GraniteGrok

Yesterday:

WASHINGTON — The Interior Department on Wednesday blocked a Bush administration plan to open parts of the Mountain West for oil-shale development, announcing that it would first study the water, power and land-use issues that complicate one of the nation's most abundant but controversial untapped sources of power.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar coupled the decision to cancel some shale development leases and launch a second round of leases limited to research purposes with a rebuke of what he called former President George W. Bush's "headlong rush" to begin development.

"Those who have fantasized that oil shale is a panacea for America's energy needs have been living in a fantasy land," he said. 

You know, the Obama Administration just loves those straw man arguments, don't they?  I don't know of one person or group that has said that oil shale (or oil sands or oil off the shore or oil...) was THE fix for our energy needs.  Yes, Drill Here, Drill Now works for what it can do...and so can Nukes and to a lesser degree, alternative energy.

So, instead of developing our own resources to STOP buying foreign oil that support terrorism (hmm, didn't know that we classified Canada, Britain, Norway, et al as terrorist countries.  Middle Eastern, probably.  Venezuela I'd keep an eye on.  Russia has show it cannot be trusted....but Canada?), we will continue that which they don't want us to do?

And it is NOT a small amount of energy:

IER: Interior Decision on Oil Shale Locks Away American Energy Resource Larger than Total Reserves of Middle East

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Institute for Energy Research (IER) president Thomas J. Pyle issued the following statement today after the Interior Department announced its plans to withdraw from consideration acreage in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming where research and development of a small portion of our nation’s homegrown oil shale reserves had previously been scheduled to take place:

“Earlier this week, Secretary Salazar suggested America’s massive and homegrown reserves of oil shale held ‘great potential.’ Unfortunately, the Interior Department’s decision today may help ensure that potential never becomes reality – in the process, locking-away an American energy resource larger than the total reserves of the entire Middle East.

“At a time of great economic uncertainty, with millions of Americans out of work and state budgets stretched beyond their breaking point, responsible development of America’s abundant shale resources could be a way out of our current condition, and a way back to a better one. The Interior Department’s announcement today effectively forecloses that opportunity.”

NOTE: In a story posted Sunday by the Salt Lake (City, Utah) Tribune, reporter Thomas Burr quoted Secretary Salazar as saying to a group of western governors gathered in Washington that oil shale had “great potential.”

All of which would require AMERICANS to extract, meaning AMERICAN jobs - wasn't that the whole purpose of the all this Federal spending - to create jobs?

Oh...sorry...what was I thinking! Liberal ideology first!