Utah's Congressional Delegation on US Energy Policy
(This is Part 1: I will write more later on in a series)
I went to a meeting with US Senator Orrin Hatch and US Representative Rob Bishop this morning for work. Kind of cool to say that. I didn’t scream like they were Lennon & McCartney when they walked in, or when I shook hands with them. Took much self restraint.
Here is my review, in the ugly, the good, and the good.
You can read the Deseret News story here http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700252348,00.html?pg=1
The UGLY
Everyone in the room agrees that the bad guys are the environmentalists and lawyers out there. There of course were no environmentalists, or green lawyers, or even apparently a single Democrat in the room, making it much easier for everyone to confess that all the sin is on them out there. It was practically Church, just with environmentalists and lawyers standing in for gays and feminists.
And Rob Bishop, former NRA lobbyist, has a history of quarrels with PTA Moms who volunteer to advocate for schools on Capitol Hill. Something about them wanting to keep guns out of Elementary Schools. He won.
The GOOD
Hatch, at 74, in his 32nd year in the Senate, is still an entertaining and articulate guy with an encyclopedia of detail in his head. At one point Rep. Bishop said something about how the “Senate’s Gang of 10 bill is crap, sorry Orrin, but it is.” And Hatch leaned into the microphone and said “I’m sorry, our less refined members of the junior chamber don’t speak with manners sometimes.” He may never get his dream of being a Supreme Court justice, but that is a shame- he would add an entertaining pen to the decisions, alongside Scalia’s.
Hatch grew up in Pennsylvania and got a BA in History from BYU in 1959 and a JD from Pitt Law School in 1962. He was an attorney in Pennsylvania and Utah for 14 years before carpet-bagging into the Utah Senate in 1976, defeating Democrat Frank Moss, partly by complaining that Moss’ 18 years were too long for a Senator to serve. He entered the Senate in 1977, when there was a 62-38 Democratic majority. He had good things to say about Jimmy Carter’s energy policy- “There are many Saudi Arabias of oil shale in the Green River formation” and so on. (The school trust lands own much of that developable land over oil shale, hence my presence at the meeting.) In Hatch’s version of history, OPEC flooded world markets to drive oil below $10 a barrel specifically to stop us from developing oil shale.
Energy policy may sound boring, and perhaps it is. But it really is everything. Foreign policy is a footnote to energy policy. Am I wrong? Economics are a footnote to energy policy. Again, am I wrong? Is the economy’s problems speculators losing paper money on houses- or is it $4 a gallon gas, inflation, food prices soaring, energy costs soaring, weak dollar, and on and on- all directly caused by energy policy.
Here is my review, in the ugly, the good, and the good.
You can read the Deseret News story here http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700252348,00.html?pg=1
The UGLY
Everyone in the room agrees that the bad guys are the environmentalists and lawyers out there. There of course were no environmentalists, or green lawyers, or even apparently a single Democrat in the room, making it much easier for everyone to confess that all the sin is on them out there. It was practically Church, just with environmentalists and lawyers standing in for gays and feminists.
And Rob Bishop, former NRA lobbyist, has a history of quarrels with PTA Moms who volunteer to advocate for schools on Capitol Hill. Something about them wanting to keep guns out of Elementary Schools. He won.
The GOOD
Hatch, at 74, in his 32nd year in the Senate, is still an entertaining and articulate guy with an encyclopedia of detail in his head. At one point Rep. Bishop said something about how the “Senate’s Gang of 10 bill is crap, sorry Orrin, but it is.” And Hatch leaned into the microphone and said “I’m sorry, our less refined members of the junior chamber don’t speak with manners sometimes.” He may never get his dream of being a Supreme Court justice, but that is a shame- he would add an entertaining pen to the decisions, alongside Scalia’s.
Hatch grew up in Pennsylvania and got a BA in History from BYU in 1959 and a JD from Pitt Law School in 1962. He was an attorney in Pennsylvania and Utah for 14 years before carpet-bagging into the Utah Senate in 1976, defeating Democrat Frank Moss, partly by complaining that Moss’ 18 years were too long for a Senator to serve. He entered the Senate in 1977, when there was a 62-38 Democratic majority. He had good things to say about Jimmy Carter’s energy policy- “There are many Saudi Arabias of oil shale in the Green River formation” and so on. (The school trust lands own much of that developable land over oil shale, hence my presence at the meeting.) In Hatch’s version of history, OPEC flooded world markets to drive oil below $10 a barrel specifically to stop us from developing oil shale.
Energy policy may sound boring, and perhaps it is. But it really is everything. Foreign policy is a footnote to energy policy. Am I wrong? Economics are a footnote to energy policy. Again, am I wrong? Is the economy’s problems speculators losing paper money on houses- or is it $4 a gallon gas, inflation, food prices soaring, energy costs soaring, weak dollar, and on and on- all directly caused by energy policy.
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