Not-So-Famous but Immensely Significant Quotes
Krayton Kerns
6.11.08
“Four score and seven years ago…,” begins Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address.
“Ask not what your country can do for you…,” President Kennedy proclaimed upon his inauguration.
As profound as the previous two speeches were, the impact from both pale in comparison to what Ed said June 4th. Ed Cable, the chairman of South Dakota’s “Save Union County”, is quoted in the Sioux City Journal as saying, “we have strategies in place to slow or delay all the permit processes.”
That quote is immensely significant as that is exactly how environmental extremists hamper all economic development; tie it up with endless appeals. Union County voters did the unimaginable in the June 3rd Primary; by a 58% to 42% majority they approved the rezoning of 3,200 acres to allow the construction of a new oil refinery.
This would be America’s first new refinery in 32 years and would mean 4500 new jobs during the four year construction phase followed by 1826 permanent full time jobs upon completion. With new refining capacity in South Dakota, pipelines would likely be built to supply crude oil from the enormous reserves of the Bakken Formation in Montana, North Dakota and Canada. Jobs would be created all along the pipeline coming in and the supply chain going out. And, since we know that it is the wage earner that pays most of the taxes in this country, the revenues into the local, state and national economies would be enormous. America needs the fuel, and we have the crude so, all in all, a new refinery is a great thing; right? Well…not according to Ed.
Ed also has friends in Montana. Because of the growing wildfire threat in our national forest, USFS officials planned to log 180 acres of beetle killed Douglas fir in Big Timber Canyon on the east face of the Crazy Mountains. Claiming water quality standards and goshawk nesting habitat issues were ignored, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Native Ecosystems Council immediately filed suit. They knew full well they didn’t need to kill this project; only delay it until the rotting timber held no value.
It matters not if it is mining, logging, coal-bed methane development, coal-fired or hydro-electric generation, oil exploration, or the construction of a new oil refinery; gumming up the works with law suits and endless appeals is so easy. If there is any one group most responsible for $4.00 dollar gasoline and $5.00 diesel it is the environmental leftists. While we battle Ed and his friends, China is pumping crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico. China doesn’t have an Ed.
Legislation is being drafted to require groups filing endless senseless appeals to post a significant bond during the process. These groups would suddenly have an economic stake in the game and if they lose, their bond is forfeited. This legislation must be considered before our economy collapses and like a third-world country, we are forced to beg China for foreign aid.
