Lamnidae

Roy Brown criticizes Gov. Schweitzer today over the deferral of gas and oil leases on 800 acres of Rocky Mountain Front land, somehow trying to equate the move with the nation’s skyrocketing fuel prices. By this logic, wouldn’t the roughly four and a half billion barrels of oil estimated to be readily retrieved in the Bakken formation have driven our local fuel prices down long ago?

Apparently not, and someone as connected to the oil biz as Roy Brown knows this fully well. What’s also readily apparent is that Mr. Brown is willing to use some of the most pristine hunting and fishing land in the lower-48 as a bargaining chip to make a political point. Never mind that a good portion of this land lies within the Blackleaf wildlife management area as well. The fact of the matter is that today’s hullabaloo is nothing more than a sample of a classic GOP redirect of the blame that lies squarely on the shoulders of a party that’s allowed for rampant manipulation of prices throughout the supply chain, commodities speculation, tax rewards for bad corporate citizenry, and systematically obstructed any congressional efforts to invest in new forms of renewable energy.

I have to wonder if any of these Republicans honestly believe we can drill our way out of this economic crisis? Is there some magical quality to the relatively small amount of oil that lies underneath the Rocky Mountain Front or in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that will somehow allow it defy the laws of economics that control the prices of crude from elsewhere? The real answer is that the GOP is unwilling to take any real steps towards addressing the issue and minor hotspots like these 800 acres make a great scapegoat.

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