While Williams' diatribe about environmentalists' hold on Congress may sound convincing, he misses some key issues that warrant explanation. 

Generally speaking, use of the term "environmentalist" has gotten out of control. At a basic level an environmentalist is someone who is concerned about human impacts on ecosystems (god forbid). That definition puts me and Green Peace in the same boat, although we clearly have very different values, concerns and methodologies. Williams and others like him fail to recognize this distinction and demonstrate quite clearly that they do not care to understand the issues or the people behind them. 

Williams also claims that "environmentalists" have limited oil exploration and refinement. This is probably true, and I'm thankful for it. This argument fails to account for the fact that the oil companies have yet to demonstrate that oil exploration, transportation, or refinement can be done in an environmentally responsible manner. In fact, the record speaks quite clearly for the opposite. Consider the following bits of oil trivia:

3) Exxon/Mobil STILL has yet to complete remediation of Prince William Sound. This may not concern you because your economic prosperity does not depend upon the health of fisheries in the Sound, but communities in the region don't have that luxury. Consider that the next time you go to buy salmon at the grocery store;

4) the oil companies lobby Congress every year to weaken clean air regulations that apply to refineries. Do you honestly believe that Earth Justice has more political clout than Exxon/Mobil??? Paleeaase; 

5) every major scientific investigation of the state of the world's oceans (including US government sponsored research) concludes that the majority of the known ocean systems are showing signs of ecological collapse. Seems like a good time to give the oil industries carte blanche with off-shore drilling, eh? Williams may call this an "environmentalist" conspiracy, but I call it common sense.

Williams further claims that "environmentalists" have limited development of nuclear power generating facilities. This is partially accurate, but citizen fears related to past nuclear reactor incidents are also responsible, justified or not. Furthermore, while the emissions from nuclear power are clean there is nothing clean about the storage of spent fuels or mining of uranium. Just ask the many communities suffering from the long-term ecological damage associated with uranium mining. Past generations may have been willing to trade short-term gains for long-term ecological degradation, but my generation has pretty much had enough.

Williams is quick to blame environmentalists for sky-high energy prices while completely failing to address a few realities. First, one of the main issues behind high energy costs is CONSUMER DEMAND. Much of the cheap, easily accessible oil is gone. What remains is more expensive and lower quality oil. Oil is a non-renewable fuel, which means that the conditions we are now seeing were bound to happen at some point no matter what environmentalists did. In fact, the worst is probably yet to come. You cannot have infinitely increasing demand for a finite resource and expect prices to remain low. It's simple.  Some would argue that emerging technologies will change this, but technology can only push the peaking of fossil fuels further back--it cannot make fossil fuels infinite. 

Williams also ignores the fact that we had a great opportunity to address fuel and energy issues AT LEAST once in the recent past (oil crisis in the late 70's) and have repeatedly chosen to do nothing instead. This is a complete failure on the part of both political parties and has nothing to do with "environmentalists" (but, ironically, much to do with lobbying by the automobile and oil industries). 

I agree with Williams about the problems associated with the rush to biofuels, but while Williams would like to attribute this to "environmentalists" (whoever "they" are!) I attribute this to a society that refuses to acknowledge its' own gluttony, political leadership that is completely inept (on both sides), and an economic system which has ignored externalities for too long. 

Consider this recent development. About a month ago I happened to catch a little blurb about commercial-scale solar facilities on public lands tucked away in the back pages of our newspaper.  The gist of the article was that the BLM (Bureau of Land Management-the single largest federal land management agency in terms of acreage) was freezing additional permits for installation of large-scale solar electric facilities on public lands.  The reason?  Concerns about the environmental impacts of these installations.  Here’s the punch line—this is the very agency that has been petitioning to streamline the permitting process for oil and gas exploration on public lands primarily by reducing the burden of environmental impact assessment!  Seem a little contradictory?  Clearly a massive plot by “environmentalists” to control Congress.

One fact is incontrovertible: in the 200+ years of our nation we have yet to generally improve environmental conditions (compared to pre-European colonization). We HAVE succeeded in degrading nearly every ecological resource upon which our survival, in the long run, ultimately depends.  Some people, heaven forbid, are bothered by this. 

Matt Shinderman, PhD