Salazar: House Republicans live in “imagined energy world,” says they are members of a “flat earth” society

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar sharply rebuked House Republicans Tuesday, calling them “charter members of the flat earth society” and saying they are living in an “imagined energy world … of fairy tales” in striking a balance between energy development and preserving lands. “It’s an invention of campaign years and political rhetoric. It’s a place where you hear cries of drill, drill, drill, not withstanding the fact that most of the outer continental shelf resources are open for business,” Salazar said in a speech at the National Press Club. “It’s a place where up is seen as down, where left is seen as right, where oil shale seems to be mistaken every day in the U.S. House of Representative for shale oil, where record profits justify billions of dollars in subsidies.” Salazar has been at war with House Republicans, particularly those on the Natural Resources Committee, about the Administration’s alacrity and openness in increasing domestic energy production. He has been criticized in hearings for the moratorium in the Gulf and for pushing oil and gas companies to disclose what they use in hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” Salazar said Tuesday that “in the real world” natural gas production is at an all-time high and domestic oil production is at an eight-year high. He said in the last year alone, the U.S. imported one million fewer barrels of oil a day. Salazar also said renewable energy production has doubled in two years...more