Reid plan splits Dems Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has split the Democratic front opposed to drilling with a plan that would open new areas for exploration. Reid’s proposal was meant to insulate Senate Democratic candidates from public anger over gas prices. Instead, it has created a divide with liberal colleagues and drawn fire from senior House Democrats. A group of influential Senate and House Democrats has sided with environmental groups against Reid to call exploration in new areas unnecessary. The legislation, drafted by Reid and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), would open nearly a billion new acres off the coast of Alaska to study for drilling. It would also dramatically accelerate oil leases in the western and central Gulf of Mexico. "I am unalterably opposed to drilling,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who cited a massive oil spill that closed nearly 100 miles of the Mississippi River last week. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) urged Reid to be “very careful about drilling off the coast of Alaska.” Reid could also face resistance from other Democrats who oppose drilling off Alaska’s shores....
Every Man a Jed Clampett For years, the stunning success of Southwest Airlines has been a staple feature story on the business pages of major newspapers. In an era of rising prices and busted planes, Southwest seems to float above the fray. Even as the bottom lines of their airborne brethren fall ever lower—other airlines reported a collective $6 billion loss this quarter—Southwest is reporting its 69th consecutive profitable quarter. Tickets are still pretty cheap, and there are no new surcharges for checked bags, something the company has been making much of in its ads. Southwest itself credits its profitability to savvy, forward-looking commodoties hedging to compensate for higher fuel prices. In fact, the company has saved about $3.5 billion with hedging since 1998, a figure equal to 83 percent of its profits over that time. Hedging means that a company locks in a price for oil at a fixed date in the future by signing a contract today promising to buy the oil at that price, no matter what happens to the market in the interim. If prices go up, Southwest speculators get to buy below-market rates. If prices go down, they have to pay more than their competitors for the same oil. Southwest has hedged so well that the company paid about $2.35 a gallon for jet fuel this quarter. Those with less speculative skill would have had to cough up $3.95 for the same gallon on the spot market. Southwest, which also signed the Stop Oil Speculation spam, isn't the only airline to hedge on the price of oil−they all do, just not nearly as successfully. Apparently, when airlines buy oil futures on a bet that the prices will eventually go up, it's good business practice, but when people who don't happen to be the treasurers of airlines do the same thing, it's "rampant speculation" that "upsets the natural relationship between supply and demand."....
Had Enough Of Eco-Lobby's Energy Prices? For more than a half century, the increasingly powerful and wealthy environmentalist organizations have used laws like the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to impose a harsh, uncompromising regime on the nation's economy, on families' pocketbooks, and on every resident's quality of life. Their frequently unfounded and typically exaggerated claims of countless species of plant and wildlife becoming extinct unless human endeavors are halted or severely curtailed underlies their ultimate goal of returning major portions of the country to an imagined pristine state. The sharp run-up in oil and gas prices is their "perfect storm" for accomplishing that goal. Consider that in the 1980s the U.S. Geological Survey estimated some 17 billion barrels of recoverable oil lie under the 1.5-million acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. One million barrels of oil produces 27 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel; here there are potentially 17 billion barrels. Many urged drilling in ANWR to capture this oil and natural gas. With modern drilling technology, only about 2,000 surface acres would be required to recover the oil and natural gas under the Coastal Plain. But the environmentalist organizations began a "no drilling in ANWR" PR campaign, claiming that wildlife species such as the porcupine, caribou, arctic wolf, polar bear and others were on the brink of oblivion, and would be lost forever if drilling occurred. Several bills to allow extraction of this oil and natural gas were presented in Congress over the past 20 years, but each was either killed or vetoed. Nor was there scientific evidence supporting the claim that any of the wildlife species were even close to the brink of extinction. Besides ANWR, the U. S. Mineral Management Service has estimated as much as 19 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lie under the Atlantic, Pacific and Florida Gulf coasts....
'Only you' can change how we deal with fire Salmon outnumber people in the rugged backcountry outside McCall where Cris Bent and his wife, Nanci, bought a cabin 33 years ago to immerse themselves in the wild, green landscape. Today, much of that terrain is black after several large wildfires swept through the area last summer. Bent, the fire chief for the cabin community of Secesh, agrees with scientists and forest managers that the forest would be healthier if more fires were allowed to burn. But he shares his neighbors' grief at the loss of the forest he loved. "We're here because we like trees," he said. "If we didn't, we'd move to the desert." More than 60 years of Smokey Bear still keeps federal agencies from letting more wildfires burn, despite scientific evidence that forests need fire - and that homes can be saved by cheaper, more effective means. Loggers don't want to watch harvestable trees destroyed. Hunters don't want to lose traditional hunting grounds. Hikers, cabin owners, mountain bikers, fishermen and anyone else with a favorite spot in the vast wildlands of the West don't want that spot to change....
11th-hour effort to save a Native tongue Several dozen children stand atop a bluff to face the morning sun as it peeks over a distant ridge. "Nyims thava hmado we'e," they chant, meaning "Boys greet the morning sun." And then for girls: "Nyima thava masi:yo we'e." Jorigine Bender, the teacher, urges them to repeat the dawn greeting with raised hands. "Everybody, turn toward your brother, the sun." The youths, Hualapai and Yavapai, recite the phrases in self-conscious, uncertain unison. The language is Pai, passed down to them through generations but unintelligible to the children. In an America dominated by computers, TV and video games, a decreasing number of Native Americans, especially younger ones, can speak or understand their Native tongues....