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The
Weekly Standard
The Fractured Left
Good
news on natural gas is bad news for a Democratic party full
of environmental true-believers
Much
has been said recently about the deep tensions within the
Republican party. Far less has been said about a sharp division arising
inside
the Democratic party.
That
latter tension was front and center recently when former
Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell wrote an op-ed piece for the New York
Daily
News drawing on his experience overseeing extensive natural gas
development in
Pennsylvania. “If we choose to embrace natural gas, it will help us get
past a
number of significant economic and environmental challenges,” Rendell
wrote.
“On the other hand, if we let fear carry the day, we will squander
another key
moment to move forward together.”
Rendell
soon came under strong environmentalist attack, among
other things for failing to disclose that he was a consultant to a
private-equity firm with stakes in a number of energy companies, some
with
natural gas interests.
The
Obama administration is feeling the heat as well. Ignoring
objections from many environmentalists, the White House in March
nominated
Ernest Moniz, the Cecil and Ida Green professor of physics and
engineering
systems at MIT, to be secretary of energy. As director of the MIT
Energy
Initiative, Moniz assembled an all-star cast of MIT physical and social
scientists to produce a June 2011 report on “The Future of Natural
Gas.” That
report concluded that “for more stringent [long-run] CO2 emissions
reductions,
further de-carbonization of the energy sector will be required; but
natural gas
provides a cost-effective bridge to such a low-carbon future [italics
in the
original]” over the next few decades.
When
Moniz’s nomination was announced he was promptly attacked by
environmental groups, which raised suspicions about his relationship
with ICF
International, a consulting firm that has done work for the oil and gas
industry. Left unsaid was that ICF also has done work for the
Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council
(NRDC)—and is
in fact the go-to modeling firm for anyone wanting to do computer
simulations
of policy options involving the U.S. energy system.
In
Colorado, Democratic governor John Hickenlooper has been a
strong supporter of the “fracking” technologies now being used to
extract oil
and natural gas from shale. Hickenlooper has said that he sees
increased gas
production as advancing America’s economic and environmental
objectives. On
April 1, Hickenlooper was heckled at a speech at the University of
Denver law
school; as one protester was being removed from the hall, he shouted,
“We’re
surrounded by oil and gas and it’s killing us!”
Recognizing
the significant environmental benefits of natural gas
as a source of electric power, some prominent national environmental
groups,
such as the Environmental Defense Fund and NRDC, have mostly supported
the
increase in domestic gas production—and at least by implication the use
of
fracking to obtain the gas. For most in the environmental movement,
however,
opposition to fracking has become a virtually sacred cause.
Reflecting
this, perhaps, the language of some of fracking’s
opponents has become extreme. One environmentalist blogger, for
example, wrote
recently that “fracking is madness, a sign of a society gone completely
insane
and bent on self-destruction.” Another offered this: “The more we learn
about a
gas-drilling practice called hydraulic fracturing—or ‘fracking’—the
more we see
it as a zenith of violence and disconnect” in our world…
Read
the rest of the article at The Weekly
Standard
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