The follow is a press statement by Keith Hay, energy
advocate at Environment Colorado
With
today’s announcement of the Bush administration’s proposed regulations to lease
land in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah for oil shale development, the President is again
holding out a false promise of lower gasoline prices to Coloradans.
President
Bush’s plan amounts to gambling our energy future on an unproven technology
that is a bad bet today and an environmental disaster for Colorado tomorrow. Oil
shale is years from providing gasoline meaning that reaching for those resources
won’t help lower prices or the pain at the pump today.
Developing
Colorado’s oil shale resource would have profound impacts on the northwestern
part of the state, especially on the areas water resource. According to the
U.S. Department of Energy, mature oil shale production of 2 million barrels of
oil per day would require between 2 million and 6 million gallons of water per
day for mining and processing. In addition, continuing our dependence on oil
will raise global warming pollution for years to come. Instead of drilling
down, we need to get beyond oil to lower gasoline prices.
For
seven years President Bush has had the authority to take the biggest single
step towards saving consumers money on gasoline by increasing fuel economy
standard. For seven years he refused to
increase standards. Instead of a false
promise, he should work with Congress to pass these standards.
We
simply cannot drill or mine our way to energy independence. We use approximately 25% of the world’s oil
but have less than 2 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. We must use our energy resources more
efficiently and switch to renewable resources.
