A column printed in the Oct. 9 Sarasota Herald Tribune takes a cheap shot at the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association. FlaSEIA is the brave solar energy group that has stood firm in its support for using revenues from oil drilling in Florida to help protect and sustain efforts to promote the use of solar energy in the Sunshine State.
The column accuses the solar energy group of taking "money, not a principled stand."
Well, while the writer argues his position passionately he must not be aware the some of the leading environmental groups have used money from oil and natural gas to further their own objectives.
Yes, that's right. Environmental groups have benefited from oil and gas revenues.
In an article written for the Independent Review in 2001, Dwight R. Lee, a noted University of Georgia economics professor, details how some in the environmental community have put oil and natural gas revenue to work to help meet their goals.
Background on Oil and Gas Drilling on Audubon Society Land
In regards to oil and natural gas drilling that has occurred on Audubon Society land, in the article Professor Lee says:
"For example, the Audubon Society owns the Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary, a 26,000-acre preserve in Louisiana that provides a home for fish, shrimp, crab, deer, ducks, and wading birds, and is a resting and feeding stopover for more than 100,000 migrating snow geese each year. ... Besides being ideally suited for wildlife, the sanctuary contains commercially valuable reserves of natural gas and oil, which attracted the attention of energy companies when they were discovered in the 1940s. Clearly, the interests served by fossil fuels do not have high priority for the Audubon Society. No doubt, the society regards additional petroleum use as a social problem rather than a social benefit. Of course, most people have different priorities: they place a much higher value on keeping down the cost of energy than they do on bird-watching and on protecting what many regard as little more than mosquito-breeding swamps. One might suppose that members of the Audubon Society have no reason to consider such “antienvironmental”values when deciding how to use their own land. Because the society owns the Rainey Sanctuary, it can ignore interests antithetical to its own and refuse to allow drilling. Yet, precisely because the society owns the land, it has been willing to accommodate the interests of those whose priorities are different and has allowed thirty seven wells to pump gas and oil from the Rainey Sanctuary. In return, it has received
royalties of more than $25 million (Baden and Stroup 1981; Snyder and Shaw 1995)." (Source: Dwight R. Lee, The Independent Review, v. VI, Fall 2001, pages 218-219)
Background on How Oil and Gas Drilling Has Benefited Nature Conservancy
Professor Lee's article also explains how oil and gas drilling has boosted efforts of The Nature Conservancy to protect a threatened bird in Texas.
"Thanks to a gift from the Mobil Oil Company, the Nature Conservancy of Texas owns the Galveston Bay Prairie Preserve in Texas City, a 2,263-acre refuge that is home to the Attwater’s prairie chicken, a highly endangered species (once numbering almost a million, its population had fallen to fewer than ten by the early 1990s). The conservancy has entered into an agreement with Galveston Bay Resources of Houston
and Aspects Resources, LLC, of Denver to drill for oil and natural gas in the preserve. Clearly some risks attend oil drilling in the habitat of a fragile endangered species, and the conservancy has considered them, but it considers the gains sufficient to justify bearing the risks. According to Ray Johnson, East County program manager for the Nature Conservancy of Texas, “We believe this could provide a tremendous opportunity to raise funds to acquire additional habitat for the Attwater’s prairie chicken, one of the most threatened birds in North America.” Obviously the primary concern is to protect the endangered species, but the demand for gas and oil is helping achieve that objective. Johnson is quick to point out, “We have taken every precaution to minimize the impact of the drilling on the prairie chickens and to ensure their continued health and safety.” (see statement at http://texasnature.org/news/pressr10.htm). (Source: Dwight R. Lee, The Independent Review, v. VI, Fall 2001, pages 220-221)
According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, the conservancy lauded its "chicken preserve cum petroleum patch" as a "harmonious mixture of commerce and conservation."
"Maybe it's time we all took a walk in the oilman's shoes," Niki McDaniel, spokesman for the Texas Nature Conservancy said in the Times story. "We believe the opportunity we have in Texas City to raise significant sums of money for conservation is one we cannot pass up, provided we are convinced we can do this drilling without harming the prairie chickens and their habitat. And we are convinced."
Yes, commerce can coexist with conservation. Florida's leading solar energy group smartly sees the opportunity in the Sunshine State in the same light.
As Florida weighs drilling in its waters to generate jobs and badly needed money, the time has come for others to recognize our state's oil reserves as a valuable natural resource that can be used to promote renewable energy while funding other state priorities.
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