Yesterday, the Bush administration announced another parting gift for Big Oil: new oil shale regulations that will pave the way for the production of this dirtiest of dirty fuels in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Despite the frightening global warming implications of oil shale, the Department of Interior is preparing to open 2 million acres of public lands to be literally melted in search of oil.

The cherry on top is that they will forego the royalties normally charged for this type of exploration on public lands — which will add even more lining to the pockets of Big Oil.

The leasing of land for oil shale has been heavily criticized by environmental groups, the Governors of Colorado and Wyoming, USEPA, and the Fish & Wildlife Service …all of whom have serious concerns over significantly increased water usage, global warming emissions, and toxic waste. (Even Chevron has expressed doubts.) This is a water-intensive process that will require about the same amount of water as the city of Denver uses. NRDC’s Amy Mall summed it up when she said:

“Cooking rocks and scorching earth is not a solution to our energy crisis. This is just another government giveaway to Big Oil, which doesn’t make sense when we have better, cleaner energy sources available now. We need to invest in clean energy solutions– like plug-in cars– that will reduce our dependence on oil, not dirtier fuels that spoil public lands, hasten climate change and suck up limited water resources.”

While the current administration continues to look backward, the new administration is showing positive signs of a new approach to our climate crisis. Today’s announcement by President-elect Obama shows that he is serious about taking action on global warming and fully understands the urgency of this issue. As NRDC’s president Frances Beinecke said today, “This shows that President-Elect Obama understands that the fastest, best way to turn our economy around, create jobs and solve the climate crisis is to spur investment in our clean energy future.”

Change indeed.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized .