One of the favorite targets of Republicans is the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s not just the Agency; it’s the concept of protecting the environment. Their mantra has become “drill, baby, drill,” as they want to extract every possible drop of petroleum out of the ground and use it as America’s and the world’s primary energy source.

But as Time Magazine of April 16, 2012 reports, what conservatives want to drill is not “your father’s oil.” No longer is it the relatively easy to reach oil from Pennsylvania in the U.S. or Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. It’s a conglomerate of “sandy, goopy oil” in Alberta, Canada, to oil located 7,000 feet below the ocean floor in Brazil to deep water oil in the Gulf of Mexico similar to what British Petroleum’s “Deepwater Horizon” was pumping when it had a disastrous explosion in April, 2010, to petroleum deep below the Arctic Ocean.

Despite efforts to conserve on petroleum, demand is still rising — set to grow 800,000 barrels a day this year despite a still sluggish global economy. Much of this has to do with emerging economies that are primarily concerned about production and transportation rather than global warming or a clean environment. The two largest consumers of increasing amounts of petroleum are China and India. The two countries are battling one another to become the world’s largest economy, including being the largest producers of manufactured goods in the world. Rickshaws and bicycles, which congested the streets not too long ago, were first replaced by relatively small automobiles and now by 18-wheel trucks as large as any in the United States or Europe.

The theories of conservation and protecting the world’s environment sometimes make sense in economies that are already well-developed. However, even in the United States there are millions of people, particularly Republicans, who either don’t believe in global warming or who have political and financial reasons to deny its existence. If the United States cannot fashion an energy policy based on reducing demand and moving toward cleaner sources of energy, then it is nearly an impossible task to convince other countries to do so.

The Deepwater Horizon was a disaster that primarily impacted the United States. For many or most nations to come to recognize the possible devastation that is happening to the world,  we may have to have a much larger occurrence. The most likely is an increase in the melting of the glaciers in both the Arctic and Antarctica, with a consequent significant rise in ocean levels. The consequences of this phenomenon is already being felt in islands scattered around the world. Scientists predict that it won’t be long until before water levels along the coasts of industrialized nations rise to a level where certain areas become uninhabitable and others simply need to be abandoned and relocated.

So kudos to Time for presenting a cover story that does not simply state that the world has the means of producing considerably more oil for burgeoning economies. We’re a long way from when John Rockefeller started the mass extraction of oil from Pennsylvania in 1870. In the 21st Century, when it comes to increasing the world’s supply of useable oil, it’s important that we remember the old adage from TV’s Hill Street Blues: Be careful out there.”

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The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline extension would transport crude oil from the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma, and then to the U.S. Gulf Coast for transport. The Keystone extension has faced criticism from environmentalists and some members of Congress. In 2010, the U.S. Department of State extended the deadline for federal agencies to decide if the pipeline is in the national interest. In the end, it will be President Obama’s who makes that decision.

A video primer on the Alberta Tar Sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline

It is August 25, the sixth day of demonstrations against the Keystone XL taking place in front of the White House. Before the demonstrations are over, organizers estimate at least 1000 will be arrested in one of the biggest environmental actions its kind in decades. The stakes are high for those who live along the pipeline’s proposed route, as well as for the entire planet. According to environment activist Bill McKibben, the proposed pipeline, could be game over for climate change. The pipeline extension would insure an expansion of the extraction and processing of the thick oil, thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the pipeline would raise the risk of spills and damage to aquifers and waterways along its path.

The Koch brothers. who have bankrolled the Tea Party movement, climate change skepticism and right-wing think tanks, such as the Cato Institute, are involved in the Alberta Tar Sands oil industry, and stand to gain financially if the pipeline is approved.

A map of the existing and proposed Keystone pipelines

Eminent research scientists oppose the Keystone Extension.

The following is a letter from twenty climate change scientists urging President Obama to stop the Keystone extension. They work at top institutions such as Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Cornell, University of Chicago, the Woods Hole Research Center, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and others.

President Obama:

We are researchers at work on the science of climate change and allied fields. We are writing to add our voices to the indigenous leaders, religious leaders, and environmentalists calling on you to block the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada’s tar sands.

The tar sands are a huge pool of carbon, but one that does not make sense to exploit. It takes a lot of energy to extract and refine this resource into useable fuel, and the mining is environmentally destructive. Adding this on top of conventional fossil fuels will leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control.  It makes no sense to build a pipeline system that would practically guarantee extensive exploitation of this resource.

When other huge oil fields or coal mines were opened in the past, we knew much less about the damage that the carbon they contained would do to the Earth’s climate system and to its oceans. Now that we do know, it’s imperative that we move quickly to alternate forms of energy—and that we leave the tar sands in the ground. We hope those so inclined will join protests scheduled for August and described at tarsandsaction.org.

If the pipeline is to be built, you as president have to declare that it is “in the national interest.” As scientists, speaking for ourselves and not for any of our institutions, we can say categorically that it’s not only not in the national interest, it’s also not in the planet’s best interest.

(To see the names of the scientists who signed this letter, click here).

map:solveclimatenews.com

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Many want to believe that recent uprisings that began in Tunisia are essentially about human rights. As discord cascaded into Egypt and then to various points north, south, east, and west including Tehran, Iran to Madison, Wisconsin, some might want to believe that it was a redux of the Prague Spring of 1968. However, around the globe, economic gain is fundamental to current upheaval.  As Madonna Gauding described so well in her Occasional Planet article “Why Wisconsin is ground zero of the billionaires’ assault on America,” understanding greed is central to explaining political discord.

Why is it that the United States and other western powers maintained their support for Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak for so long?  It certainly was not because of his altruism or commitment to the well-being of the people of Egypt. It was largely due to two factors.  First, Egypt was largely benign in the Arab tension with Israel as a result of the Camp David Accords negotiated by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. Second, the viability of the 102-mile long Suez Canal, connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, was essential to the free flow of oil from the Middle East.

For millennia, there have been conflicts among the people in the Middle East. But one of the defining moments for the region came thousands of miles away in Western Pennsylvania in 1859.  It was in that year that Edwin Drake drilled the first oil well.

It was another 52 years before oil was extracted in the Middle East.  The first discovery of petroleum in the Middle East was in Iran.  By 1911, a British concern, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) began producing oil in Iran.

But as important as the presence of oil is to the Middle East, so are the transportation routes for shipping crude oil to refineries and 30 markets in Europe, the United States, Japan, China, and a host of other countries.

This is in part why what has recently occurred to Egypt is of such important economic importance to the United States and others.  Yes, the U.S. has a certain measure of concern about human rights in Egypt, and it certainly wants to maintain a geopolitical alignment in which Israel is as safe as it can be. But oil and money are central to the U.S.’s interest in Egypt.

When the Suez Canal opened in 1869, it provided the link necessary for ships to traverse directly from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean without circumnavigating virtually all of Africa.  Fifty years later when oil became a major export of the Middle East, and when the industrialized world had developed an insatiable desire for petroleum, the Suez Canal took on much greater importance.  Were it to be shut down, seriously damaged, or even destroyed, it would mean that tankers shipping all Persian Gulf oil would have to add over 12,000 miles to the journey to Europe or North America.

In the Western Hemisphere, the Panama Canal was a political football for nearly a century, involving Colombia, Panama, and the United States.  At noon on December 31, 1999, the United States turned full control of the Canal over to Panama.  Like the Suez Canal, its significance is such that major powers would be unlikely to allow it to be closed.

The Suez Canal was initially controlled by Egypt. Only six years later, Egypt was in such financial difficulty that it sold a 44% interest in the Canal to the British.  Seven years after that (1882), Britain invaded, occupied part of Egypt and took de facto control of the canal.

The Canal was not without controversy during both World War I and World War II. However. it was in 1956, when the Cold War turned hot, that fighting ensued over the Canal.  In July of that year, Egypt declared that it was nationalizing the canal, thus initiating the Suez Crisis.  The mixture of tensions included Egypt recognizing the People’s Republic of China rather than Taiwan and President Abdel Nassar’s plan to annex the Sudan to Egypt.

Thus, beginning in October, 1956, Britain, France, and Israel each attacked Egypt, and each for its own reason.  This resulted in strange bedfellows, as the United States joined with the U.S.S.R. and the United Nations to oppose the actions against Egypt. In particular, it was a difficult time for U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower to side with the U.S.S.R. rather than Britain, France, and Israel. However, his opposition to the war strengthened U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, and in an era when “oil was king,” this was important.

If a new government in Egypt shut down the Suez Canal, the result could be devastating to western countries, without causing too much damage to Saudi Arabia and the host of other oil-producing countries in the Middle East. Until Western commitment to alternative energy sources becomes characterized more by actions and less by talk, Mid-East oil will be essential to North America and Europe. Mid-East countries would still profit from Western demand for petroleum, but Western countries would be struck with a huge spike in prices because of the cost of transporting the oil the additional 12,000 miles around the Horn of Africa.

Fifty five years ago, President Eisenhower opposed western intervention to seize control of the Suez Canal. But that was at a time when the United States was much more self-sufficient when it came to oil.

Back in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker has not been subtle about his economic motives for wanting to break the unions. As with everything else, the Middle East is complicated. But as we observe future developments, let’s not forget the economic interests that the U.S. has in the region. This is one time when the stock market is a good barometer of what’s happening; we may all want to keep a closer eye on it.

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Rep. Raul Grijalva chairs the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, and co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Throughout his congressional career, he has demonstrated a unique ability to understand and creatively address the problems of ordinary Americans. His Right to Rent Act is one example.

Rep. Grijalva has another new idea, one that would help both the environment and the people of the Gulf devastated by the BP oil spill. A 2007 report prepared by Louisiana State University for the Minerals and Management Service (MMS) of the Department of the Interior, determined that there are more than 1000 abandoned oilrigs and drilling structures that are decaying and collapsing into the Gulf of Mexico. Oil companies are required by law to dismantle any abandoned oilrigs that have been inactive for one year, but those regulations have not been fully enforced.  Many of these structures have been abandoned for many years. The Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has the responsibility to enforce these regulations under the jurisdiction of the Minerals Management Service (MMS).

On Monday August 02, 2010, Rep. Raul Grijalva sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar urging him to pressure oil companies to dismantle their abandoned and decaying oilrigs by employing residents of the Gulf States affected by the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Not only will over 1000 ugly dangerous structures be removed from the environment, and regulations enforced that should be enforced, but some of the victims of the BP Gulf oil spill will get those high paying jobs.

The text of Rep. Grijalva’s letter follows:

Dear Secretary Salazar,

It has come to my attention that more than 1,000 oil rigs are sitting idle in the Gulf of Mexico. These rigs have not been affected by the recently announced drilling moratorium – they were abandoned by their parent companies, sometimes years ago, and allowed to decay. These structures, commonly referred to as “idle iron,” now provide us with a unique chance to create jobs and open up future economic opportunities throughout the Gulf region.

Federal regulations require that hydrocarbon structures be removed within one year after their leases are terminated. These regulations are not being completely enforced. A 2007 report requested by the Minerals Management Service (MMS) and written by Louisiana State University (Idle Iron in the Gulf of Mexico) identified 1,227 idle structures in the Gulf. As the report correctly notes, “Structures that exist on a lease that have not produced in the last year do not serve a useful economic function[.]”

Gulf residents should be put to work removing idle iron as soon as possible. This would revitalize the regional economy in several ways. By removing outdated structures, Gulf workers would help the structures’ owners comply with existing regulations and ensure that cleared areas are open to potential future opportunities. Idle iron parent companies should be encouraged to hire local labor without delay to dismantle and remove as many structures as can be located.

In your capacity as Secretary of the Interior, you have jurisdiction over the enforcement of the relevant regulations. MMS in its Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Request asked for six new additional full time employees for its regulatory activities, specifically citing the needs created by “aging infrastructure, hurricane damage, and idle iron.” These efforts should be given the resources they need. As you increase your ability to enforce these regulations, I call on you to encourage owners of idle structures to hire Gulf workers to remove them as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva

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