Energy rhetoric versus reality

Every few months, some energy development project somewhere will run into a wall of opposition from one environmental group or another.

The latest example is a wind farm that was originally proposed as a 500-megawatt project near Glasgow, but has since been scaled down to 50-megawatts and moved to a less reliably windy site. All because of opposition from two groups in particular, the Wilderness Society and the Montana Environmental Information Center. They oppose the idea of 400-foot wind turbines looming near a wilderness study area (not an actual wilderness area), and there is also concern that the transmission lines needed for the project would be used to transmit evil coal-generated electricity.

Again, it's just the latest example of environmental litigation at its worst.

It is such a common occurrence, in fact, that it may soon compare to the dog-bites-man news story - it's not news unless it's a man who bites the dog. In this case, an energy development project that actually gets developed to its full capacity would be truly unusual and newsworthy. Let's hope it doesn't get that far.

All politicians, it seems, blather on about the need for energy independence so that we would no longer rely on foreign dictators for domestic energy needs.

But it is Democratic politicians, in particular, who most often have the support of the very environmental groups that oppose various forms of energy development. And for that reason, Democratic rhetoric about the need for energy independence often rings hollow.

Take the most recent energy legislation offered by the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. The House bill would arguably make it more difficult to produce oil and gas by levying an estimated $16 billion in taxes on oil companies by repealing a tax credit for exploration, production and refining and by changing taxes on oil income generated overseas.

One doesn't have to be a doctor of economics to know that providing disincentives for energy development is likely to result in less energy development and therefore greater dependence on foreign energy sources.

Of course, the legislation also would promote renewable energy development such as wind, solar and biofuels through subsidies that are necessary only because these developing energy sources have shortcomings and are not economically self-sustaining. And as the Valley County wind farm project demonstrates, even the purest wind-driven power cannot escape the scrutiny of modern environmental litigants.

The Senate legislation, meanwhile, calls for a sevenfold increase in biofuels production over current levels.

We're all for energy conservation and alternative energy sources being brought online as part of an overall U.S. energy strategy that also includes developing traditional energy sources, regardless of opposition from the enviro-regulation litigation industry.

But reality has to fit in that strategy somewhere, not just feel-good rhetoric.

A representative of the Sierra Club recently offered this strategy in an opinion piece published by the Inter Lake: "Let's put the billions of dollars being proposed for a coal-to-liquid plant at Malmstrom (Air Force Base) and other Big Coal boondoggles into developing clean, efficient renewable energy resources in Montana."

Like wind power, perhaps? Sober thinking has to kick in somewhere on this issue, folks.

Consider that if the entire American corn crop were devoted to ethanol production (resulting in startling food price increases) it would only meet a fraction of the U.S. demand for gasoline. Not to mention that ethanol costs more to make and distribute it than it ostensibly saves.

Any politician who crows about the need for energy independence while supporting the legislation currently being peddled in Congress needs to be held accountable. The two sides of the equation don't add up.