What if I asked you whether you supported the idea of oil companies drilling in “pristine wilderness?” What if I continued and added that this wilderness was characterized by brutal climatic conditions that made it nearly inhospitable for man to live in?
Many of you probably have Alaska’s brutal North Slope in mind and probably are torn about whether drilling should be permitted. Leaving the science of drilling and the particular details aside for the moment, how would you feel about the above question if instead of asking about the North Slope, I was asking about … the Moon?
The descriptions are identical. And none of us are ever going to either place. Seriously. My bet, however, would be that if oil companies found a way to get oil from the moon (I know they cannot, but go along with this for a moment), few people would have any problem with it. What, then, is the difference when oil companies get it from remote areas on this planet?
Maybe because the moon isn’t “local?” 😉
The site at ANWR is about the size of Dulles airport.
Nothing will persuade the people who believe that all hydrocarbons should remain in the ground, and that people, in particular United States citizens, should live a much humbler life. Or at least we should send them money.
But what if it were a wilderness some few might visit for recreation?
It depends on who owns the property.
A tougher case is the present battle over gas in the Marcellus Shale, a vast reservoir in Pennsylvania and New York.
My sympathies lie with the owners who own the rights to the gas, and the water, and the rock, and the motherlode of gold under their property.
It happens that many people who were regarded as poor bumpkins by our nomenklatura — a pliable source of votes — suddenly are the accidental beneficiaries of a bonanza.
Many have sold drilling rights, and I have now idea what those arrangements include, but if it were my land (sadly not) I would have probably negotiated some royalty arrangement.
Along comes our Governor Ed Rendell who asserts the right to impose a severance tax of five percent of gross revenues, as if somehow all of that property is his, never mind that he never spent a dime of his own money to buy a share of the property owned by the Marcellus Shale gas rights owners.
His argument is that he needs the money to support his ambitions, and that some people in the state want that money, too. I’ve got a big appetite and I’m hungry, so I’m taking some of your food, and trust me, you will hardly miss it.
Ed opposes drilling in ANWR, and is for cap and trade for the same reason. My guess is that he would support drilling on the moon for the same reason he supports a robust moonshine industry. It’s all about jobs.
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