Commentary: On Becoming an Energy Citizen?

By S. Thomas Bond, Citizen Farmer, Citizen Chemist, and Citizen Voter

There’s a lot of twisted stuff going on this election time. One of the most curious is something called Energy Citizens 2012. You get a mailer from the American Petroleum Institute which is an unembarrassed plug for burning hydrocarbons, with an oil well and a couple of the oversize pickups that characterize the workers in that business on the front.

You can’t see the “oilfield trash and proud of it” on the back windshields or smell the oil, but you know they’re there. The front of the oversize postcard also contains several very optimistic claims for the importance of hydrocarbon burning.

The back says “IT’S TIME TO CHOOSE – BUT FIRST MAKE SURE YOU CAST A VOTE FOR ENERGY. The candidates’ position on energy is important. When it comes to jobs, security and economic growth, A VOTE FOR ENERGY HOLDS THE KEY. To find out how, visit energycitizens2012.org.”

So you turn to your computer, click up “energycitizens2012.org”, and what comes up?  Information? Naa, “JOIN THE MOVEMENT – BECOME AN ENERGY CITIZEN,” is what you get.

The reader is asked to pledge to vote for: (1)  American Energy Security, (2)  Sensible Regulations on Oil and Gas,  (3)  The Keystone XL Pipeline, and (4)  U. S. Energy Jobs.

And then you are asked to sign your identifying information. No explanation of what measures you will be supporting is given, none at all. No candidates are named. No electoral races are mentioned, no information about people who will be using your name (and doubtless asking you for money) and no careful explanation of objectives. Over it all waves the American flag, suggesting blind conformity to “the movement” is a virtue.

It has been suggested this year that it might be a good idea if employers could tell employees which candidate to vote for. This is a little bit further beyond that – the candidates and parties are immaterial, you are to submit yourself to what is essentially an economic interest. The folks at the top of an industry are given the right to decide how to regulate not only themselves, but also society, ostensibly for your benefit.

For the voting individual, this is an immense leap of faith, to let leaders in a single industry decide for all. Or would it really be a leap of hopeful ignorance?

Advertising done by the “fracking” industry is ridiculous. It is everywhere: newspapers, all kinds of magazines, internet. Everywhere. The truth is, no corporation exists without legislation. Business on a small scale can be done the libertarian way, but all corporations have to have favorable legislation.

What the shale drilling industry fears the most is loss of legal privilege. The lax regulation, favorable legislation, the tax exemptions are at risk as investors and the public come to realize how they operate. They can’t deal with the details in public discussion. They have to have a supporting political force, and hence the manipulation of public opinion.

It would be very interesting to see what fraction of the shale drilling industry’s investments is in politics and public relations. It might shake some investors, too.

>>> S. Thomas Bond operates a 500 acre cattle farm near Jane Lew in Lewis County, WV. He is a retired teacher of chemistry at both the high school and college level. And, he has been active in the Guardians of the West Fork and the Monongahela Area Watersheds Compact. <<<

The article below is from a story in The Morgantown Dominion Post on October 12, 2012 by David Beard.

THIS IS the first in a series of stories profiling the views of the candidates for West Virginia governor on a variety of issues: Democrat  Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, Republican Bill Maloney, Mountain Party’s Jesse Johnson and Libertarian David Moran.

Tomblin and Maloney previously faced off in October 2011, when Tomblin narrowly defeated Maloney in the special gubernatorial election. Tomblin had served as acting governor from November 2011, when Gov. Joe Manchin resigned to take a U.S. Senate seat. That special election was for an abbreviated 14-month term; this is for a full four years.

Maloney is a Morgantown businessman who entered the spotlight in 2010, using his drilling expertise to aid the rescue of the trapped Chilean miners. Johnson has run twice before for governor, in 2004 and 2008, and twice for U.S. Senate, in 2006 and 2010 — the special election that sent Manchin to Washington. Moran is a political newcomer. He operates a Preston County farm, raising sheep and alpaca, and is an adjunct WVU professor. A retired engineer, he worked for the U.S. Navy and was a professor at the Naval Academy.

The Dominion Post interviewed all four — in person or by email — on a variety of topics. Here are their answers on Marcellus shale drilling and fracking in West Virginia:

     The future of fracking regulation

 1. Earl Ray Tomblin, Democratic Party

    The Legislature tried for three years to produce a bill and succeeded in December 2011 — the first such bill in the Appalachian basin. “I think we came a long way to get everybody where we’re at today. … I think the bill that we passed is working well now.”

    Of course, not everyone was happy with all of it. “I’m willing to look if there’s particular areas [with] additional changed we need to make. … I would not anticipate a whole lot of changes to where we’re at now.” If there are particular concerns, he’s willing to work with the Legislature to address them.

 2.  Bill  Maloney, Republican Party

    “The DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) can’t figure out what they’ve got on the books. I don’t think they want to change it again anytime soon. My initial reaction is we don’t need anything else. Everybody knows what the rules are; now let’s figure those out before we expand anything — make sure they’re working right.

    “We want every advantage we can have and creating more regulation is not going to make it any easier to get investment in West Virginia. It’s a huge resource. We’ve got to maximize the use of it for the benefit of the state. … That’s what business needs is certainty; the uncertainty is the biggest drawback to investment.”

 3.  Jesse  Johnson, Mountain Party

    “I believe there needs to be a moratorium put in place right now until we know more about what we’re doing.”  We’re not dealing with the evident problems: Surface owner rights, flowback frack water, scaling inside pipes, unprotected workers. “There are too many unanswered questions that need to be addressed.”

    And while there is constant talk of economic boom, Wetzel County, the state epicenter of Marcellus drilling, has among the highest unemployment in the state [Wetzel’s July unemployment was the sixth highest].

 4.      David Moran, Libertarian Party

    Additional legislation should include: “compensation to all property owners for energy extraction from under their property; bonding required from all energy extractors (drilling and fracking) with interest accrued as income to the State.

Please consult the Morgantown Dominion Post newspaper to see these responses in their hardcopy versions and to follow the series on the candidate’s responses to other topics.