Big Energy's Bob Schaffer silent after BLM overturns Ritter's Roan Plateau drilling plan

The senate candidate for Big Oil (and Big Energy) is Republican Bob Schaffer . He's a lying, vicous partisan who is completely in the tank for Exxon/Mobil, BP, and the rest of his high maintenance friends in Big Energy.

As our economy hurtles toward a recession let's not forget the fantastic financial status of big oil in this country: record profits, record prices, record salaries for their CEO's - and the legal and tax aid they were given by Republicans every step of the way.

Now we get to Colorado's Roan Plateau, which could contain trillions of feet³ of natural gas and other resources. Should that gas be used? Yes. Should companies pay fair market value to the government and have to maintain the ecology of the Plateau? Absolutely. Should a well thought plan developed at the local level be used to administer these resources? Not according to George Bush and his big energy cronies like Bob Schaffer. BTW, Bush just made sure California's air won't be cleaner in the near future as well.

Once a oilman, always an oilman........

Sheesh, even the Denver Post, who once called Ritter "Jimmy Hoffa" for trying to enhance government worker's job status, called for a rejection of the Bureau of Land Management's reversal of Ritter's eminently reasonable plan to extract energy from Roan:

We've advocated harvesting the estimated 9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the Roan, but in the balanced and responsible manner proposed by Ritter. Failing to adopt the governor's plan now risks prolonging the fight over the Roan past the next presidential election — when a new administration might grant the total ban on drilling some environmentalists have long demanded.

No one — not Colorado's sportsmen, not the energy industry and certainly not the people of this state — benefits from wide swings of the political pendulum between reckless development in one national administration and blanket bans on resource development in subsequent years. Such radical policy changes are a formula for both environmental degradation and debilitating "boom and bust" economic cycles.

Recognizing the need for Ritter's middle course, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar and U.S. Reps. Mark Udall, Diana DeGette and John Salazar all criticized the BLM decision Thursday and called for a renewed effort in Congress to protect the Roan. The Post supports their efforts, as long as they hew closely to Sen. Salazar's current drive to write the protections proposed by Ritter into federal law.

Ritter unveiled his compromise plan for the energy-rich plateau last December. He built on plans developed by his Republican predecessor, Bill Owens, but proposed several additional protections for wildlife habitat....

Besides those elected officials, candidate Jared Polis has also spoken up:

If you haven’t been to the Plateau, it is Colorado, distilled down to its most beautiful, remote, and wild. But unfortunately, like much of Western Colorado, its 70,000 acres outside of Rifle sit on top of natural gas deposits that oil companies want. Governor Ritter had made a reasonable, modest proposal to revisit the BLM’s decision to lease the entire plateau to big oil (they already own half of it), supported by Senator Salazar, Congressman Salazar, and virtually all the local elected officials in the area. The BLM’s decision today forces Senator and Representative Salazar to pass legislation in order to save the Roan.

And where does Bob Schaffer stand on this issue? Or any issue for that matter? I'm sure his bosses don't want him to say. I know he still doesn't have the guts to put up anything, even an "Issues" button, on his senate campaign website:



It's been said often, and I'll repeat: "We can't drill our way to energy independence." That should be obvious to everyone.

We can use our resources wisely and enforce reasonable regulations on the companies that will profit. That's obvious to most of our officials here in Colorado except for one: Big Oil Bob Schaffer.

We know whose side he's on.