You may have never seen the dunes sagebrush lizard, but this reptile may strike you in a place that hurts: your wallet.
The government’s recent decision to halt oil drilling in a swath of west Texas in order to protect the habitat of an endangered lizard means the price of gas is about to jump.
As the national average for the price of regular grade gasoline has dropped $0.25 to $3.71 over the last month, we have had some relief at the pump; but recent actions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services will drastically increase the price of oil and gasoline. Specifically, federal government regulations would stop drilling at 1,000 oil wells in west Texas and around 7 million barrels of oil from being produced annually to “save” this lizard.
The evidence by the government agency that this reptile might become extinct is faulty, as there are approximately 140,000 acres in west Texas that could be a possible habitat for the lizard and only 27 sites surveyed. This is clearly a very small sample size to draw a conclusion from.
Considering that the Energy Information Administration (EIA) notes that west Texas produces 20% of the nation’s oil supply, it is clear that a reduction in supply would make fuel prices increase.
This may be what President Barack Obama wants, as he has stated numerous times that “energy prices should necessarily skyrocket.” While his agenda may be to push “green” energy sources to the forefront of the energy debate, these actions by the federal government would hurt the Texas economy, along with everyone who drives.
It may not be politically correct to appear to not care about a lizard, but it seems even worse for the government to pick winners and losers. The loser here is the American people.
So, the next time you see a spike in gasoline prices, you may thank the small lizard in west Texas that looks similar to the Geico gecko.
Photo Credit: andrewmalone
The Discussion
This sounds like Republican propaganda.
Environmental righs and endangered specieis must be protected.
The oil industry is one of the most subsidized industries in the nation. If the government subsidizes greener technology/energy, the American people and the lizards could be "winners".
This article is off-base in many respects. First of all, the idea that the lizard protection is going to stop drilling at all is an oil-and-gas industry conspiracy theory. Nowhere does the FWS report mention halting all drilling; instead, it speaks of working with oil companies to minimize the impact of drilling on the lizards - a very different matter. For instance, the report says "Manage well density to limit development in habitat"; you can't conflate that with stopping all exploration and drilling. In fact, many oil companies have pledged to work with FWS on conservation measures while still keeping their wells open. Second, the land commissioner whose report you quote gives a biased and factually inaccurate account of the FWS science; he deliberately misrepresents their paper. Also, I agree w/ Pasternak - there's no way losing 7 million barrels will have any impact on pump price.
To be frank, 7 million barrels annually is an incredibly minuscule amount. Americans use more than that every single day. The effect on prices from this would be so small as to be non-existant. It would be like saying corn prices are going to go up 1%, therefore everybody should expect big raises at the grocery store. Other things are what are causing the rises at the pumps, mainly increasing world demand, a slower decrease in the amount of oil discovered and pumped out. Many other countries deal with gas prices far higher than ours. Should we save this lizard? I don't know (and honestly don't care that much), but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that saving this lizard is really going to hurt our wallets. We have to find ways to adapt to high gas prices, plain and simple.
In all honesty, the lizard was probably here first. Besides, instead of looking at this as a bad thing, we should see it as an opportunity to expand research on greener technology. I understand that this will hurt us in the short-term (oil-producing states especially) and we already have a rather messed up economy. But, unless we start the shift towards alternative energy sources, we will have even bigger issues in the long-term. We should see this lizard fiasco as a positive push in the right direction.
But why should the little guy suffer for our oil addict problems? The fact that he doesn't look like the Geico gecko probably helps your argument, though. Everyone loves those commercials.
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Not to deter from the importance of the article, but the lizard is actually not green at all...
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Good find. Apparently this lizard needs a shrub called Shinnery Oak as its habitat, and this plant is destroyed by drilling. What I want to know is: to what extent? Wells take up a really small area and even the attendant development doesn't seem to have to be that much. I'm curious how drilling could make so much of a difference one way or another.