Editorial: Energy-corridor scheme begs for more scrutiny

| The New Mexican

11/16/2007 -

There might not be much Congress can accomplish with Democrats holding such slim majorities in both houses — but surely its leaders can rally the votes needed to stall executive-branch excess until the Bush administration is gone.

The latest assault from the energy lobbyists in charge of the Cabinet comes in the form of "energy corridors" — 6,000 miles of pre-approved rights of way, more than half a mile wide, for pipelines, power lines and whatever else it will take to carry electricity, along with non-renewable resources, to market.

Impetus for this plan came from a Congress still in Republican hands. Luckily, its implementation already is a year behind schedule. One reason for the corridor-plan delay is that, in its first-draft form, it was even more horrendous. Most of the corridors in the latest plan are along existing roads — but there are plenty of shortcuts where cars can't go — over scenic hills and down dales serving as wildlife habitat. And who can trust this administration not to change course for corporate convenience?

The plan is still bad — and the longer it takes to be jammed down Westerners' throats, the better the odds that the next administration and the next Congress can reduce it to bite size.

It's 20th-Century thinking, linked to fossil fuels at a time when renewable energy and other alternative sources at last are getting the serious attention they should.

Among the lands in the path of the corridors are six national wildlife refuges, three national parks, seven national monuments and more than 60 current and proposed wilderness areas. In New Mexico, the impacted areas include the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge and the Organ Mountain foothills. Over in Utah's part of the Four Corners, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, created over the strident opposition of Big Energy, would be sliced by a corridor.

National environmental organizations, naturally, have raised their voices against the plan. "The Energy Department needs to seriously evaluate alternatives to minimize the number of corridors and maximize use of renewable energy, and it should include requirements to presumptively limit all projects to designated corridors," says the Wilderness Society.

Oh, shut up, say the Bushies; this is in the national interest.

Well, it's certainly in someone's interest. And as long as petro-plutocrats George W. Bush and Dick Cheney occupy the two highest offices in the land, the land isn't safe from the oil, gas and coal industries.

The plan is still in the public-comment period — and at some point it'll need money from Congress. That's where Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Tom Udall, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, should demand a plan better suited to the energy policies of today and tomorrow.