"Drilling for Defeat?"

The Mojave, faced with a deluge of industrial solar proposals as well as the Green Path North transmission project, is not alone in facing threats from the energy landrush. Pushback on increased oil and gas drilling and exploration supported by the 2005 Energy Policy Act is growing throughout the Western rural states, according to this NY Times piece by David Sirota:

[T]he acceleration of energy exploration has split the national Republican Party from local Republicans upset by the downsides of the energy boom. “Republicans created a monster for themselves,” said Rick Ridder, a Colorado-based Democratic consultant. “They put public policy in direct conflict with their base voters.”

In Wyoming’s Upper North Platte Valley, Jeb Steward, a Republican state representative, helped lead the successful 2007 opposition to the B.L.M.’s proposed sale of 13 oil and gas parcels. “We have customs and cultures that have developed over a hundred years based on the utilization of multiple renewable resources — agriculture, tourism, wildlife, fisheries,” Steward said. “When B.L.M. proposed issuing the leases, residents were asking, ‘What does this mean to the lifestyles that we’ve all grown accustomed to?’ ”

MORE INFO ON THIS TOPIC: On the Energy page of the MBCA Website. Previous posts: Energy, Green Path North.