Although Elizabeth Warren landed a spot on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee earlier this year, you don’t often hear her mentioned in the context of energy policy. So I was happy this week to see her co-sponsor an excellent bill introduced earlier this week.
That bill is Jeff Merkley (D-OR)’s Keep It in the Ground Act, which would stop new leases and end non-producing leases for offshore drilling in the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico; stop new and end non-producing coal, oil, gas, oil shale and tar sands leases on all federal lands; and prohibit offshore drilling in the Arctic and the Atlantic.
If we are to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, then a significant percentage of known fossil fuel reserves must be left in the ground. According to a Nature article from earlier this year, 82% of known, extractable coal reserves must be left in the ground. The numbers for natural gas and oil are 49% and 33%, respectively. Other studies have put the total percentage of “unburnable” fossil fuel reserves at up to 80%.
The bill was praised by 350.org, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the League of Conservation Voters, Environment America, the Center for Biological Diversity, Food & Water Watch, and Friends of the Earth.
Warren, a co-sponsor, and Merkley, the lead sponsor, were joined by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT).
HE is usually the MA Senator I associate with leadership on this issue.
Surprised me, too, but I can’t see him not supporting it.
Both were signers on a good letter regarding fossil fuels on public lands earlier this week: http://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2015/11/senators-push-to-end-sweetheart-deal-for-coal-producers-at-expense-of-taxpayers.
Many Republican western governors and legislators are agitating for more state control of federal land out west — primarily to extract resources, but perhaps also to use more guns, snowmobiles, and whatnot on the land.
Most East Coasters don’t appreciate how much western land is federal. Check out this map of federal lands to appreciate the east/west divide.