Readers of this blog remember well the four-state barnstorming PR tour that Interior secretary Ken Salazar embarked upon earlier this year – at the time, justified as a means of ensuring “we have an open and transparent government” when it comes to implementing a new five-year energy plan.
Make no mistake, Mr. Salazar said: “These are not decisions that are going to be made behind closed doors.” So off he went: first to New Jersey, then to New Orleans, up to Alaska, and rounding out the circus in a city that loves it some Alaskan oil (even if it’s loath to admit it): San Francisco. At each stop, he heard from folks who support offshore energy exploration, folks who oppose it, and occasionally from some colorful birds as well – like the guy in Louisiana who called on the secretary to convene a national summit on (human) population control.
Malthusians aside, the events were supposed to lay the groundwork for a successful public comment period – one in which stakeholders of all shapes, sizes and interests would send in their comments to the secretary, and then wait for the secretary to tally them all up and announce just how the American people felt about expanded energy development here at home.
That’s how it was supposed to work. Unfortunately, more than a month after the comment period expired, we still don’t have so much as a shred of official information on how this thing actually went.
But as the Houston Chronicle reports today, that may be about to change – thanks to none other than former House speaker Newt Gingrich?! From the piece:
A conservative group today prodded the Obama administration to reveal the breakdown of roughly half a million public comments lodged on a Bush-era plan to open up broad offshore areas for oil and gas drilling.
The group, American Solutions, headed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, made the push in a Freedom of Information Act request to the federal government.
The sad thing, of course, is that the American people have to sue their own government to get the results of a PUBLIC COMMENT period. The happy thing? Turns out people over at Interior already have a pretty good sense how this thing turned out – and not many of them, apparently, know how to keep a secret.
According to one group, Consumer Energy Alliance, more than 325,000 pro-energy comments were delivered to Interior over the past five months. But how many letters in TOTAL were sent? Salazar had the good sense not to keep that data point a secret:
The federal government has received more than 450,000 comments from the public regarding the development of a comprehensive offshore energy strategy for the Outer Continental Shelf, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today.
325,000 positive comments out of a total of 450,000? That’s better than 2:1; heck, it’s actually closer to 3:1. Not to play conspiracy theorist here, but anyone think these totals might have anything to do with the radio silence emanating from the Interior office in Washington?
In any case, this FOIA request is just what the doctor asked for here – not only asking the secretary to tell us how the number shook out, but also requesting that he make public all the emails and memos that have been bouncing back and forth between Interior and MMS. Once we get our hands on those, maybe we’ll finally be able to tell, once and for all, whether this secretary is serious about promoting American energy security.
Until then, though, here we wait – thankful, I suppose, that “we have an open and transparent government” of which we can be eminently proud.
