Independent Bernie Sanders rightly focuses on Oil price manipulation

US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

The cost of a gallon of fuel is one of the largest factors that impact the standard of living in 2,211-square-mile Park County, where I live, but it applies all around the country.  Not only is it felt at the gas pump when you fill up your tank (if you can afford to fill up), but fuel costs relate to so many other areas in our day to day lives. Think of the impact on Sheriff Department patrols or on the price of food delivered to the supermarket, the cost for road crews or delivery of medical supplies. 

So it might be with some degree of surprise that you need to drop your political leanings ever so slightly and see just what Vermont Independent US Senator Bernie Sanders did during the August recess to try and help all of us.   Sanders had the unmitigated gall to “leak” confidential U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data on extensive oil futures positions that show how (and who) helped dramatically push up all of our fuel prices in 2008.  The data also supports arguments of how speculators keep those prices artificially high.

Notice how these oil futures prices bottomed out dramatically at the end
of the Bush Administration, then headed up shortly after the inauguration
of Barack Obama in 2009.  Sanders uncovered how the prices were
manipulated during 2008.

Sanders usually caucuses with the Democrats in Congress and is also the only member of the Senate to have membership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The CPC is the largest group within the Democratic Caucus and Sanders was its first chair when he was a member of the House in 1991.

Given all of the other news of the past couple of years about how Wall Street greed helped create an environment that led to the recession we are all now suffering in, the usual suspects won’t be a surprise.  According to a press release from the Senator, "This report clearly shows that in the summer of 2008 when gas prices spiked to more than $4 a gallon, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and other speculators on Wall Street dominated the crude oil futures market causing tremendous damage to the entire economy," Sanders said. "The CFTC has kept this information hidden from the American public for nearly three years. That is an outrage.”

And it should be to everyone.

Congress created the CFTC in 1974 as an independent agency mandated to regulate commodity futures and option markets in the United States.  The five-member board of commissioners each serve for staggered five year terms and are appointed by the President, then confirmed by the Senate.  Current Chairman Gary Gensler was appointed by President Obama and sworn in in 2009.  Prior to joining the Treasury, Gensler worked 18 years for Goldman Sachs, where he was selected as a partner.   Three of the other members of the CFTC were appointed under George W Bush.

The same speculators that drove up prices to record highs during the final year of the Bush Administration are playing the same game again, Sanders says, and heating oil prices in the northeast are predicted to be 33 percent higher this winter than last.

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How do these speculators drive up prices?  In this scene from the 1983 movie, "Trading Places" with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy (Valentine and Winthorpe), you get a compressed version.  In the movie, the two are getting back at Randolph and Mortimer Duke, successful commodities brokers who took advantage of the pair.  The Duke brothers thought they had inside information related to a poor crop report meaning higher prices for Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice futures.   But our heros had substituted a fake crop report earlier, leading the Dukes to the wrong conclusion.  On the commodities trading floor, the Dukes commit all their holdings to buying frozen orange-juice futures contracts; other traders follow their lead, driving the price up. Before the real crop report is made public, Valentine and Winthorpe sell futures heavily at the increased price. After the forecast that the orange crop will be normal, the price of orange-juice futures plummets. Valentine and Winthorpe cover their short sales, turning an enormous profit. The Dukes are ruined, being left owing hundreds of millions for futures now worth a fraction of what they contracted to pay.  Change the movie plot to Oil  instead of OJ, and replace the trading floor with computers - and the concept is the same.

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A Democratic Congress passed laws in 2010 to start to actually regulate the financial industries, and gave the CFTC until Jan 17 of this year to impose strict trading rules; yet, the right-leaning body has yet to do so.

In June, Sanders introduced the “End Excessive Oil Speculation Now Act,” which is designed to force the Chairman of the CFTC to impose strict limits on the amount of oil that speculators can trade in the commodity and futures market.  It’s clearly aimed to help all of us by requiring action that otherwise depends more on rules than politicians. 

Thus far, eight Democratic Senators have signed on to co-sponsor the bill:  Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). 

Regardless of which party you support, or if you're unaffiliated, we can only benefit from the courageous work Sanders has undertaken.  In Colorado, we should urge Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet to sign on to the legislation as well.


This column was originally published in the September 2, 2011 edition of The Flume, the paper of record for Park County, Colorado.  It has been updated to include additional information.  The monthly column is titled "Democratically Speaking"

The Associated Press - not particularly Fair or Balanced

It doesn't take a sociologist to see what has been obvious for years:  THE ASSOCIATED PRESS is only as fair and balanced as the owners of the cooperative “news” organization, and for years it has been neither, especially in the political arena.

It's time we start to call them on it, and a headline I read regarding yesterday's Wisconsin Recall Election results against six sitting Republican state senators was the last straw!

Wisconsin GOP's stand could reverberate elsewhere, the headline blared from my list of AP news stories, a list I look through every day.

Before you click on the link, take a moment and think:  what IS the focus of the story?  

If I knew nothing about it and/or didn't really care and only saw the headline, I'd think, hmmm, sounds like the Republicans did well at something in Wisconsin.  But would that really be true?

One study last year reported that 44% of people reading headlines through their Google Newsreader only scan the headlines and don't click through to the underlying news.  

Time’s up.  Here it is again.  Click:   Wisconsin GOP's stand could reverberate elsewhere
(August 14 update:  The headline and body were changed sometime after my original post.  See bottom).

Now, because I knew what the story was about and knew that the headline didn't jibe with what I knew, I went on and read the story.  My blood began to boil.

As a former newspaper editor, I was taught that not only should the lead of the story, usually the first paragraph, be factual, it should also encourage readers to be drawn in and read more.  My anger intensified as I read the lead.

"A stand by Wisconsin Republicans against a massive effort to oust them from power could reverberate across the country as the battle over union rights and the conservative revolution heads toward the 2012 presidential race."

Wow.  Sounds like the Alamo.  Outnumbered and outgunned, the brave members of the GOP faced down those Democratic savages.

But the reality is this:  angry VOTERS, not all Democrats, had had enough of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union AND anti-democratic behavior.  It wasn’t just the fact that the Republican majority in the statehouse voted to strip bargaining rights for state employee union members but also it was how it was done. 

In action receiving national attention, Wisconsinites not only protested, they made a decision to initiate a number of recall elections against a number of sitting Republican state senators who supported the governor’s agenda.  The just-elected governor had not campaigned on the issue. In retaliation, voters in three other districts fought back and signed on to recall Democratic state senators, ostensibly for leaving the state with the rest of the state’s 14 Democratic senators rather than vote to dismantle union bargaining rights.  One Democrat has already retained his seat and the other two face an election next week.  In all, efforts to collect recall petition signatures succeeded against 6 of 8 Republicans, and against 3 of 8 Democrats.

It is a much longer story and includes Republicans fielding faux-Democratic candidates to run in primary elections to force Democrats to spend money and buy time to delay the actual recall election.  Estimates are that between $30 and $40 million was spent by both sides, thanks to the unlimited spending granted by the US Supreme Court in its Citizens United ruling.  That’s 10 times what was spent in 2010 on the entire slate of Wisconsin state elections and is a precursor to 2012.

And those are just some of the highlights – now back to the Associated Press.

For those of you who aren't aware, the AP is an American news agency.  It is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, such as the Denver Post, and radio and television stations in the United States.  Those businesses contribute to shared content which also supplements those of staff AP "journalists."  The organization claims 3,700 editorial, communications and administrative employees worldwide and says 2/3rds of those are "newsgatherers."

Funny.  When I read the term "newsgatherer" on the AP web site, I had a vision of squirrels darting about, picking up nuts, stashing them, and then telling other squirrels they are farmers and the stash is a grocery store.

The AP goes to considerable length on their web site to explain its' Statement of News Values and Principles.  And it includes in those principles that "we abhor inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortions."

Well.  The AP may abhor bias and distortion, but it continues to practice both in very subtle ways - particularly in political news, where the issue is especially true in headline writing.  I do not know the contractual obligation between the AP and its newspaper-members, but given that I usually see the same headline in many newspapers, the papers may be obligated to run the same headline, I don't know.

The Wisconsin election story is just totally lacking in integrity.

“Democrats and union leaders tried to make the best of the historic GOP wins,” the article says, painting the Dems as losers after winning in heavily Republican areas.  The fact is that since 1913, there had been only 13 successful recalls of state level office holders nationwide.  So the Dems lost?  The fact that the GOP members retained their seats isn’t as much the news as the two Dems who moved the 13 to 15 in almost a century and bring the balance of power in the state senate to a single Republican senator margin (18-17).

The AP author pitted “union rights” against the “conservative revolution.”

Really?  There is a conservative revolution?  I don’t think so.  It pitted working people against big money and yes, it’s class warfare.  But correlating this to the “conservative revolution” is seemingly wishful thinking on the part of the author.

“Should two Democrats manage to win their own recall elections next week,” he writes.  Boy, I hope they can hang on, should they manage to.

"Still, it was far less than what Democrats set out to achieve.  And while they still plan to move ahead with recalling Walker, maintaining momentum for that effort, which can't start until November, will be difficult," he writes.

Really?  And who made you a pundit?  It's just bad, subtly biased journalism.

This isn't an indictment of all reporters, just a small set of examples from a single news story that is part of an AP pattern I observed starting years ago.  I have college friends that today are reporters, quality reporters, who have integrity and display quality writing.  But they are the exception these days, not the rule.  And none work for the AP.

When reflecting, consider this question:  "Who owns the media?"  Then ask yourself:  "Who benefits from the exponential political expenditures thanks to the Citizens United ruling?"  You might just decide they're one in the same.

***August 14 -- I notice that the headline was changed sometime after my original post, to a less GOP-centric one, but the lead and other portions of the story were worse, the new lead starting, "Wisconsin Democrats brushed aside their failure to seize control of the state Senate through recall elections...."   Any way it's sliced or re-sliced, it's still baloney.

Can Progressives save the Democratic Party from Itself?

An Op-Ed piece in the August 6 New York Times, What Happened to Obama? lays out the challenge facing my Democratic Party.   Author Drew Western discusses the lack of narrative which ultimately leads him down a path that I can't disagree with.  "Like most Americans," he says, "at this point, I have no idea what Barack Obama — and by extension the party he leads — believes on virtually any issue."

I forwarded the important article to a number of associates not afraid to call themselves Progressive Democrats and suggested it may be up to us to help rescue the party from itself.  What can we, as Progressives and the core of the belief system of the Democratic Party, do to help the party regain a focus, re-discover a sense of being, and couple it with a sense of urgency?

As the article began to get passed around, strong and blinder-eye'd Obama supporters began to chime in and, as frequently happens, take a defensive posture.  The "you're either with us or against us" approach reared up -- a common thread among many members of the DNC and leadership within the party.

I say this:  "There are none so blind as those who will not see."

The Obama camp seems incapable of separating criticism from opposition or disappointment.  They seem to be unable to appreciate a point in the NYT column discussing confusion over what the center wants and questioning what we, as Democrats, really believe in or stand for.

One avid supporter shot back how she worked hard to get the President elected (as if others of us didn't).  She cited a list of accomplishments by the President, which took up the bulk of her reply, but failed to mention that the list,  100 Accomplishments of President Barack Obama, had been posted on Facebook more than a year earlier.   An original list would've been more meaningful than a cut-and-paste job.  Also less than helpful was being told that "citizens that watch carefully will notice that President Obama has amassed an amazing list of accomplishments."   Yes, the list is amazing, but not all for the right reasons.  I do watch carefully, and I won't be talked down to.

At the heart is a disconnect that still surrounds the Presidents camp, namely the campaign arm for 2008, Obama for America, which was allowed to morph into a DNC-supported "Organizing for America" post election and has now morphed back into Obama for America.  If you were a Democrat involved in Colorado politics pre-OFA, it was clear to you how the campaign strategy SHUT OUT the base of the Democratic Party.  

We saw it when livid county chairs would talk on conference calls about how frustrated they were with OFA who refused to engage outside of the Presidential campaign.  It later became clear to me, and many others, (and was pointed out in Ari Bermans' fine book, "Herding Donkeys,") how post-election OFA wanted to create a legion who would  blindly support whatever the President did.  We saw its destructive behavior in our own 2010 US Senate race, which left the State House in ruins and cost many good elected Democrats their positions.   And we all knew, we KNEW, when Rahm Emanuel was made Chief of Staff that brides walking down the aisle were having second thoughts before the marriage was consummated.   Through Emanuel, OFA turned into a top-down directive-driven organization and people who thought they were making a difference were finding out that they weren't.

Missing from the Obama proponents' argument was a simple truth:  Empathy.  “I understand how you might feel; what can we do to better earn your support?”

The DNC still doesn’t get  how the Tim Kaine email I frequently cited last year stating “we decided to change the Democratic Party,” said more about the President and the people of the party leadership than any other single signal sent to the rank and file:  We know more than you.  We are the leaders and your job is to follow.  We don’t have to listen.

Anyone who listened to the Obama press conference the Friday before the debt deal would find little relief when hearing the President say “we need to ignore the activists” on both sides.  I wanted to vomit.  Did he really say that? (Yes)

Anyone can just glance at the list of 100 and see disappointments:

Iraq.  Responsibly end the war?  That’s a matter of opinion.  We’re still there.

Making Home Affordable.  Personal Experience.  Ill-conceived and poorly implemented.

Ordered closure of Guantanamo.  Yes, that’s worked well.

Changed failing Afghanistan strategy.  Yes.  For another failing Afghanistan strategy.

Signed the CARD Act.  Yes, which gave credit card companies plenty of lead time and an excuse to raise and sustain usury interest rates.  Michael Bennet told me he agreed with me that the legislation didn’t do what it was intended to.  (See CDP Platform on Interest Rates).

Shall we add:  Illegally went into Libya?

Shall we add:  Cowered to the GOP and never really took true interest in appointing Elizabeth Warren the head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?  It took a YEAR to appoint anyone. 

Shall we add:  Stayed surprisingly silent while Wisconsin workers were thrown to the wolves?  (And now some labor unions have said they will withhold money from the DCCC and DNC)?

I know, those three items are small potatoes.  War, protecting consumers and supporting workers?  Meaningless.  (Yes, my tongue is in my cheek). 

And then there is that ridiculous “birther” stuff that inappropriately captured the attention of a large percentage of the Right.  It begs a different question:  Remember when they finally released the official “official, long form” birth certificate?  While I never doubted his US birth, it made me wonder:  why didn’t they put that out in the first place instead of letting the issue fester?  I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking the administration seemed foolish, indecisive, and indifferent.   On something as simple as where the President was born, it took more than a year (or two?) to put a nail into it.  Why?

Do I want Obama to succeed?  HELL YES!

But he has to act like a Democrat first, and that’s something he’s been missing.  If he doesn’t figure it out soon, we might just have to say goodbye to the middle class.  A primary challenger might get his attention as little else seems to have.

The clock is winding down.

The Progressives are sitting on the bench and they need to get into the game.  If the coach won’t ask us to play, than we need to bring it on ourselves. 

Doug Lamborn: A subliminal message comes home to CD-5

Newspaper ad from Singer’s Corner Drug 

Store in Canon City, circa 1920s. Owner 

Claud Singer (1888-1981) was listed as 

pro-Klan in a biographical sketch.  

(From Canon City Public Library)

As a native of Kansas, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Doug Lamborn is out of touch with Colorado History. He hasn’t represented his CD-5 constituency well and this is just another episode of him being off the beaten path.

In speaking about the debt ceiling depate, and saying that being associated with President Obama was like being stuck to a "tar baby," Lamborn shows how little -- or how much --he actually knows.   The brain is funny that way.

As has been typical of conservatives to unnecessarily inject racial terms into the political discussion, as usual, Lamborn pretends to honestly believe he didn't realize what he said may have been interpreted in any way as a racial slur.  But let's see how that stacks up against history.

As a native of Colorado and one who used to think it was a big deal to go to dinner with my high school journalism teacher for steaks at the Belvedere in Cañon City (I'm familiar with the area, in other words),  I want to share with you a couple of important links that the Congressman SHOULD be aware of, but obviously isn't.   It’s a brief educational piece from the Cañon City Public Library – and, coincidentally from the heart of Lamborn’s 5th Congressional District.

Written by a University of Colorado Graduate Student many years ago, the essay, linked here, is titled The Protestant Kluxing of Cañon City, Colorado

As will come as a surprise to many, that, during the 1920s, “Colorado had the largest and most influential Knights of the Ku Klux Klan following of any other state west of the Mississippi River,” the essay discusses, “and in the 1924 elections, the Klan gained control not only of state government with the election of Governor Morley, but also of many local governments.”

“Fremont County was one of those local governments with a dominating Klan presence, having a particularly large following of Klansmen and Klanswomen in Cañon City and Florence. These two local Klaverns claimed that they organized to improve the schools, end the liquor problem, stop crime, and promote the state and national Klan agenda.”

Especially prior to the 2008 election, while working in Park County at different public events in support of then candidate Obama, it was clear from conversations I had with several older residents that racism is something that hasn’t just magically disappeared. It was disappointing.

Another link here adds a little additional flavor to the history:
Local History Center of the Cañon City Public Library

Having listened to Lamborns comments on this site: Lamborn Radio Clip, I’m going to be slightly contrarian, but only slightly. Having occasionally said things I wish I could take back, I know what it’s like to “hear” something I say after the words are already out of my mouth. And to me, I detect a brief pause, where Lamborn seems to have heard what he said and thought, “ah oh. I don’t think I should’ve said that on the radio.”

Unfortunately for the Congressman, it was too late. And that same pause shows to me that he also KNEW it was something he should’ve have said, but it naturally rolled off his tongue.

He’s essentially the same age as I am, and it’s not a term I even remembered until this came up.

So while I find myself on the one hand listening and wanting to “defend” that it sounded to me like it wasn’t his intent to be overtly racist, he was clearly familiar enough with the term know he shouldn’t have used it and it suggests it is more deeply rooted than he would perhaps like to believe himself.

Donkeys, Elephants and Burro Days

With this weekends’ Burro Days in Fairplay upon us, it struck me as an excellent opportunity to discuss the qualities of the different political party mascots. Interestingly, the tendencies of both are rather telling in the events which have been producing gridlock in Washington.

An easily read citation in Wikipedia talks of donkeys having “a notorious reputation for stubbornness, but this has been attributed to a much stronger sense of "self-preservation" than exhibited by horses. Likely based on a stronger prey instinct and a weaker connection with man, it is considerably more difficult to force or frighten a donkey into doing something it perceives to be dangerous for whatever reason. Once a person has earned their confidence they can be willing and companionable partners and very dependable in work. Although formal studies of their behavior and cognition are rather limited, donkeys appear to be quite intelligent, cautious, friendly, playful, and eager to learn.”

Elephants are the largest land animals now living, Wikipedia says, and three main species still live today: The African brush, the African forest, and the Asian. Other much larger versions of predecessor Mammoths died out during the last Ice Age. Wikipedia notes that elephants are a symbol of wisdom in Asian cultures and are known for their memory and intelligence, thought to be equal to that of dolphins and primates.

And in an instant, it clarified a big piece of the puzzle.

There is a big difference between knowing what you don’t know and using education to shape future decisions, and knowing that what you think you know and relying strictly upon a belief system built upon memory without learning from it.

It explains, for instance, why the GOP only has the ability to try to re-write history to reinforce memory it wants to believe. It explains how Republicans, and their less docile Tea Party brethren, have worked full time to pretend that the issue around the debt ceiling came into being just in the past 2 ½ years under President Obama and how, as Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continues to stress, that the PRIORITY for his party is in defeating Obama in 2012! It continues to ignore the fact that former President George W Bush raised that same debt ceiling seven times, and that Regan tripled the National Debt and the junior Bush doubled it. It ignores the $3 trillion for unfunded wars created by the GOP controlled House and Senate during the junior Bush years.

It is amazing and disappointing to continue to hear this rhetoric from the GOP. Their party leadership’s top goal isn’t to help devise a way to stem the flow of jobs out of the country, nor is it to help the least among us. It’s not to protect consumers, nor is it to continue to provide a safety net for seniors.

Indeed, the Republican efforts are poured into convenient forgetfulness. They praise Ronald Reagan, yet “forget” that he raised the debt ceiling 18 times and said this in 1987:

Congress consistently brings the Government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to
meet its obligations. It means we have a well-earned reputation for reliability and credibility – two things that set us apart from much of the world.

Continued focus on cutting taxes for the rich, who they call “job creators,” may have some truth to it. But they “forget” that the jobs that the job creators create are primarily outside the borders of the United States.

We've got to continue to understand the motives of both species, and remember that the Burro of Burro Days is a co-predecessor of the animals from the Spanish. They are thought of as being more sure-footed and dependable and interested in the social success of the entire herd, unlike the Elephant who during the past decade has seen considerable in-fighting within their own herds around the globe which some scientists attribute in large part to how the creatures deal with stress.

Charles Darwin pointed out a century and a half ago that evolution guides body and mind. The outlook for elephants and their long-term survival points to a dim future.

This column was originally published in the July 29, 2011 edition of The Flume, the paper of record for Park County, Colorado.  The monthly column is titled "Democratically Speaking"

We need "Listening Points," not just talking ones

Do you ever wonder what passes for political news would sound like without Talking Points?

Have you ever noticed how rare it is that you can turn to a channel on your TV and hear original thought and not just commentary?

We thought it would be fun to try out the idea of “Listening Points” at Park County Democratic sponsored event booths held the past two weekends – one at The Pine Grove Rhubarb Festival on June 11, and one at Bailey Day on June 18.

In addition to inviting people to stop by and just talk, we also asked them to take a few moments and answer a couple of simple questions on a free form survey:  What issues are the most important to you – on any level of government – and what do you believe you need from your government?

No, it wasn’t intended as a reverse spin on John F Kennedy’s famous “Ask not what your country can do for you” quote but was, rather, an effort to get people to stop for just a minute and think about the role they believe government should play and what is important to them.  We didn’t care what political party they were registered to, either, or even if they were.   And a couple dozen took the time.

A number of respondents discussed health care as a concern, but offered no suggestions about how to improve it. I’ll assume that when some suggested “nationalized” health care, they meant the idea of “single payer” or “Medicare for all,” which is something I personally support as well.

A unique idea from a woman in Conifer was to use doctors and nurses in medical school to work in Medicare-related services, and then compensate them by paying down their education costs.  It’s one I hadn’t heard before.  She also advocated a political “no-call” list.  Another woman asks to stop development along US 285 while one wants to control motorcycles on residential streets.   Living up here in the rural Bailey area, I can appreciate that one when my ears perk up just to hear a coyote down the road.

Also a repeated theme relates to concerns people have about education and focus on our domestic needs, with questions about the money the country is spending on five wars:  in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and the War on Drugs.  One Pine man says who declared himself a Republican said he’d like to get rid of the Department of Education (although I would’ve preferred a little more discussion about “why”).  One questioned the spending of money in Pakistan to “aid terroists.”

One very unhappy Democratic woman is hoping to see a more Progressive Candidate for President, especially given what she feels has been preferential treatment of the financial industry by the current administration.  “Get rid of Geitner and all of the other loser Bush-Light Wall Street operatives,” she said, and she proposes that corporations get tax credits when they bring jobs BACK to the United States.  

One unsigned respondent wants to see states’ rights protected, but failed to offer detail for what his point was.  He worries about devaluation of the US Dollar.  Several wanted to see more control of corporations as they play a bigger role in our political system every day.

A topic that came up several times, including between myself and chair of the Republican Party here in Park County, is the need for campaign finance reform.  It’s an issue so many people agree with, yet so few know how to tackle.  Clearly, it’s something we should all be working together on.

   

Too often, it seems in politics, we talk past one another rather than listen and much of our political discourse has become one of party talking points without serious thought or discussion of what those talking points mean.  Taking the time to listen, and giving the people time to be listened to, is something we need to see more of.

This column was originally published in the June 24, 2011 edition of The Flume, the paper of record for Park County, Colorado.  The monthly column is titled "Democratically Speaking"

Natural Gas: Let's get Answers First

In a newsletter earlier this year, the Burland Homeowners Association tells about plans for setting up new swings for the park in the Ranchettes.  Up north of Pine Junction, members of the Woodside Park Homeowners Association are planning for their 2011 summer kids fishing derby and community barbeque and residents in the Town of Alma prepare for the 12^th annual Soup Cook-off and Bingo on April 3.  These local activities all contribute to the sense of community that is all of Park County.  Each place is the home of one of our county commissioners.

Seemingly far, far away, in a distant Park County neighborhood, a drive down Elkhorn Road between US 285 and Hartsel tells a different story.  Midway between the two, a crooked hand-painted sign points west to another dirt road saying simply, “El Paso,” and it’s not directing drivers to the city on the Texas-Mexico border.   Instead, it is pointing to ground zero in the battle between the need for energy and the fears of environmentalists as well as many every-day residents over natural gas drilling in the county.

The below ground land rush began in earnest last year when the same Commissioners gave the OK to El Paso Corp. to begin exploratory drilling at three sites in search of rich natural gas reserves.  They accelerated last week when the Colorado Division of Wildlife gave the approval to allow access four more wells in the James Mark Jones Wildlife Area – approval a likely precursor to more drilling.  If they strike it rich, expect industry efforts to drill hundreds of additional wells to follow.

First, a political geography lesson:  the closest county commissioner to the El Paso site, Mark Dowaliby, lives 15-20 miles away, (as the crow flies) on Alma’s Main Street and at a higher elevation.  Would he be as quick to support drilling and the 7x24 tanker traffic on the vacant land just north of the South Park Saloon?  A 50 mile drive to the site from Commissioner John Tighes’ home makes one wonder if the same support would come if the waste disposal pond or tanks were to be set up next to the Burland swing sets in his subdivision.   Farther away yet, how about a rig at the end of Meadow Drive just past Commissioner Dick Hodges home in the extreme northeast corner of Park County?  Just what would the neighbors say?

Natural gas drilling companies have major exemptions for numerous federal environmental laws written to protect air and drinking water from radioactive and hazardous chemicals.

This week, Colorado Democratic Congressional members Diana DeGette and Jared Polis have introduced a new bill seeking transparency in the process of hydraulic fracking, a process in which undisclosed chemicals are forced into the ground in a process to release the natural gas trapped there.  The bill also wants oil and gas companies to comply with the Safe Water Drinking Act, something they were exempted from during the Bush Administration. 

Telling the Denver Post this week the industry doesn’t oppose fracking fluid disclosure on its merit, Oil and Gas Lobbyist and GOP strategist Michael McKenna said, “Let’s not have the federal government involved.  It slows the process down to a crawl and it increases costs and leads to a lot of unhappiness.” 

Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn, who “represents” Park County’s 5^th Congressional District, told the Post, “I don’t think we need a federal bureaucracy piled atop of state regulations at this time; states are doing a very good job.  If we make it more difficult and costly and time consuming to bring energy to the market, it doesn’t help our economy.”

When combined, the $48,000 Lamborn received in campaign contributions from oil, gas and mining industries rank as his largest donor group according to the web site opensecrets.org.

When Republicans took over control of the US House of Representatives after the 2010 elections, the fight to regulate fracking fell to former Colorado Senator and now Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar who hinted the department might order gas drillers to disclose the content of their fracking fluids.

Following that announcement, Park County’s other Congressional Representative, Republican Mike Coffman, from the 6^th Congressional District, joined in a GOP letter to Salazar urging the Secretary to put any plans to regulate fracking fluids on hold.

A recent 3-part expose of the political and environmental collision in Washington appeared earlier this month in the New York Times.  Among highlights, an EPA Administrator tells how in 1987, under the Reagan Administration, the EPA was pressured to not seek tight control of the industry.  “It was like science didn’t matter,” the author an EPA report to Congress told the Times, as concerns were eliminated from the final report version.

Similarly, a former assistant administrator for water at the EPA under the George W Bush Administration told the blog ProPublica this month that in 2004 EPA officials never intended to grant the industry a perpetual exemption, but wording of an original EPA report was watered down.  A 30-year EPA agency veteran in Denver who challenged the report’s findings was rebuffed and a senior EPA spokesperson told the Los Angeles times in 2005 that the potential threat was “low and doesn’t justify additional study.” 

In Colorado just last year, 18 Republican members of the State Legislature sent a letter to the EPA demanding the federal agency refrain from regulating fracking, no matter what a new two-year study of the process reveals.  State Senator Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, said in a release to the Colorado Independent newspaper that “the EPA shouldn’t stick its nose into the regulation of fracking or other oil and gas industry processes in states.”

The GOP won control of the Colorado House last November and a bill presented this year by Rep. Roger Wilson, D-Glenwood Springs, seeking to review a pending federal study on fracking and drinking water died in the Republican controlled Agriculture Committee in February.  The bill also sought a report to the legislature outlining complaints related to fracking be presented to the Legislature.  It drew this response from Rep. J Paul Brown, R-Ignacio.  Brown said, “I have a little problem with complaints from the public.  You can complain about just about anything.  This should not be able to happen.”

But we must remember that representatives are elected to represent the public, and at all levels, those members deserve to be heard and their concerns addressed, not smoothed over by nice politically-motivated and edited dialogue.

Let’s put a moratorium on any further activity here in Park County until the questions and concerns receive real answers – answers based in science – not based on politics.

This column was originally published in the March 25,, 2011 edition of The Flume, the paper of record for Park County, Colorado.  The monthly column is titled "Democratically Speaking"