President-elect Joe Biden's Cabinet and Staff Nominees

[Derec]

Cornyn is a puppet of the oil and gas industry. He is one of the earliest climate change deniers.

That may be true, but it does not mean Deb Haaland's extremism in the opposite direction is any better.

Despite what many people think, the Department of the Interior is not supposed to be servant of any natural resource extracting industry.

I do not think anybody thinks that.
And just because DOI is "not supposed to be servant of any natural resource extracting industry", does not mean it is supposed to be ideologically opposed to them either.

This polarization of US politics is a real problem, and it includes energy policy.
On one hand you have climate change deniers, on the other hand you have those who want to ban oil and gas yesterday. Neither are good positions and switching between the two extremes when party controlling the presidency changes hands is giving the whole country whiplash. It didn't use to be quite this bad on energy policy. When Obama took power in 2008 it was still possible for him to advocate a sensible "all of the above" approach to energy policy. But even by the time his presidency ended, the Democratic Party moved so far to the left that this was no longer a feasible position for Obama to maintain, unfortunately.

Contrary to what many on here think, I do believe climate is a serious and important issue. But it is also a very complex one, and not amenable to simplistic, ideological solutions.
Electric cars have a lot of potential, but they are still only about 2% of new car and light truck sales, and vehicles these days easily last 15-20 years based on miles driven. That means that we will need oil for the foreseeable future and that means we will also need oil pipelines like DAPL and KXL.
Same with natural gas. Many US households use natural gas for heat, but the largest users are actually electricity generation and industrial use, often as synthesis reagent.
It will take decades to eliminate the need for natural gas, and in the meantime, we need fracking wells and gas pipelines.

Unfortunately, the alleged environmentalist activists in the Democratic Party and on the Left in general have a major hate boner for oil and gas, and especially for pipelines for some reason. To the extent that they oppose, and frequently protest (often violently) against any oil or gas pipeline.

If they really wanted to make the biggest impact on climate and the environment in general, supposed environmental activists would be focusing on coal, not oil and gas.
Coal is far more carbon intensive than natural gas and it is also much dirtier, emitting toxic substances like sulfur, mercury and uranium. Yes, a coal-fired power plant releases much more radioactivity than a nuclear power plant.
Also, coal is mostly used for power generation, and its use has been going down in favor of natural gas for years now, thanks to plentiful fracked gas.

Thus, efforts to derail US gas production by attacking fracking and pipelines is counterproductive environmentally.

So why are environmentalist activists relatively silent on coal? I think it is because they are really watermelon environmentalists - green on the outside, but red on the inside!
Oil and gas have a mythology (not unnervingly so) associated with rugged capitalism, and in the US particularly with Texas/Western oil and gas entrepreneurs and captains of industry.
On the other hand, coal mining is a big component of the mythology of the actually existing socialist countries in Eastern Europe as well as for socialists in places like UK - look no further than the politics surrounding the UK coal miner strikes, including the last big one in 1984-85.

That's a big reason why for example socialist Jeremy was in favor of reopening closed coal mines while opposing fracking for natural gas.

And don't get me started on the whole issue of irrational and ideologically driven opposition to nuclear power!

 

[Elixir]

...why are environmentalist activists relatively silent on coal? I think it is because they are really watermelon environmentalists - green on the outside, but red on the inside!

Look at your graph. Coal is going away, both literally and figuratively. It barely needs any help with that. Even Trump's all-in pandering effort didn't reverse or even flatten its decline.
But thanks for invoking yet another right-wing mantra to demonstrate your true place on the political spectrum.
Being a big fan of prostitution doesn't make you a liberal, or even a centrist, BTW.

 

[laughing dog]

Cornyn is a puppet of the oil and gas industry. He is one of the earliest climate change deniers.

That may be true, but it does not mean Deb Haaland's extremism in the opposite direction is any better.

It means his views should be taken with more than just a grain of salt. By the way, disagreeing with your views is not necessarily extremism.

Despite what many people think, the Department of the Interior is not supposed to be servant of any natural resource extracting industry....

I do not think anybody thinks that........

Riiight. Remind me of your criticisms of the policies Mr. Trump's Secretary of the Interior (a white man) who did the bidding of the natural resource extraction industry?

There is a balance between resource extraction and conservation. And there is a need to move away from the use of fossil fuel sources of energy as quickly as possible while taking into account the effects on the environment. People can reasonably disagree on the speed and scope of this transition. That does not make the "ideologically opposed" to anything in particular.

Personally, I would be much more concerned about Ms. Haaland's seeming lack of experience in managing large organizations and lack of experience in dealing with issues common to the Department of Interior rather than her support for a particular cause.

 

[Derec]

Look at your graph. Coal is going away, both literally and figuratively.

Look at the graph again. It has been declining, but it still accounts for ~30% of electricity generation. And a big reason why that happened is fracked gas. The same technology the Left (including Deb Haaland) want to kill.

It barely needs any help with that.

Oh, I disagree. The decline is rather slow, and Biden administration waging war on oil, gas and pipelines will make it slower than it needs to be.

Even Trump's all-in pandering effort didn't reverse or even flatten its decline.

Trump also supported oil and gas. Cheap and plentiful gas, made possible through fracking, is the coal killer. Not wishful thinking and unicorn dust.

But thanks for invoking yet another right-wing mantra to demonstrate your true place on the political spectrum.

You mean the watermelon metaphor? It is not specifically right-wing [being against socialism does not necessarily make soebody a right-winger!], and it fits very well here. It also fits AOC's (who is a self-described socialist) "Green New Deal" which is more about restructuring the economy than about climate or the environment.

Being a big fan of prostitution doesn't make you a liberal, or even a centrist, BTW.

I have liberal views on many issues outside of sex work too. And I mean truly liberal views, not what passes for "liberal" these days. That is beside the point here. Why do you feel the need for that particular non-sequitur all the time? It's getting tiresome.

 

[Derec]

It means his views should be taken with more than just a grain of salt.

So do Haalands. A whole salt mine in fact.
And when have I ever taken Cornyn as an authority on climate change or anything else? Again, I am not a right winger or a Republican.

By the way, disagreeing with your views is not necessarily extremism.

Being against all oil and gas pipelines is necessarily extremism though.

Riiight. Remind me of your criticisms of the policies Mr. Trump's Secretary of the Interior (a white man)

Being a "white man" is bad for some reason? He should have been born a half-Indian woman like the current pretender to the position. What was he thinking!

who did the bidding of the natural resource extraction industry?

In what way? Because he is not categorically opposed to oil and gas drilling and moving them from across the country?
Also which SecInt do you mean? He had two.

There is a balance between resource extraction and conservation.

Indeed. There needs to be a balance. I have see not even a glimmer of balance with Deb Haaland's (and more generally with the left-wing of the Democratic Party).

And there is a need to move away from the use of fossil fuel sources of energy as quickly as possible while taking into account the effects on the environment.

We can't just snap fingers and make things happen. Transitioning the entire energy sector takes decades. In the meantime we need oil and gas.
There also need to be clear priorities. Not all fossil fuels are equally bad. Coal is heads and shoulders the worst and should be the priority. But, alas, there is still a lot of coal miner romanticism on the hard Left. The oil and gas industry, with a more capitalist/individualist romanticism of the turn of the century wildcatters makes for a much more class-conscious Feindbild.
Anyway, coal is bad and should go first.
View attachment 31947

And fossil fuels are also not fungible. Gas can replace coal in power generation but cannot readily replace oil in transportation.

People can reasonably disagree on the speed and scope of this transition. That does not make the "ideologically opposed" to anything in particular.

Except that there is ideological opposition to the oil and gas extraction on the Left. "Keep it in the ground" is a common refrain among them, often accompanied by idiotic justifications such as "you can't drink oil". You can't munch on silicon wafers either, but that's no argument against solar power!
There is also ideological opposition to all pipelines that Deb Haaland shares. Biden already killed KXL and might try to kill DAPL. In fact, the Private Jet Liberals from Hollywood are pushing him to do just that.

View attachment 31948
Dum-dums like these two are whom Biden administration erroneously thinks is his "base".

Personally, I would be much more concerned about Ms. Haaland's seeming lack of experience in managing large organizations and lack of experience in dealing with issues common to the Department of Interior rather than her support for a particular cause.

You have a point there. At least Zinke was commander in the Navy and ran some businesses. But being ideologically opposed to oil and gas is a bad choice for SecInt in addition to that. Then there is nuclear power. That's another form of energy the Hard Left has an irrational and ideologically driven opposition to.

 

[fromderinside]

So after decades of transition the energy industry we're still saying it'll take decades to do so?

Wat the hell have we been doing?

Or, are you just practicing the "don't use government to do anything" gambit which has been their foundational position from the start.

From the above analysis I hope you can wee where your claim of "not republics" has the bucket hole Lucy found which she wants Wilbur to repair.

 

[Harry Bosch]

So after decades of transition the energy industry we're still saying it'll take decades to do so?

Wat the hell have we been doing?

Or, are you just practicing the "don't use government to do anything" gambit which has been their foundational position from the start.

From the above analysis I hope you can wee where your claim of "not republics" has the bucket hole Lucy found which she wants Wilbur to repair.

It's primarily due to fear. The irrational fear of nuclear power. Nuclear power is the safe and clean energy that could bridge us until the point where we can economically store solar and wind power in the future. We don't quite have good battery storage capability yet. From what I hear, it's about 20 years out. But we have these unscientific fears of nuclear power.

 

[laughing dog]

So do Haalands. A whole salt mine in fact.

My guess is that you know nothing about Ms. Haaland's views.

And when have I ever taken Cornyn as an authority on climate change or anything else? Again, I am not a right winger or a Republican.

What are you on about - no one to my knowledge said you were Cornynite.

Being against all oil and gas pipelines is necessarily extremism though.

Do you have any actual evidence that Ms. Haaland is against all oil and gas pipelines? If not, why are you babbling about it?

Being a "white man" is bad for some reason? He should have been born a half-Indian woman like the current pretender to the position. What was he thinking!

My point was (and your obtuse response confirms) that you did not criticize the Trump Secretaries of the Interior for anything. Both were white men. You are not fooling anyone but yourself.

 

[Jarhyn]

My guess is that you know nothing about Ms. Haaland's views.
What are you on about - no one to my knowledge said you were Cornynite.

Being against all oil and gas pipelines is necessarily extremism though.

Do you have any actual evidence that Ms. Haaland is against all oil and gas pipelines? If not, why are you babbling about it?

Being a "white man" is bad for some reason? He should have been born a half-Indian woman like the current pretender to the position. What was he thinking!

My point was (and your obtuse response confirms) that you did not criticize the Trump Secretaries of the Interior for anything. Both were white men. You are not fooling anyone but yourself.

Holy shit I just read Zinke's record of scandals, investigation, and rat-fuckery. It's extensive and soul-crushing.

He devoted his entire career to sacrificing the public trust on an altar of money and greed.

 

[Keith&Co.]

My guess is that you know nothing about Ms. Haaland's views.
What are you on about - no one to my knowledge said you were Cornynite.

Do you have any actual evidence that Ms. Haaland is against all oil and gas pipelines? If not, why are you babbling about it?

My point was (and your obtuse response confirms) that you did not criticize the Trump Secretaries of the Interior for anything. Both were white men. You are not fooling anyone but yourself.

Holy shit I just read Zinke's record of scandals, investigation, and rat-fuckery. It's extensive and soul-crushing.

He devoted his entire career to sacrificing the public trust on an altar of money and greed.

Only the best people

 

[Derec]

So after decades of transition the energy industry we're still saying it'll take decades to do so?

What's illogical about that? Say you have to drive 700 miles. If you drive "hundreds of miles", say 350, you still have "hundreds of miles", in this case 350, to go.
In any case, transition efforts have been going on in earnest for only maybe two decades now. Practical electric cars, renewables becoming cheaper (raw cost at least, there are still issues with intermittency and storage) and gaining market share, etc. are not that far in the past.
We still have at least three decades to go. It's going to take until at least 2050 or so for oil for transportation to become insignificant. Still a low single digits of all new cars are fully electric, but let's say vast majority of new cars and light trucks sold in the US are fully electric by 2035. That means it will take until 2050 at least for vast majority of all cars and light trucks on the road to become all electric.
Similar timeline will probably apply to electricity generation. The priority should be to get coal consumption to as close to zero as possible as quickly as we can. Which means more gas as a transition fuel.

We also need to rethink the environmentalist opposition to nuclear which has never made much sense.

Wat the hell have we been doing?

Or, are you just practicing the "don't use government to do anything" gambit which has been their foundational position from the start.

Who is "they"?
I do not subscribe to "don't use government to do anything". Government can do a lot of good, first and foremost investment in things like basic research and infrastructure.
Hamstringing domestic US oil and gas production and transportation is not a productive use of federal government power and resources.

From the above analysis I hope you can wee

???

where your claim of "not republics" has the bucket hole Lucy found which she wants Wilbur to repair.

Who is Lucy? Who is Wilbur?
As to "not republics[sic]", I am definitely not a Republican. I am an independent.
As far as climate, I recognize climate change is real. I think federal government has a definite role to play too. But I also think waging war against domestic oil and gas production and transport is bad policy. We still need oil and gas and the alternative to domestic production is to have to import more of it, at higher prices, and with proceeds going overseas instead of funding US jobs and government revenues through taxation and royalties. The priority should be to phase out coal, the dirtiest of all common energy sources.
What the federal government should do:
- fund basic research in energy technologies and technologies that mitigate effects of climate change.
- Increase carbon price through a carbon tax over time
- Invest in next-gen nuclear technologies. Nuclear is one of the safest and least carbon-intensive energy sources. Unlike wind and solar, nuclear plants can operate contnuously, which means that they are good for baseload. Process heat and excess electricity (e.g. at night) can be used to generate hydrogen for synthesis of other chemicals including synfuels for applications where electric vehicles are not practical, for example jet engines.
- help cities expand their transit systems, including transit-oriented development

 

[Derec]

My guess is that you know nothing about Ms. Haaland's views.

I know plenty.

What are you on about - no one to my knowledge said you were Cornynite.

Then why bring him up apropos of nothing?

Do you have any actual evidence that Ms. Haaland is against all oil and gas pipelines? If not, why are you babbling about it?

She may not have explicitly said "all", but there is evidence that she is opposed to all pipelines. She has been explicitly opposed to several pipelines (while not supporting any to my knowledge) and has also come against fracking and in favor of AOC's GND.

My point was (and your obtuse response confirms) that you did not criticize the Trump Secretaries of the Interior for anything. Both were white men.

Should I criticize them because they are white men? Or why else are you so obsessed about their gender and race?

You are not fooling anyone but yourself.

I am not trying to fool anybody. You, on the other hand, are and are failing miserably.

 

[Derec]

Holy shit I just read Zinke's record of scandals, investigation, and rat-fuckery. It's extensive and soul-crushing.

What specifically do you find soul-crushing?

He devoted his entire career to sacrificing the public trust on an altar of money and greed.

The public benefits from public lands being developed, as long as it is done responsibly. We all use energy. We all use mined materials such as copper, nickel etc.
The position of Deb Haalands of the world is untenable.

 

[Elixir]

The public benefits from public lands being developed, as long as it is done responsibly.

Right winger code for "Land-raping mining companies should be the arbiters of what constitutes "responsible land use".

We all use energy. We all use mined materials such as copper, nickel etc.

Yeah, and we all own shares in copper mines, right? So what's not fair about it?
(Hint: that's right winger nonsense meant to obfuscate the fact that the top 1% wealthiest Americans would like to further enrich themselves at the expense of the "rest", whose investiture in so-called public lands is negligible.)

 

[Derec]

Right winger code for "Land-raping mining companies should be the arbiters of what constitutes "responsible land use".

That you describe extractive industries as "land rape" shows just how radical you really are.

Yeah, and we all own shares in copper mines, right? So what's not fair about it?

No, not all of us, but more than you might think because of holdings in pension funds, mutual funds etc.
In any case, you need to own shares in companies to benefit form copper mining because copper (and other mined metals) benefit you in your daily life in many ways.
And if we are to decarbonize our economy, we will need more copper as well as other metals.

(Hint: that's right winger nonsense meant to obfuscate the fact that the top 1% wealthiest Americans would like to further enrich themselves at the expense of the "rest", whose investiture in so-called public lands is negligible.)

How is producing materials that are needed by the public 'enriching themselves at the expense of the "rest"'?
Please be specific.

 

[Derec]

It's primarily due to fear. The irrational fear of nuclear power. Nuclear power is the safe and clean energy that could bridge us until the point where we can economically store solar and wind power in the future. We don't quite have good battery storage capability yet. From what I hear, it's about 20 years out. But we have these unscientific fears of nuclear power.

True. Nuclear power would be a good solution. Unfortunately there is too much politics against it.
I had put this image in my post above, but for some reason it got deleted. It details both how much CO₂ an energy source emits as well as how dangerous it is.

 

[ideologyhunter]

"Land rape" is accurate (and perhaps understated) when it comes to the mountaintop removal that has laid waste to once-beautiful stretches of Kentucky and West Virginia. Imagine destroying a mountain -- blowing it up, wrecking it, pitching the broken masses into valleys -- and imagine what you've done to the watersheds. It's an unthinkable squandering of this land that is supposedly your land and my land.

 

[Elixir]

That you describe extractive industries as "land rape" shows just how radical you really are.

That you fail to address the matter of profiteers acting as arbitors of "reasonable use", and instead resort to an ad hom characterization, bespeaks your intellectual bankruptcy.
Maybe try sources for your 4-color graphs on copper other than Copper Development Association Inc.

 

[laughing dog]

I know plenty.

Perhaps about other subjects, but there is no evidence to date you know much, if anything, of substance about Ms. Haaland.

Then why bring him up apropos of nothing?

I did not bring him up., ltpetrich did in post 176 to which I replied and then you replied to my post. Try to pay attention,

She may not have explicitly said "all", but there is evidence that she is opposed to all pipelines. She has been explicitly opposed to several pipelines (while not supporting any to my knowledge) and has also come against fracking and in favor of AOC's GND.

You take your beliefe that she explicitly opposed several pipelines (although you don’t appear to have any evidence as the reasons) add in your lack of knowledge about her beliefs on pipelines in general and opposition to fracking and support of GDN to manufacture your claim she is opposed to all pipelines, Wow.

Should I criticize them because they are white men? Or why else are you so obsessed about their gender and race?

You repeat the same stupid straw man. Mr. Zinke has a long list of scandals (https://time.com/5480865/controversies-interior-secretary-ryan-zinke-resignation/and
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/a-guide-to-the-14-federal-investigations-into-ryan-zinke/) to which you have been completely silent.

I am not trying to fool anybody. You, on the other hand, are and are failing miserably.

We were both wrong. You successfully fool yourself into thinking your criticisms are only driven by policy and reason.

 

[Derec]

"Land rape" is accurate (and perhaps understated) when it comes to the mountaintop removal that has laid waste to once-beautiful stretches of Kentucky and West Virginia.

I have already said that coal mining needs to be ended asap for a variety of reasons.
Elixir is calling all extractive industries "land rape".
Modern oil and gas drilling for example uses horizontal and "maximum reservoir contact" (i.e. branched) drilling which greatly reduces the above ground well footprint.


There is still need for open pit mining though - for example most copper mines are open pit. When the ore is close to the ground that's how you get to it.

Imagine destroying a mountain -- blowing it up, wrecking it, pitching the broken masses into valleys -- and imagine what you've done to the watersheds. It's an unthinkable squandering of this land that is supposedly your land and my land.

Depending how valuable the stuff under the mountain is. For a long while our industrial society needed coal, and huge quantities of it. Thankfully we have reached the stage of technological development where we no longer need coal. That does not mean that it was wrong to get coal out of the ground when we needed it.

Today we primarily need other things - we still need oil and gas for sure, but in a decarbonized future we will need copper, nickel, lithium even more than today.