Senator Saxby Chambliss: Oil exploration along the Ga Coast

Dear Senator Chamblis,

Thank you for your response to our letters about the exploration and extraction of oil along the Georgia Coast, the Outer Shelf being the chief parcel of my personal concerns.

Unfortunately, your position only focuses on the national energy security strategy as related to Oil and Natural Gas. Furthermore, this particular tactic represents little more than a reactionary short-term stop gap measure, rather than a well conceived plan to stabilize our nation. As I wrote to President Bush seven years ago concerning ANWR, I would have less of a problem with prospecting for oil in these sensitive areas so long as we are putting forth significant efforts to reduce our dependency on non-renewable fuels. Practically nothing has been done towards finding alternative ways to keep our country's energy supplies viable besides actually in creasing our consumption of oil by incentives consumers to purchase gas guzzling vehicles. Once an area like ANWR is exploited, we have to keep looking for our next fix like some mendicant drug addict, yet we have not invested in other means to alleviate our needs. We find ourselves back at square one, over and over again, compelle to make war to secure our economic interests.

As a nation, we have consistently failed to foster these alternative means to power our economy. Electric cars were removed from the roads (EV1), despite high levels of customer satisfaction, good vehicle performance, and very low emmissions from the actual vehicle. Hybrids cost more than regular cars to maintain and purchase, the hybrid credit falling far short of the price differential it was designed to offset. The farm vehicle credit was reduced, but you still get a hefty credit for buying a huge vehicle if you are an LLC. The farm vehicle credit is several time larger than the hybrid credit. The gas guzzler tax was completely repealed in 2005. The failure to regulate building material energy efficiencies and allowing a mushrooming housing market to build cheaply has over burdened our already over taxed utilities wasting our energy both in the time it takes to work long enough to pay the bills and in terms of the overall energy consumption. Our failure to secure global commodities agreements has left the door wide open; allowing China to pin down the resources we need, has placed our entire economic future in peril. This has lead to a $1.36/Euro from a $.83/Euro in 2001. We have all lost in real dollars about 39% of our former purchasing power. ( read why here) Meanwhile, the government has distracted us with an agonizing war that only benefits the companies who have the contracts to rebuild what is destroyed. Meanwhile, oil prices have significantly INCREASED since President Bush from the deck of the carrier declared, "Mission Accomplished". We have not necessarily reduced our exposure to terror. If buying fuel from countries who sponsor terror increases the threat of terror, then we are cutting our nose to spite our face.

Related to this matter, four years ago I wrote and submitted to the Icelandic Parliament a road map to a hydrogen economy based on their access to geothermal resources. They are well along into the actual deployment of this proposal and are reaping the benefits . Currently, I am working with a Utah based company that has already developed fuels systems that supplement fuel with Hydrogen to gain 20-30% mileage performance improvements, quad fuel vehicles (H2, Ethanol, NG, Unleaded), and the founder, Tai Robinson, is the first American to successfully drive round trip on Hydrogen only.This was accomplished nearly 4 years ago. (published Press Releases & Coverage)

The crucial mission for our nation involves energy security and economic sustainability. Your plan would only serve as a knee jerk addictive reaction which only make certain companies that sponsored certain political campaigns a little bit more profitable, yield minuscule amounts of crude to the national supply, and would certainly endanger our state and national treasures for the short term goal of energy exploration.

We have in our state of Georgia one of the leading think tanks for energy security. Mr. John Endicott is the Director for the Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy at Georgia Tech's Ivan Allen College. The center hosts a regular series of presentations which are attended by the military as well as private sector individuals. You would find establishing a dialogue with this resource to be formative and provocative.

In closing, your position lacks the foresight necessary to stabilize the energy security of our nation. I call upon you to expand your view of what is possible and the economic growth our state and nation can experience by truly pursuing these alternatives. These alternatives are already proven to be functionally sound. We must, as with most public service related initiatives, legislate the adoption of these technologies on a wide scale so the investors can see fit to patronize this effort.

I invite you to explore these possibilities and deploy the power of your chair as a senator to building a stronger America.

Sincerely,

Bryan "Beau" Grant
Convivia Group
Commercial Real Estate Broker
Skype: malacandra
SecondLife: Jebediah Raymaker
Google Chat: bgrantenator

Letter from Senator Chambliss:

Dear Mr. Grant :

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Department of Interior's initiative to boost oil and natural gas production on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska . I appreciate hearing from you on this important matter.

High energy costs are hitting Americans in their pocketbooks due to supply problems with oil and natural gas. This plan will begin to alleviate our supply problems and provide us with greater independence from foreign sources of energy by opening up millions of acres for energy exploration.

According to the Department, the program could produce 10 billion barrels of oil and 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over 40 years, generating almost $170 billion, in today's dollars, in net benefits for the Nation. The OCS is a vital source of domestic oil and natural gas for America , especially in light of sharply rising energy prices and increasing demand for these resources. This energy production will create jobs, provide greater economic and energy security for America and can be accomplished in a safe and environmentally sound manner.

I will continue to support an energy policy that will make our country less vulnerable to fluctuating gas prices by promoting renewable energy sources, developing alternative sources of energy like hydrogen, encouraging greater use of ethanol and biodiesels, and increasing domestic refinery capacity and domestic sources of fuel.

If you would like to receive timely email alerts regarding the latest congressional actions and my weekly e-newsletter, please sign up via my web site at: www.chambliss.senate.gov . Please let me know whenever I may be of assistance.

Saving the world from ourselves

Many Global Warming discussions hinge upon the aggregate of political decisions of a society which are a result of culture. The culture of the US renders our nation incapable of leading the world in the challenge of Global Warming.

During a recent three and half week trip to Europe concluding an international business seminar in Munich and Paris, we met with business leaders such as the French Ambassador of the Ministry of Finance and Economy, directors from global companies like Siemens, and representatives from various Chambers of Commerce. Afterwards, I volunteered a week at the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. Rarely was the topic of Global Warming discussed in terms other than as clearly in the planning agenda of the companies we visited. It was also implied that human causality was a foregone conclusion rather than a reaction to naturally occurring shifts in climate.

In terms of the opinion of regular people you meet on the street, positive and frank discussion welled forth in the pubs and bars throughout Paris, Garmische, Munich, Buckinghamshire, and Oxford. As an American though, they were rather direct in questioning me about my personal responsibility for having a president such as Mr. Bush. Bush is widely considered to be the most dangerous leader the world has faced since Hitler. I found that surprising, but like a frog boiled slowly in a pot of water, I have succumbed to our political state of affairs as the accepted status quo. It never dawned on me that he is viewed that dimly.


During these travels in Europe, I noticed people at bars and pubs find it socially acceptable to discuss issues that are meaningful (read as:religion, politics, the environment, race relations). There is little divide between having a good time and having real conversations. By contrast, at the Fox and Hound, a pub near my home in Atlanta, people may only dip their toes in the waters of meaningful discussion but rarely dive in and challenge one another, aside from drunken posturing and belligerence. Perhaps they want to appear intelligent, engaged or socially responsible. Invariably, once a boundary is passed where real urgency is laid plain, people then go to a "I don't want to think about" "eat, drink, and be merry" attitude.

The fact is that US citizens have NEVER been invaded, except for the Trade Centers. One could argue Mexico invaded. However, we garrisoned Mexico City in the 1840's. We invaded Mexico, not the other way around. Our own citizens perpetrated a similar atrocity, the Oklahoma Federal Building. Yet, one rarely hears any mention of this, so as to keep our anger focused on the Axis of Evil. We at home wring our hands that we lost thousands of people in a terrorist bombing, then we allow our government to spend 4x the money on a war in country that we know has no relation to the bombing, all the while allowing Bin Laden to literally walk out of the canyon where he was surrounded by the CIA's Jawbreaker task force. Then, the US Government tries to gag the author, former CIA member Bernstien.

The old world has been relentlessly bombed, blasted, and tortured throughout many wars over hundreds of years Europe lost millions in ovens, hundreds of thousands in bombings, and thousands to small arms fire. Besides the civil war 150 years ago that was self-inflicted, we simply cannot conceive of this reality.

Only 50 years ago, Europe was a wasteland, decimated population, divided in half with a Iron Curtain, with nukes bristling at the pickets. They truly stared Apocalypse in the eyes and perpetrated the Holocaust. (Photos from Dachau visit) They were forced to make decisions that led to cooperation and coalitions. Add to this the loss of their colonial holdings and warfare across these former colonies, you have a grim social and economic picture. Yet, they prevailed, and their Euro and Pound are now 40% stronger than the dollar over the past 5 years. All the while, the best minds say the dollar will slide even further, perhaps as soon as this January.


Americans have never faced at home the real atrocities which forced modern Europe to find political means to reconcile differences, create social programs, and develop a faculty for thoughtful listening. Instead, we have allowed our attitude to shift to the point where we have become a ruthless society that attacks anything that remotely resembles a threat to the cocktail party we live in. To avoid rocking the boat, we even resign ourselves to sitting apathetically in traffic for 10 hours a week, while at the same time vociferously denying any rail projects to alleviate the snarl and mess. Today, only 5 US cities (Boston, NYC, Philly, DC, Chicago) have extensive rail mass transit today, versus pre-1950's when US most cities had at least an extensive trolley system. During the 1930's we had a national rail network with trains exceeding 100mph. Just try to use Amtrak to go somewhere besides in the North east. The nations largest development ($2.2) of its time, Atlantic Station in Atlanta GA, is along side existing railways, .5 miles from the Amtrak station and the subway lines, yet Atlantic Station HAS NO STATION! That should illustrate how dysfunctional we are.(Rather accurate accounts of Atlanta are here.)

You have no choice but to own a car. The MARTA buses in Atlanta do not adhere to their own schedules. Your employer will fire you if you are late. Yet, Atlanta is the lowest average income earners of the 15 peer cities, where citizens on average can not afford more than $800 per month for a mortgage.

In the US, w let 30 million people go without adequate medical care. We allow people to freeze in the streets. We allow our old to face care systems in the nursing homes that are expensive and downright deadly.

Americans force welfare recipients to work two jobs to pay the rent, provide no day care services, and wonder why children show up at school with handguns, run away from home, or perform on the latest porn site. Single mom's with median jobs say earning $35k per year, must pay around $900 per month for quality childcare. Blame it on your congressman, you say? That person is OUR responsibility and so we are also responsible for thier actions.

We do have more immediate problems that some ice shelf calving in the hinterlands of Canada. Yet, we are doing little to change these pressing issues facing American society, never mind dealing with a far off dooms day possiblity that noone wants to talk about.

We bury our heads in the sand. We subsidize SUV purchases through the Farm Vehicle Tax Credit driving gas guzzling SUV's while providing little incentive to buy hybrid cars and removing electric cars from the market despite strong demand. During a time when we are fighting a war directly related to our dependence on oil, this is completely irrational. Our consumption puts our nation and our soldiers directly at risk. Yet we would rather throw our brothers and sisters into the line of fire rather than give up our Navigators and Escalades.

If driving an SUV is not viewed as unpatriotic to America during a war about oil and energy resources, then how could anyone have a hope that Americans will accept a meaningful dialogue about Global Warming, much less support positive actions to put a halt to the problem? They are happy to see Saddam hang, a man who never directly attacked us, while remaining silent and not outraged that Bin Laden is still out there plotting heavens knows what against us.

On the world political stage, the US is viewed as an adolescent with a good heart, a bad temper, inconsistent foreign policy, and with unlimited access to resources that no adolescent should ever have. The US simply does not have the motivation or capacity to face the issues related to fossil fuel based economics. We are the largest economy. We have the largest military. Moreover, if we ever interrupt our consumption patterns, we will bankrupt entire nations. "Why should we change our ways? We run the show, right? " are the thoughts driving the psyche of our countrymen.

We must look to the Old World countries for leadership is this matter. They have the skills in global trade relations, language, diplomacy, and have had to learn hard lessons about the consequences of reactionary and aggressive forms of conflict resolution. Cowboy diplomacy simply does work.

The good news is that some Americans are actively working on the problem. If you want to know about REAL alternatives to fossil fuels and bio fuels where a close friend three years ago became the first American to drive round trip coast to coast on Hydrogen. He has now created the first quad fuel vehicle, Unleaded, Ethanol, Natural Gas, and Hydrogen. Flip a switch; change the fuel. Change the world. This solves all manner of logistical problems about fuel types, distribution, and vehicle range.

Here is the rub - if Mr. Robinson at Intergalactic Hydrogen can do this in his garage without a college degree, then one has to wonder why the largest corporations in the world are withholding this technology from us, for they also must have developed similar capabilities.

For once, our pride in America may put us in the follower position in the fight to save the world. Now the world may have to intervene to save us from ourselves.



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Taxpayers for Common Sense

American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 Lowers the SUV deduction from $100,000 to $25,000. Yet, $25,000 is $21,500 more than the credit for Hybrid fuel vehicles. Then add to it, the gas guzzler tax was REPEALED in 4Q'05, we clearly could care less about energy Independence and national security, much less being environmentally responsible.

Changes Effective for the Fourth Quarter of 2005 - Gas Guzzler Tax The gas guzzler tax on limousines with a gross unloaded vehicle weight of greater than 6,000 pounds is repealed, effective for sales, uses, or leases by the manufacturer, producer, or importer.

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