Michael Swickard
When I was young, I thought if our country was ever defeated, it would take a more powerful nation to do so. Instead, our government is destroying our nation from the inside, while most citizens are so busy doing nothing of consequence that nothing of consequence is being done about these actions against our nation.
The blueprint of our downfall can be seen in the battle between Shell Oil and our Environmental Protection Agency involving billions of barrels of domestic oil. Note: This battle is happening while the price of oil is skyrocketing. Every action by the EPA makes gasoline cost more. The only thing to bring down the price of gas is an increase in our domestic energy production, which the EPA thwarts at every turn.
For the last 40 years our nation has had no energy production policy other than to not use our own national energy resources and to transfer to other countries much our nation’s wealth. A modern nation runs on energy. If a nation has more energy resources than it needs, it prospers. Those nations without adequate energy resources fail.
Having energy available is what powers vibrant societies. A nation’s wealth is its ability to harvest and use energy.
Know this: Our country has adequate ground reserves to not have to buy any foreign oil whatsoever. When the Department of Energy was created 34 years ago, our country used 30 percent foreign oil. The DOE was created to lower that amount. Our country now imports 70 percent of our oil, plus we have to pay for all of the DOE bureaucrats.
Shell oil’s diesel exhaust
While the DOE has not been effective, the EPA has destroyed oil projects. Last week Shell Oil abandoned four years of work and a $2 billion investment in the potentially oil-rich waters in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska. Delay after delay plagued the project. The final deal-buster by the EPA’s environmental appeals board was Shell could not drill 70 miles off shore because of a village of 200 people that could be impacted by the diesel exhaust emitted by an ice-breaker boat.
One boat (yes, one boat) working 70 miles away would so foul the air that the village could not survive. Shell decided the answer would always be no and walked away from the whole project.
At stake was about 27 billion barrels of oil that could make more than a trillion gallons of gasoline. That represents around 7,000 gallons of gasoline for every American household. And the money would stay in our country.
This is not an enemy of our nation smothering us; it is our own government. Consider the difference in keeping this energy wealth in our country or sending it to other nations.
The Sand Lizard
On a much smaller scale is the problem New Mexico confronts with the recent political push to value the habitat of the Sand Lizard over the oil and gas fields. We are told that without keeping that habitat pristine, the lizard might cease to exist. At odds are a lizard that has never been seen by the citizens of New Mexico as a whole, which is in conflict with the manner by which the State of New Mexico funds public education.
There is the notion that without a drastic change in the habitat, the aforementioned lizard will turn up its toes and die, all of them. Therefore, the Sand Lizard is just one oil well away from extinction like the dinosaurs.
The one thing I know is that there is no will on the part of the environmentalists to put it to a vote: Resolved, the value of the oil and gas production in New Mexico is so much more important than a lizard we did not know existed six months ago that we will take no actions either to favor or not the lizard at the expense of the industry that funds our public schools.
I do not wish harm to an insignificant lizard in the oil patch. But if lizard injury is the price of our public schools, I would not hesitate to doom every lizard in the oil patch rather than the New Mexico’s public schools.
Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on KSNM-AM 570 in Las Cruces and throughout the state through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.