Clarion Content

Obama and the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar

The Clarion Content was once again pleasantly surprised by President Obama this week. We think people should get off his back a bit. We all know he could have been dealt better cards.

The issue we are referring to is the President's announcement that he is going to allow significantly expanded offshore drilling. The policy Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar presented will allow oil and gas exploration fifty miles off the coast of Virginia, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, 125 miles from Florida's coast in areas that are currently closed to development by a congressional moratorium. It will not allow any drilling or exploration anywhere on the entire West Coast, from the Canadian to Mexican border. It will ban exploration in Bristol Bay, the eastern-most arm of the Bering Sea, home the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery, and a pristine gem to some environmentalist's eyes. President Obama also used the moment to announce an order doubling of the federal fleet of hybrid cars and trucks.

As they say on Fox News, sounds pretty fair and balanced to us. The Obama plan is pragmatic, ultimately the United States consumes far more resources than it has, no matter where exploration is allowed. Nonetheless, to completely ban further oil exploration is needlessly dogmatic and plays into hands of the President's right-wing opposition. In our view Obama has been far more of a practical centrist than his foes are willing to admit. The Clarion Content certainly prefers this exploration rationalization¹ as a sop to right wing energy hawks over the extension and funding of nuclear power² (which unfortunately a centrist Obama also supports). Ironically, we are not fans of the policy that President Obama hopes to move the energy hawks his way on, cap and trade. As we have heard it proposed it is macroeconomically dangerous in this turbulent era for capitalism to enact such a drastic policy shift to attempt head-off environmental change that will happen anyway³.

In sum, we are strangely pleased by Obama announcing a policy, in this case by an Executive Order which will not need Congressional approval, that we do not entirely support (expanded oil drilling) in an attempt to influence Congress's vote on a policy (cap and trade) about which we disagree with the direction he is headed. Why then are we pleased? Digging into our collective guts the consensus appears to be because we believe this announcement indicates the President's smarts and independence. He will not be painted into an uncompromising corner. He will continue to surprise by doing more pragmatic things than expected and governing from a more centrist position than his harshest critics are able to accredit to him. Hopefully, these are good things.

Notes
¹The Bush policy of allolwing drilling anywhere the oil majors wanted was an environmental disaster in action.

²Although we are gradually more influenced to reevaluate what a Gaian perspective on nuclear power might be...

³The Clarion Content is not opposed to ameliorating the outcomes of global warming. We believe some attempts to limit temperature rise to be a good idea. However, since climate change itself is a theoretical inevitability, stasis being implausible, we don't put much stock in fighting it or even attempting to control it. We would instead focus efforts on the development end for those most effected by climate change. Better to work on more effective and cheaper education, more reliable health care provision, road maintenance and water delivery.

Labels: ecology, Economy, energy policy, Politics