The Pendragon's Hall

I guess it's good news that Congress is acting on the President's challenge to pass an energy bill before the summer recess. Reportedly the bill gives tax breaks to electric and other energy companies to encourage more drilling and exploration and also relaxes some of the strict environmental standards that make it economically unfeasible for energy companies to expand. This is all good. But I'm not so sure about the fact that the idea of drilling in ANWR has been left out. I know the House had to do this to avoid those mindless Dems filibustering it in the Senate, but it's just leaving the fight for another day. As long as the Hollywood Jet Club is cruising across the country in private jets, burning enough fuel to run an SUV for a year, and living in huge mansions that take up enough electricity to light pretty much any African country for years to come, normal people are going to fight back by sticking fast to their right to own their own vehicle and travel. And why shouldn't they? Since when is "the right to travel" only guaranteed to the rich? While the Democrats are pontificating endlessly about tax breaks for the richest oil companies, they might do well to remember what their own limousines run on. But the only thing that I can see that will do a lot to seriously reduce our dependence on the foreign oil provided by brutal dictators is to begin drilling our own in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge. They did it in Siberia with little to no environmental damage. In fact that caribou got frisky and their population tripled. And anyone who think the ANWR is some kind of northern paradise hasn't seen even a picture: it's a barren, frozen wasteland and the people who live there want the oil line. It's just one more way of making "Seward's folly" pay for itself. (For my Canadian readers, "Seward's folly" is what many people called Alaska when the Secretary of State arranged its purchase from the Russians, thinking it was just a frozen wasteland that would never redeem itself.)