America's Energy Policy: A letter to the editor
For anyone who might have missed it, below is a copy of Jerry Oppenheim and Theo MacGregor's 10/27/05 Letter to the Editor in the Gloucester Daily Times. Visit Theo and Jerry's website here.
America needs a new energy policy
To the editor:
Your editorial of Sept. 29 on a "sensible, reasoned energy policy" included a nod to conservation, but that is where the reason seems to end. The policy recommendations focus on increasing supplies of oil and natural gas at the expense of the environment, including drilling in Alaska. The editorial asserts that "modern technology can extract vast quantities of oil from a minimal footprint on the environment," but that this has been opposed by "concerns over caribou living in a wilderness that few will ever see win the day." However, the U.S. Geological Service estimates that only seven months of economically recoverable oil exists in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge, and it would take 10 years to get it. As for a "small footprint," according to the National Resources Defense Council, "U.S. Geological Survey studies have found that oil in the refuge isn't concentrated in a single, large reservoir. Rather, it's spread across the coastal plain in more than 30 small deposits, which would ... fragment the habitat, disturbing and displacing wildlife."
We have worked in the energy field for a 50 years -- as a lawyer, regulator and advocates -- designing, winning, and overseeing energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. Our recommendations for a "sensible, reasoned energy policy" would increase the deployment of clean and renewable energy resources while using those energy resources we have now more efficiently. This would include steps, such as:
- Tightened CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards for American cars and trucks (especially SUVs);
- Additional investments in mass and inter-city transit;
- Higher energy efficiency building code standards;
- Stricter energy efficiency appliance standards;
- Additional financial incentives for weatherization for homes, schools, office buildings and factories;
- More incentives to develop low-cost renewable energy technologies as wind power and biofuels;
- More incentives to develop and install technologies that use conventional fuels more efficiently;
- More thoughtful management of the high-cost fuels we still need, such as strategic storage of natural gas, heating oil and gasoline as well as hedged purchases of natural gas by electric and gas utilities;
- Strict adherence to environmental rules and regulations, rather than undercutting them as the current Environmental Protection Agency is doing; and
- Pressure on the oil companies to reopen refineries they shut down when profits were not sufficiently obscene.
We are proud that Massachusetts has already taken national leadership in many of these areas and that some of the additional measures are already pending before the General Court.
We also must face a crisis this winter. Poor people, and many working families, will not be able to afford their energy bills this winter. Some will be forced to choose between heating and eating; between staying warm and staying healthy. The General Court is now considering emergency assistance, and more assistance may be required.
But to use this crisis as an excuse to despoil a wilderness and plow even higher profits into the already over-earning oil companies would compound the crisis tenfold. We need an energy policy that considers the next seven generations -- not just the seven largest corporations in the world.
Jerrold Oppenheim
Theo MacGregor
Middle Street, Gloucester
