, he made them the topic of a 1984 radio address to the nation. Listen Here: https://www.conservativestewards.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Reagan-Radio-Address1.mp3 This Trump administration move to strip California of its longstanding waiver not only threatens more smog, it represents a strike against states’ rights, and it tramples on Reagan’s legacy by seeking to eliminate one of his signature achievements. Revoking the waiver is part of a broader administration rollback of automobile fuel economy standards that is so illogical even auto manufacturers, including Ford, General Motors, Honda, and Toyota, are opposed. They...
